Phantom from Space

A '50s sci-fi movie about an alien that lands on Earth and roams around. It gets attacked by one person who freaks out about the diving suit its wearing, and the fact its actual body is invisible to human eyes. The cops are after it, as well as the military, some people from an observatory, and a guy from the communication commission. Because the radioactivity its suit gives off keeps disrupting phone, TV, and radio signals.

The movie goes almost a half-hour before you see the alien, content to show scenes of guys in suits behind desks asking witnesses questions. Or people driving around in wood-paneled station wagons trying to track the radiation. It does show up eventually, in a silver spacesuit. And it's kind of funny, because after all the build-up, I was expecting some sort of unstoppable force. Like the aliens sent down Jason Voorhees. Something that marches forward slowly but relentlessly. In reality, the alien is less scary than a Scooby-Doo villain. It prefers to flee than fight, and doesn't seem to carry any weapons. It even ditches its suit when it realizes they're tracking the radiation. So yeah, invisible naked alien for a lot of the movie.

Which means the movie does a lot of the tricks with moving stuff without there being anyone visible on the screen. Marking the alien's progress by having shrubs move, or the occasional footprint if it steps in something that will stain. A lot of theremin music for spooky atmosphere. Which is a little weird, because it still sort of implies something dangerous about the alien. That all this invisible sneaking around is for some nefarious purpose, when they've already shown it would rather run than confront anyone.

It never seems clear why the alien is there. It can't speak at a pitch humans can hear, and attempts to communicate via code fail completely. None of the Earthlings can understand what being said. It's able to run around without the suit and breathing apparatus for quite a while, hours at least, even though it needs some sort of air supply.

I'm not sure it's one of those sci-fi movies about how man is the real monster, exactly. The alien is greeted with hostility by the first few people it meets, but it also blows up a fuel tank for reasons I'm unclear on. The authorities do chase it, but one of the scientists tries to communicate while locked in a room together. At the end, the police officer puts away his gun when they're able to see it via ultraviolet light, rather than interpreting the gestures as hostile. It still dies because it can't breathe, but it's not because the humans willingly withheld what it needed. An unfortunate failure to communicate, ultimately. So maybe it's pointing out if we met life from another world, understanding will be difficult to come by. We can't just assume we'll be able to speak back and forth, even if we can set aside fear and mistrust.