So, I'm watching Alien the other day - an absolute joy on the big screen, BTW - and we get to the part where Bret, Parker and Ripley have to open that shipping container with 'the alien' inside.

Then I got thinking - was this the first time where "Boo! It's really the Spring Loaded Cat instead of the Monster" false scare scene was ever used? I cant think of anything pre-1979 that featured this particular horror movie cliché.

Discuss.

I think you might be correct! But it's so widely used that it's hard to remember which movies have it and which don't.