Chandler’s Trailers: “Invasion U.S.A.” (1952)

“Invasion U.S.A.”  (1952)  If one can imagine a production of  “The Time of Your Life” reconstituted with “Fail-Safe”, you might get a pretty good idea of the awkward Cold War civics lesson that is “Invasion U.S.A.”, a collection of mismatched and inconsistent stock footage wrapped around a few dramatic scenes, including a few ridiculously low-tech scenes of Soviet officers (though never specifically identified as “the enemy”, it’s pretty obvious) standing in front of a chart, directing their entire global assault. The denizens of a Manhattan bar are engrossed in awkward and stilted dialogue meant to reveal the shared social indifference of stock movie characters (who cavalierly dismiss worrisome news broadcasts from the bar’s large flat screen TV, strangely ignorant of the fact that such an item was decades away from being available), when they are suddenly entranced (in more ways than one) by a pensive stranger named Mr. Ohmer  (the underrated Dan O’Herlihy) who seems fixated on swirling his extremely large brandy snifter. 

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