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A brain from outer space lands on the earth and takes control(?) of children living on a nearby military base.
This Jack Arnold SF movie has always felt pretty dull to me; I never really get attached to or interested in any of the characters (and Peggy Webber's perpetually worried mother is a major annoyance), and the message is fairly obvious. However, there are a few familiar faces here; Jackie Coogan, Russell Johnson, Johnny Crawford, and the little girl from THEM! are all on hand. As a whole, the movie is like a cross between THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS, and VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED .
Recently, a bit of an issue came up about whether the children are acting under the control of the space brain (and though there is some question on this matter, I do consider the space creature a brain) or whether they are acting under their own free will. It's actually hard to say; the movie really doesn't allow us to intimately share the feelings and thoughts of the children during the sequences in question. I suspect the writers themselves never really thought much about the question; what concerned them is that the brain should seem scary and evil until the end of the movie, when it should be viewed as wise and benevolent. In other words, I think it's a flaw in the movie itself. It's not the first movie I've seen with this flaw, nor the worst (THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER, anyone?); it just tries to have it both ways.
