Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)

Alien invasion as teen comedy.  Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) was perfect drive-in fare, combining teenagers, cars, incompetent adult authority figures including clueless cops, bumbling military types and, of course, flying saucers.  Made in the wake of successful big budget alien invasion films like The Thing (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and War of the Worlds (1953), movies like Invasion of the Saucer Men were the fifties equivalent to the sort of 'mockbusters' put out nowadays by the likes of The Asylum: cheap knock offs designed to ride on the popularity of similarly themed and/or titled bigger budgeted movies.  Except that they were somehow far more enjoyable.  Perhaps because they weren't made with that self conscious 'Hey look, we're so bad we're good' approach employed by today's direct to video 'mockbusters', instead focusing on giving their target audiences some simple cheap thrills and/or laughs.

They also tended to display a degree of originality - Saucer Men, for instance, wanders into the realms of the surreal with the titular aliens framing the lead teenager for a hit and run death so as to cover up their presence.  Their knowledge of earth traffic regulations is remarkable, as they use their ability to inject alcohol into the human bloodstream via their claws to make teenagers look like drunk drivers.  It's actually pretty good fun, with some great Paul Blaisdell designed aliens, surprisingly decent day for night photography and direction from B-movie veteran Edward L Cahn that keeps the film moving through its brisk sixty nine minute running time.  Probably the most recognisable cast member, (for modern audiences) is Frank Gorshin, later The Riddler on the sixties Batman TV series, although contemporary audiences would have more immediately recognised Lyn Osborn - Cadet Happy from Space Patrol.  Back in the 'dark ages', when, as a kid, I first became interested in these sorts of films, I was fascinated by a still of the aliens from this film, but back then it was never shown on TV, there was no VHS, let alone DVDs for it to be released on and the internet was still a distant dream in some nerd's imagination.  Nowadays, you can stream it just about anywhere.

(Invasion of the Saucer Men was one of a number of low budget AIP B-movies which were later remade in colour by Larry Buchanan on even lower budgets for AIP TV and released directly to TV).