Michael Morrison In some ways, this scary preparedness film is rather hokey and out of date -- but not in the acting nor the special effects.Interestingly, despite some misinformed reviews and even the overview at IMDb, no enemy country is ever named. At some points, the enemy sound like Nazis, at others Eastern European.Yes, they are Marxists, and that is bluntly explained a few times, but, for whatever reason, perhaps of diplomacy, no nation is named.In fact, in 1952 Marxists were the indeed the enemy most to be feared, foreign and domestic.And that is still true today, even if they are subtler in their goals and targets than the ones portrayed in this film. And even if they prefer to label themselves "democratic socialists."One important lesson in this film, not at all intended, is that all governments and all violent movements, whether Marxist, Nazi, or religious extremist, pose serious dangers to people, to individual human beings.This movie opens with a reporter asking people whether they would support a "universal draft," not just for the military, but for "essential" jobs, such as military or defense plants.Such a concept springs from a collectivist notion: We as individuals count only as cogs in the giant machine of the state.One man expresses anger that the government wants to take over his plant to make tanks: He has spent years building his business, he notes, and he has others depending on him and his output. He objects to being taken over by the government. Tractors are important to society, also.At the close, a quote from George Washington about preparedness being the best prevention of war re-emphasizes the movie's point; but the movie misses another point, the one I mentioned earlier: People are their own purposes, and as we submerge ourselves into the group, into "society," into the collective, we set ourselves up just for such scenarios as this.Big government almost inevitably leads to war.Movements that use, that advocate violence to accomplish their goals, whether economic or religious, promulgate and maintain their own wars.Big government and violent mass movements each causes and results from the lessening, the very destruction of individualism. It behooves each of us, all of us, to work and vote and educate for freedom, for strengthening individuals and the concept of the individual, and work, vote, and educate for human rights.But, and this is very important, those efforts are vital, not just in these United States, but in every nation-state and in every city. And especially in every human heart.

Richard Chatten Anyone seeking a graphic insight into the intensity of the anti-Red hysteria gripping America during the early 50's needs to see this extraordinary early Albert Zugsmith quickie depicting an enemy invasion of the United States by a communist foreign power identified only as The Enemy. (Sadly in 1952 America didn't have The Wolverines to see them off as they did in 'Red Dawn' in 1984.)While America has been irresponsibly beating its swords into ploughshares, The Enemy has been arming itself to the teeth and now descends from the skies upon a wholly unprepared United States. The time scale during which this is taking place is never made clear, but the film's main characters are able to watch most of it from a safe distance on a TV set from the comfort of a New York bar, the Big Apple being saved for last. No attempt as been made to make the U.S. President (played by Joseph Granby) resemble Truman; and for some strange reason he's shot only in profile during his television addresses to the nation.Looking more like Nazis than Commies, in addition to the unlimited military hardware they have at their disposal, their High Command have also brought along their own lighting team to provide suitably sinister lighting for their strategic briefings; which are joined by a bolshy tractor factory worker now showing himself in his true Commie colours. We're told that The Enemy have been using A-Bombs, and the United States has been responding in kind, without getting any suggestion of the colossal scale of the destruction across the world the use of these weapons would have brought about.Dan O'Herlihy - who later gave a superb performance as a pacifist general in Sidney Lumet's 'Fail-Safe' (1964) - looks unbelievably youthful and debonair as the sardonic 'forecaster', while Peggy Castle would be a highly desirable companion to have around when the Four-Minute Warning sounds; although the scriptwriters have perversely managed to bring zero urgency or interest to the perfunctory romantic dalliance she actually enjoys with Gerald Mohr.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** This neurotic war crazy movie starts peacefully enough with a number of people from all walks of life hanging out at a local watering hole to freshen up with a few drinks and shoot the breeze about local politics in the city. There's news reporter Vince Potter, Gerald Mohr, who drops in doing his latest thing asking those at the bar such meaningless questions about what they think of the draft as well as if the zoot suite or ladies bloomers will ever come back in fashion. There's also this mysterious Mr. Ohman, Dan O'Herlihy, who seems to be fascinated in watching the wine in his glass spinning around as he shakes it. It's then that the preferable you know what hits the fan with a news bulletin that we, the US, are under attack by an unknown enemy that's launching a massive air and sea assault from across the Bering Strait's at the US territory, it wasn't a state yet, of Alaska!This sneak attack by what is obviously the USSR, that's never once mentioned in the film, quickly turns into a full fledged invasion of the United States with the enemy also using nuclear weapons, or weapons of mass destruction, in the process. As those in the bar watch and listen in horror to the TV news it finally sinks in that because of the cut backs of military spending by the US Congress the US Military is now in deep sh*t in not being able to prevent this invasion and occupation of the US from happening! Among the tactics and tricks that their enemy uses to gain the upper hand is having it's military, by taking night course in collage, speak English and even worse, a clear violation of the 1929 Geneva Accords on the conducting of war-fear, wearing US Army & Marine military uniforms.We soon see as they, the nameless enemy, advance deep into the US heartland what an uncouth and unfeeling, especially towards the weaker sex, these enemy troops really are. Drunk and disorderly they don't for a moment represent the clean cut milk drinking and boy scout US GI's and Marines that they are impersonating. In what seems like a nut cracking strategy, coming together from west to east, the enemy forces storm the capital, Washington D.C, massacring the entire US Congress, the President and his cabinet escaped by air, and now move on to the "Big Apple" New York City in its final push to make the US a Peoples Republic like nation or dictatorship. It's just then when everything seems lost we the audience and those in the movie get the surprise of theirs and ours lives!***SPOILERS*** Very probably the best example of Cold War hysterics to come out of Hollywood in the 1950's. With the exception of not identifying, very much due to both diplomatic as well as political pressures, who's doing the invading it tells on film what we back then feared most and on top of all that in a worse case scenario ending that must have caused a number of heart attacks and fainting spells to those watching in the audience. It was the final few minutes that was the right medication that those watching the movie needed to clam them down and bring the back to reality. That's if they lasted long enough by still being conscious and alert to watch it!

MARIO GAUCI To begin with, I had expected to be more engaged by this one – which I also was under the wrong impression would be a talk-fest: instead, about sixty per cent of its trim 74-minute duration is compiled of wartime stock footage (representing the potential decimation of the U.S. by invading Communist forces) – scenes of the London blitz from the celebrated Humphrey Jennings documentary FIRES WERE STARTED (1943) are supposed to stand in for the burning of New York! I wonder how Americans look at the film nowadays vis-a'-vis the events of 9/11 – which is perhaps the only reason why it ever saw the light of day on DVD in the first place!As it stands, INVASION USA is both hysterical and unintentionally hilarious – never more so than when a car is caught in the flooding of Hoover Dam (hit by a nuclear bomb!) and a cowboy hat is seen floating on a branch as the sole remnant of its Texan owner!; Also worth mentioning are the fact that when the U.S. Senate is besieged, it's seen to be peopled merely by doddering statesmen, while the intermittent 'appearances' by the American President addressing the nation are taken from a vague solitary angle! Equally queasy is the fact that handsome leads Gerard Mohr (a cynical TV reporter) and Peggie Castle are drawn together at such a precarious time, while the middle-aged bartender keeps mixing drinks as if his life depended on it – apparently oblivious to the ongoing calamities! Needless to say, the unnamed Soviets are depicted throughout as unemotional slogan-spouting caricatures.The best thing about the film is the brief but typically riveting performance by Dan O'Herlihy (incidentally, years later he'd appear in a genuine Cold War classic i.e FAIL SAFE [1964]) – not least in view of the twist ending brought about by his particular line of work. In the DVD supplements, much is made of the fact that the film features the two actresses who played "Superman"'s Lois Lane on TV – Noel Neill and Phyllis Coates – but their contribution is, at best, negligible!; also on hand as a newscaster is character actor William Schallert, who's said to have made more Atomic-related titles than anyone else (the top 100 such efforts compiled by "Conelrad" are listed, with a brief synopsis for each one, on the Synapse DVD itself); in an interview included on the disc, Schallert speaks of his brush with Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) where he was proposed for the role later played by Maltese actor Joseph Calleia – whom Schallert mistakenly thinks was an Italian! Oh, well, it's near enough I suppose…As can be gathered, therefore, the extras are quite nice, being pretty comprehensive about the whole Cold War aura which pervaded the first two decades or so of the post-war era (though I've only very briefly sampled the two radio programs which play back-to-back as an Audio Commentary to the film). One of the most telling comments in the extras comes from O'Herlihy himself – when he went to Russia in the late 1960s to film WATERLOO (1970), he was met by such an inefficient people that he couldn't fathom how their threat was ever taken seriously!; Noel Neill, then, overhypes the film's impact – I mean saying it blows PEARL HARBOR (2001) out of the water is not much of a feat, is it? In the end, I have to admit that when the Communist ideology (or critique thereof) was presented as a sci-fi allegory, the results were generally that much more fun