Special Effects
The Martian heat-ray effect showing the bubbling, melting walls of the underground tunnels was created by shooting a large tub of boiling oatmeal from above, colored red with food coloring and lit with red lights.
The cooled, bubbled-up effect on some areas of the blasted tunnel walls was created by first using inflated balloons pinned to the tunnel walls. But in film tests they looked like balloons stuck to the walls, so the effects crew tried smaller inflated latex condoms. Further testing showed these looked much more convincing, and the crew wound up inflating more than 3,000 and then adhering them to portions of the tunnel set's walls; in some completed shots the condoms can be seen moving slightly as the Martian mutants rush down the tunnels.
The sandpit sequences showing the sand closing access to the Martian tunnels below were created by simply reverse optical printing the gravity-fed, sand-trap collapsing effects used for opening the various holes. (The same type of physical effect was used in MGM's 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet to create the moving ground tracks left by the invisible Id monster).
Read more about this topic: Invaders From Mars (1953 Film)
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