Earth vs The Flying Saucers (1956)
Dr. Russell Marvin heads up Operation Skyhook, which is tasked with sending rockets into the upper atmosphere to probe for future space flights. Unfortunately, all the rockets are somehow disappearing.
While investigating this strange occurrence, Russell and his new assistant/wife Carol Marvin are abducted by a flying saucer. The aliens claim to be from Mars and demand to meet with Certain people in order to negotiate. But it was a trick, the Martains only wanted to kill them.
The invasion has begun and if Russell and Carol can't find a way to stop these creatures and get past their defenses, it may be the end of the human race.
Hugh Marlowe ... Dr. Russell A. Marvin
Joan Taylor ... Carol Marvin
Donald Curtis ... Maj. Huglin, Liason Officer
Morris Ankrum ... Brig. Gen. John Hanley
John Zaremba ... Prof. Kanter
Thomas Browne Henry ... Vice Adm. Enright (as Tom Browne Henry)
Grandon Rhodes ... Gen. Edmunds
Larry J. Blake ... Motorcycle cop (as Larry Blake)
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Ray Harryhausen should have received top billing in this film, since his superb stop-action animation is the real star here. None of this nonsense about wise and benevolent aliens a la "The Day the Earth Stood Still"! Here, the aliens are nasty and mean business.
The mass saucer attack on Washington is a classic scene; swiped by everything from "Independence Day" to a TV commercial for a nationwide chain of fast-food restaurants. Although the saucer's "magnetic propulsion" is scientific balderdash (Earth's magnetic field is just about strong enough to swing a compass needle.); still it's thrilling to see the military and the scientists racing around D.C. in 1-and-a-half ton trucks with diesel generators and "magnetic disruptor's" mounted on the truck beds. (They look a bit like an out-sized Maxim machine gun.) When these are fired at an alien ship, it starts to wobble wildly until it falls and crashes.
At one point, a saucer lands on the White House lawn in an attempt to kill or capture the President (Eisenhower) (gasp!) The aliens step out clad in silver spacesuits that act as powered exoskeletons that enable them to walk while under Earth's gravity. Fortunately, these are magnetically powered like their ships and Hugh Marlowe (who played Patricia Neal's lunkhead boyfriend in "The Day the Earth Stood Still") arrives on the scene with one of those disruptor's and drives them off.
There is an interesting scene earlier in the film where an alien is subdued and the helmet wrenched off of his suit. Before crumbling to dust in our atmosphere, you can see out-sized black eyes, no nose, and a slit-like mouth set in a light-bulb shaped head. I didn't think this idea of an alien occurred to anybody until the 1970's.
Despite perfunctory acting and scientific howlers, this movie is still endearing, not only for the fine special effects (CGI is a bit too slick for me.), but also for an innocence that would soon be lost. For the following year after this film was made, the Soviet Union would shock America by launching the first artificial satellite (Sputnik I) into Earth orbit using the first ICBM. This meant that the Soviets could launch a nuclear warhead at the United States. From then until the Cuban Missile Crisis persuaded both sides to back down from hair-trigger postures, fears of nuclear war would put possible interplanetary war very much in the shade.
If you are not terribly put off by 50's, black and white, and (god forbid) stop motion, you can't go wrong with this quintessential sci-fi extravaganza.
* One of the buildings struck by crashing flying saucers is Union Station, Washington's main train station. This may have been inspired by a 1953 accident when a runaway passenger train smashed into the station concourse.
* One of the scenes of a Washington building exploding is actually the Los Angeles City Hall being destroyed by the Martians from The War of the Worlds (1953).
* While Dr. Marvin, his wife, the major and the policeman are being transported in a saucer, a large view screen is displaying their movement away from earth. One of the shots displayed is of earth and the moon with a haze-like fog. This shot is taken from the opening credits of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
* This science fiction movie was "suggested" by the book "Flying Saucers From Outer Space". This 1953 book was a nonfiction work by retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe. It was Keyhoe's conclusion that certain aerial phenomena were interplanetary in origin.
* Ray Harryhausen stated in his biography that this is his least favorite of his films.
* During the small film about operation skyhook, a short clip of meteors is shown. That clip was taken from the meteor storm in Rocketship X-M (1950).
* Columbia's publicity department created publicity stills using the cut and paste technique. The resulting publicity stills of the flying saucers were vastly inferior to the special effects in the film itself.
* One of the scenes of a saucer attacking jets is actually based on footage of an air show crash.
* This film originally played as the top half of a double bill with "The Werewolf".
* Some of the footage showing citizens being loaded on a bus for evacuation is stock footage from The War of the Worlds (1953).
* The supposed satellite launches are actually stock footage of Viking rockets, a high altitude probe that was also the basis of the Vanguard, intended to be the first satellite launcher. The later shots of rockets crashing at takeoff are really German V-2's since none of the first twelve Vikings ever failed. Ironically, the thirteenth Viking, now called Vanguard, blew up on the launch pad, just like in the movie.
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