Aip/Kobal/Shutterstock“In science-fiction films, the monster should always be bigger than the leading lady.” One of B-movie auteur Roger Corman’s most famous quotes stems from only his second picture in the genre, It Conquered the World. And when, just moments from the end, you finally clap eyes on its unintentionally comical Venusian villain, a waddling, oversized root vegetable which looks incapable of conquering a flight of stairs, let alone the entirety of human civilization, his admission makes total sense.Designed by special effects maestro Paul Blaisdell, whose skull was nearly pierced while controlling its hotchpotch of wood, rubber and latex from inside, the big baddie known as Beulah even left its cast thoroughly bemused. "Roger! I could bop that monster over the head with my handbag!" remarked leading lady Beverly Garland on first sight. It didn’t help matters that Corman, relying a little too heavily on his engineering background, insisted that its high-gravity home planet would have rendered it unfrighteningly short and squat.Celebrating its 70th anniversary this month, It Conquered the World could, therefore, easily have been consigned to Ed Wood-esque infamy. However, the 60 minutes preceding the big reveal proved that Corman, just a year after his entrypoint Day the World Ended, was otherwise getting to grips with the sci-fi world he’d continually and economically explore.Indeed, despite a difficult inception — first-choice screenwriter Lou Rusoff reportedly had to leave the original script unfinished following the demise of his brother, while replacement Charles B. Griffith (who briefly pops up as a scientist) was so embarrassed by the finished product he asked to go uncredited — the film largely works as a low-budget parable of postwar paranoia.That’s largely down to a magnetic performance from Lee Van Cleef (who’d later assume the ‘Bad’ in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) as the scientist responsible for causing all the havoc. His Dr. Tom Anderson is arguably more monstrous than the laughable creature he summons from Venus. And yet rather than simply twirl his thin mustache, he delivers a grounded, layered performance which makes his eventual, all-too-late realization at the horror he’s caused all the more impactful.The self-appointed God’s trail of destruction begins when, following a period of secret communication, he invites Beulah to Earth on the promise it will guarantee peace among all men. The small matter of how exactly is glossed over. But on its arrival, the visitor — who wisely spends most of the film hiding out in a cave — discloses all: unleash a flurry of bat-like creatures to inject every human with a substance that instantly erodes all free will. Surprisingly, Anderson initially doesn’t see this as a problem.The film’s true badass. | Aip/Kobal/ShutterstockUnsurprisingly, everyone else does, most notably his despairing wife Claire (Garland) and the longtime friend colleague, Peter Graves’ Dr. Paul Nelson, who’s forced to blow his own spouse’s brains out when she, too, succumbs to all the brainwashing. The latter may well be the most sobering moment in Corman’s early oeuvre.By this point, the electricity supply has also been shut off, forcing Nelson — rather amusingly — to navigate the increasingly treacherous city on his bicycle, while the police are gunning down anyone who fails to comply with their orders. Even then, however, Anderson can’t see the error of his ways. “Victims? I call them the released,” he tells Claire as the pair find themselves two of the few humans left with any agency.Putting her dastardly husband to shame, the latter certainly uses hers, frogmarching toward the cave with a handgun in tow and a ready-made zinger like a feminist proto-Arnie. “You think you're gonna make a slave of the world ... I'll see you in Hell first!” Sadly, her gung-ho spirit results in her brutal demise.The monster attacks. | Aip/Kobal/ShutterstockIt’s only here when Anderson finally acknowledges that a megalomaniacal artichoke might not be the savior of mankind he once presumed. “I made it possible for you to come here,” he moans. “I made you welcome to this Earth... You made it a charnel house.” Wracked with guilt, he turns on his guest with a blowtorch to the face, only for Beluah to deal a fatal blow in return, with its dying breath.Presiding over the completely self-inflicted carnage, Nelson concludes things with a thought-provoking speech, one of several which makes It Conquered the World a cut above the typical postwar alien invasion movie. “He learned almost too late that Man is a feeling creature... and because of it, the greatest in the universe … Men have always sought an end to the toil and misery, but it can't be given, it has to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to come from inside, from Man himself.”Corman would go on to put his name to better (X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes), spookier (Frankenstein Unbound), and more visually capable (Battle Beyond the Stars) sci-fi films over the following 60 years. But while it didn’t quite conquer the world, this cult classic remains a touchstone moment in his prolific, pioneering career.It Conquered the World is not available to stream or rent on digital platforms.