The Science!? 03: Killers From Space (1954)

Doug Martin (Peter Graves) is a scientist working on the American H-Bomb project. One day while he observes the atomic cloud from a bomb test from out of a plane, his plane crashes and his pilot and he are presumed dead. Until Martin reappears a few days later without a memory of the incident and with a fresh and very unusual scar on his chest. His bosses are suspicious and order him to spend an extended leave at home. Nonetheless Martin is able to steal the exact time and date of the next bomb test. If only his colleagues knew that he is neither an evil Commie spy from hell nor just plain mad. In truth, he is the mind controlled slave of a group of alien invaders who have painted golf balls instead of eyes and plan to utilize the energy released in the next test to mutate and multiply their army of archive footage insects and reptiles. Yes, their base is located in the Bronson Caves.
It is still not a widely known fact that Billy Wilder had a brother who also worked in the film business, W. Lee Wilder. It's probably not that surprising if you keep in mind that W. Lee's films were mostly more or less workmanlike pieces of Fifties B-Pictures like Killers From Space.
Actually, Killers is one of his better films. Its first half has something I can actually call pacing without damning myself to much time in hell. The paranoid parts (all in the first half) work reasonably well, too.
But as soon as our alien would-be invaders appear the movie makes a hard turn in the direction of the inept but at least mildly hilarious. Did it really have to be golf balls!? The highpoint of the latter half is of course Doc Martin's hilarious flight from badly used archive footage (my personal favorite is the "giant" grasshopper), which overshadows the supposed climax like the giant rabbits in Attack of the Lepus overshadow every other animal in giant monsterdom in cuteness.
But hey, I've seen worse.