Short Note on ALIEN (1979)

 My all-time favorite action movie hero is Ripley, the character we first in the 1979 sci-fi horror thriller, ALIEN. The character played so terrifically by a then unknown actress named Sigourney Weaver.  As I write this, ALIEN is airing now on FXM Retro. That's the Fox classic movie channel that airs older movies commercial free in the daytime. I have seen this movie numerous times. I saw it with my brother the day it opened nationwide. We were in Milwaukee at the time. We're both L.A. kids. We both graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee. I had begun my first professional TV job -- working as a weekly film reviewer and entertainment contributor on the city's ABC affiliate, WISN TV. Like, I'm sure, millions of other moviegoers, we knew really nothing about the movie, but we were intrigued by the imaginative promotional poster showing a giant egg in space, cracked and emitting an eerie light. There was the sentence, "In space no one can hear you scream."

My brother and I sat in that early afternoon movie audience. ALIEN just about scared the black off us. In the dinner scenem when the baby creature bursts out of Kane's torso, my shocked brother and I looked at each other and said, "Damn! He was an egg!"

I paid to see ALIEN again and again during its theatrical release. I watched it countless times on VHS and DVD rentals. Here's my note for you fellow ALIEN fans. In all times I've seen this classic, I saw something today in the first five minutes of the film that I'd never noticed before. The crew is waking up in their sleep pods. Two pods are open. Kane is in one. Next to him is Ash. The pods are open as the two crew members still lie flat with their eyes closed. We see that bare-chested Kane is obviously inhaling and exhaling. Now look at Ash's torso. No visible signs of breathing at all. And we will discover why.

Brilliant.

This year, in these pandemic times, special screenings of ALIEN should be held in states like Florida and Texas. In the first 40 minutes, when Dallas and Kane leave the ship on an exploratory mission, a facehugger pops out of a large alien egg and attaches itself to Kane's face. Dallas wants to take Kane back into the ship. He radios Ripley, the officer in charge. Dallas wants her to open the hatch. Scientist Ripley is suspicious of the strange organism covering Kane's face. Dallas still wants her to open the hatch.

Ripley: Wait a minute. If we let it in, the ship could be infected. You know the quarntine procedure. Twenty-four hours for decontamination.

Was Ripley right? See ALIEN. Then see Ripley in 1986's ALIENS. Then think of U.S. governors wanting to penalize people for wearing masks and getting vaccinated.