C array size given by variable

I found some code today that confused me. It did something like this:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    int x = 5;
    int foo[x];

    foo[0] = 33;
    printf("%d\n", foo[0]);
    return 0;
}

My Question is why does this work?

The array foo is on the stack so how could it be expanded by x?

I would have expected some thing like this:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    int x = 5;
    int foo[] = malloc(sizeof(int)*x);

    foo[0] = 33;
    printf("%d\n", foo[0]);
    free(foo);
    return 0;
}

Not that it is prettier or something but, I just wonder.