Project Terror: IT! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

When I was a kid growing up in San Antonio, TX in the 1970s into the 1980s, one of my favorite things to do was to try to stay up late on Friday Nights and watch the local KENS 5 TV local broadcast of Project Terror which would show horror movies. One of the most intriguing sci-fi/horror movies I had ever seen was IT! The Terror from Beyond Space. Here, for your viewing pleasure is an intro by John Carpenter when he was on Turner Classic Movies, the Project Terror Intro and Outro, and the film, from 1958, IT! The Terror from Beyond Space.
It! The Terror from Beyond Space is an independently made 1958 American science fiction horror film, produced by Robert Kent, directed by Edward L. Cahn, that stars Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith (Shirley Patterson), and Kim Spalding. The film was distributed by United Artists as a double feature with Curse of the Faceless Man.
The story involves Earth's second mission to Mars to discover the fate of the Challenge 141 and its crew. Only a single survivor is found still alive from that crashed spaceship. The survivor, the expedition's former commander, claims that his crew was killed by a hostile Martian life form. No one from the rescue ship believes him until the creature, now a stowaway, begins hunting the crew on their return trip to Earth. The film's premise has been cited as an inspiration for screenwriter Dan O'Bannon's screenplay for Ridley Scott's classic 1979 film Alien.
It! The Terror from Beyond Space was financed by Edward Small and was originally known as It! The Vampire from Beyond Space. Principal photography took place over a two-week period during mid-January 1958. Small kept changing his mind over whether or not he wanted plastic eyes installed in the creature's mask, causing a lot of aggravation for the film's makeup artist, Paul Blaisdell.
It! was the last film of actor Ray "Crash" Corrigan. Corrigan was set to play the creature, but during pre-production, he did not want to travel over to Topanga Canyon in western Los Angeles County where Paul Blaisdell lived and operated his studio. Therefore, Blaisdell could not take exact measurements of Corrigan's head. Consequently, there were final fit problems with the creature's head prop: "[Corrigan's]...bulbous chin stuck out through the monster's mouth, so the make-up man painted his chin to look like a tongue". Blaisdell then added a bottom row of fangs that covered Corrigan's jutting chin.
Blaisdell said working for United Artists wasn't nearly as happy an experience as working at AIP was for him. As filming progressed, Ray Corrigan turned up drunk on the set a few times, refused to follow certain directions from Ed Cahn and even damaged the monster suit, causing Blaisdell to be called in to do a couple of quick "patch-up" jobs. Blaisdell said it wasn't a happy set, what with Corrigan drunk on and off, and the film's female star Shawn Smith constantly in a bad mood, furious that she had been cast in a low-budget monster film. Blaisdell said only Marshall Thompson seemed to be enjoying himself.[5] The creature costume became the property of UA, and wound up a year later showing up in their 1959 John Agar opus, Invisible Invaders (without paying Blaisdell for reusing his props). More information on the production can be found on the audio commentary for Kino Lorber's 2023 Blu-ray: Blaisdell's assistant Bob Burns is on the commentary track along with Tom Weaver, Larry Blamire and David Schecter.