Science Fiction Theatre (TV Series) The Strange People at Pecos (1955) User Reviews

A clever tale about "aliens" in our midst

[BrianDanaCamp · 9/10 · 6 February 2014]

"The Strange People at Pecos," a color episode from "Science Fiction Theatre," offers a subtle critique of the paranoia that was fueling anti-communism and alien invasion movies of the time. It's about how "normal" Americans are primed to react when they encounter someone or something they consider "different." If this had been a "Twilight Zone" episode made five years later, Rod Serling would have hammered the message home a little too hard and pumped up the sci-fi trappings a lot more. Here, the nuanced portrayal of the "strange" neighbors and the studied ambiguity of the ending make the whole piece much more effective, if you ask me. It all comes down to a carefully modulated confrontation between someone who rushes to judgment and someone who understands all too well the forces of misapprehension. The acting is superb on all counts, with Arthur Franz as the worker at the rocket base and Doris Dowling as his dependable wife, Dabbs Greer as the "odd" neighbor, Mr. Kern, and Beverly Washburn as his almost ethereal young daughter. There is an otherworldly quality about Greer's and Washburn's portrayals that lends some weight, at least initially, to Franz's perceptions. And look for Paul Birch, a regular in the more sensational sci-fi drive-in movies of the time (THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES, NOT OF THIS EARTH), as the wise sheriff.

Regarding the previous reviewer, who specifically requested feedback, I would argue that he might have overreacted a bit. The show does not appear to be taking the side of the "ugly and abusive" rocket base worker or his "Nazi-in-training" children. It's simply showing how an average family of the time might have reacted in such circumstances to outward behavior that strikes them as peculiar, especially given the tenor of the times, in which conformity was prized and individuality was tagged as "rebellious" and "antisocial." Fear of both communist and alien infiltration was a constant undercurrent in popular culture of the 1950s. The "other" could turn up next door and must be rooted out when and wherever possible. This episode, on the other hand, advocates a more temperate response. I found this program on YouTube and I urge interested readers to seek it out for themselves.

From a historical standpoint, this episode first aired at a pivotal moment when things were starting to change in the larger culture. Rock 'n' roll was taking hold and Elvis was just around the corner; James Dean's posthumous cult was growing (he'd died only two weeks before this episode's premiere) and his signature film, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, was two weeks away from opening; and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which got the burgeoning Civil Rights movement up and running, was less than two months away.

Effective Episode showing Cold War Era

[jcaynon-91303 · 9/10 · 11 March 2015]

*Potential Spoiler Alert*

I agree with Brian's take on the episode. Here, you have the 50's where everyone was expected to conform and not stand out because of the fear of "the other" (communists, aliens, African-Americans, etc.) and a family of non-conformists with a daughter who certainly didn't fit in with the other children. Of course, innocent things like children who have wild imaginations or a father who encouraged his daughter's flights of fancy can take on a sinister light when their neighbors, who are so concerned about making certain everyone 'fits in', focus on their differences.

I like the ambiguity of the piece and the declaration about the little girl's condition by the host at the end of the show as being rare but entirely true. I also like how subtle it was about getting its message of tolerance and communication across. I agree with Brian that Serling would have hammered you across the head with the message in a heavy-handed way if he'd written the story; but the subtle writing made the story and its message far more effective.

If I have one nit with the story, its with how the parents of the two boys were not as strict with dealing with their boys' poor behavior as parents in the 50s should have. Part of 'fitting in' was having children who 'were seen, not heard' and who played well with others or followed social norms. Seeing the kids badger the young girl (when bullying a girl by a boy was a no-no back then) and having one of the boys being a peeping tom would have had the parents embarrassed and spanking the kid for putting the family in such a socially uncomfortable situation.

Other than that, the episode was well done!

Harassing Little Rednecks and Their Father

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 15 July 2013]

This episode is as much about fear and bigotry as it is about the little science fiction tale that ensues. It's about a man who works at a facility where rockets are tracked with radar. He is in a lousy mood all the time because he has seen some shadows on the radar screen and can't explain what they are. He snaps at his wife and his two boys, a couple of little Nazis in training. As he storms off to work, a little girl, new to the neighborhood, comes to play with the boys. They, of course, are cruel and unkind to her. She also suffers from a nervous condition where she can't feel pain (a condition that really exists). She is hit by a truck and draws suspicion when she eventually gets up an returns home. To make matters worse, one of the boys spends a large part of his time, looking into the windows of the family. The do talk about space ships and such, but it appears to be into a dictation device of some kind. The boys write "Martians go home" in chalk on the sidewalk in front of the house. This jerk now goes to the sheriff to complain about these people. It goes on from there. I would like to know if we were to ever identify with this guy. He's ugly and abusive. Watch it and express your opinion here.

Ambiguous as the Cold War itself

[eiga-5 · 29 May 2015]

Jeff Jamison (Franz) is a radar operator working at a secret rocket testing facility in New Mexico. He is frustrated with his job: for one thing, he can't talk about it with his family and for another, he laments that his duties aren't as glamorous as the work of others. More recently, he has become concerned over troubling "shadows" trailing a missile they have been testing--Jeff is convinced it is the work of flying saucers. His two sons are similarly UFO-obsessed and the situation is exacerbated when Amy Kern (Ames), a little girl who we later learn is unable to feel physical pain, moves into the neighborhood.

Brian's take on this episode, that it offers a critique of communist (& alien) invasion paranoia, is particularly useful. We can see this in the actions of Jamison's boys who spy on the Kerns through an open window seeing father, Arthur (Greer), tape recording "reports" on earthlings while wife Laurie (Washburn) talks about the importance of their "mission here." Everything comes to a head when Jeff is made to take time off from his job due to "stress" and he brings his accusations about Kern to the local Sheriff (Birch). Coincidentally, Kerns comes in to complain about Jamison's boys spying and their bullying of Amy which led to her running away. Because her condition could lead to her being seriously hurt or even killed they conduct a search and Amy is found and brought home. Meanwhile, Jeff learns that the phantoms following the rocket were in fact vapors.

Jeff goes to apologize to the Kerns but it is a an odd apology. On the one hand he admits that he and his boys were wrong, but he also suggests that Kern was also to blame for causing some of the suspicion. There is more than a hint of "but what if we were right to suspect you?" in his remarks and it all ends rather inconclusively. It may be a critique as Brian suggests. But there is a clear question mark framed around the supposed humanist tone set by the search for Amy. *This*, to me is exactly what the Cold War was all about. Like the phantom vapor trails, UFOs, and Communist spies, right when you think you see it, they disappear.

Finally, it was a pleasure to see that this was the first Eddie Davis-directed episode of the series! Davis directed most of the first episodes of the Ziv series in this era but somehow SFT was one that he came late to. He is extremely economic in his storytelling.

Yet another 'strange neighbours' yarn from a paranoid decade

[jamesrupert2014 · 5/10 · 21 December 2021]

A radar operator (Arthur Franz) working at a rocket-testing base in New Mexico begins to suspect that his neighbours are infiltrators, and perhaps not from Earth, after he becomes convinced that something is following the experimental rockets. Yet another spin on the 'strange neighbours' trope, notably the young daughter (Beverly Washburn) who refers to herself as being from the 'third planet', talks about playing a ball by telekinesis, and seems impervious to pain. The rest of the story follows the usual 'are they or aren't they' trajectory, setting up twist ending. Truman Bradley opens this episode with a demonstration of 'teleportation' (which he acknowledges is done through trick photography) although 'teleportation' plays no role in the plot other than the neighbour's daughter thinking that it is common place. By 1955, there were numerous sci-fi films involving aliens passing themselves of as humans for both benevolent and malevolent reasons and not much new is offered in this teleplay other than a bit more ambiguity than usual.