Film Nitrate

At the start of the 1950s, there were very few science-fiction films which dealt with the perceived threat to Earth from other planets and alien species. There were a few right at the birth of cinema, such as Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (1902) and R.W. Paul's The '?' Motorist , and over the next few decades a few isolated films such as Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon (1929) appeared, but the subject wasn't particularly popular with the public until cinema was into its sixth decade. Part of the reason was that special effects weren't up to much, and usually if the effects simply weren't a distraction it was considered a success, even at the time it was too easy to accidentally create laughter rather than fear due to the limitations of effects. Also, with two devastating  world wars in the meantime, people had enough to be worrying about with Nazis and fascism, without adding aliens to the list. But in the 50s there was a huge boom in these sci...