Expert: Barbara L. Baker - 4/21/2006

Question
2 1950s (I think) films:

1 where man (alien in disguise) takes a "flying octopus" creature out of a tube - the creature flies through a nearby window, engulfs a man's head and crushes it.  Brain from Planet Arous?

1 where creature that looks like a dinosaur (or did when I was 7) attacks a landing party.  Later, crew member says "that was a rodent".  Angry Red Planet?

Thanks so much.

Answer
Dave, I'm not sure about these two films.  I've been searching all day to see what I can locate.  For the first film, I'm pretty sure it is NOT the 1958 film "The Brain from Planet Arous" since that involves two floating brains. None of the information I found on this film suggested the aliens used flying octopus creatures.

This first descriptions sounds somewhat like "It Conquered the World" (1956), remade in the 1960s as "Zontar, the Thing From Venus."  This involves an alien who tries to take over people by launching lobster-bat-like creatures at them (turns them zombie-like). I've actually seen "Zontar" (a long time ago) but I can't recall if any of the creatures crushed a head.  It also has echoes of "invaders from Mars" (1953), except the invaders are directed by an octopus-like creature in a jar (there is no indication it flies out an crushes a man's head, but maybe it did happen).  There are other invasion-by-aliens films of the 1950s that might fit, such as "It Came From Outer Space" (1953), "Invasion USA" (1952), "Killers From Space" (1954--not to be confused with "Killer Klowns From Space"!). With such limited information it is hard to tell.

As regards the second film, this might be in the "Angry Red Planet" (1960), except the monster in that film is described more as a rat-spider-crab creature than a dinosaur like monster.  There are other possible films from the time period--"King Dinosaur" (1955); "20 million Miles to Earth (1957) with its reptile like alien; and "Journey to the 7th Planet" (1962) with what was described as a "ratlike" monster.  

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of B-movies (even grade Z movies) from this time period that could fit the bill for either description. So, if none of these fit what you're looking for, I'm sorry.  I might could do better if you could provide any additional information at all on these films (other characters, more on the plot, more dialogue, etc.).