1951 science fiction, dir. Robert Wise, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal:
IMDb /
allmovie. The aliens land
with a message for humanity, and the humans immediately shoot one of
them.
It's a very odd film, coming as it does just after the
deadly-serious Destination Moon (and the blatant ripoff Rocketship
X-M), both from 1950. There hadn't actually been a whole lot of SF
film with aliens in it at this point, and most of it was Flash
Gordon; but the pulps had definitely internalised the idea of how
alien invasion worked. They land in huge numbers, they fight, they
probably want our women, they win at first but we heroically push them
back. But this is an alien invasion with just two people in it, and
the one who talks is all reasonable…
That said for a talky film it does bowl along. It's only 92 minutes
long and even then it whizzes over the introductions to get onto the
meat of the matter: Klaatu wants to talk to all the governments of the
world, the governments won't cooperate, and he breaks out of the
hospital to go and learn more about humans, all in the first act.
Though really what makes this film work for me as more than a bit of
preachiness is Helen Benson, the war widow with a young son who ends
up befriending and working with Klaatu. She has a beau, with whom she
might be drifting towards marriage; but he is unambigously shown as a
villain; but his villainy consists of going along with what the
government is telling him he should do and alerting the authorites to
Klaatu's location. In its way and for its day, this film can get quite
subversive.
Edmund H. North, the screenwriter, "originally hoped that the Christ
comparison would be subliminal", with this character who takes the
name John Carpenter, who lives among humans, who has wisdom beyond
humanity's and a message of peace, whose actions are misunderstood,
who performs miracles, who is killed by the government, who is brought
back to life and, shortly afterwards, returns to his own place beyond
the sky. So well yeah. The MPAA censor insisted on the bizarrely
out-of-place line suggesting that the aliens too have their limits,
and their God.
I like this film. It could easily drag; it could concentrate more on
the tedious child; but it gets things right and doesn't need to dwell
on them, trusting the audience not to need every possible implication
drawn out. I especially admire the opening sequence, firmly grounded
in reality with contemporaneous newscasters, real locations, real
police cars and military hardware; and the effects which never
overreach themselves, such as the ship landing (with a circular shadow
moving across the ground towards it), and the disintegration of
military hardware which by underplaying the visuals becomes much more
effective and menacing. (Gort is less effective once you notice that
there's a quick cut away any time it's supposedly doing something
physical, because Lock Martin didn't have much range of motion in the
very hot costume.)
All right, the overall message is "there is someone more powerful than
you who will hurt you if you don't do what you're told", but perhaps
that was the only reason 1950s people could come up with for not
killing each other.
As usual if you want more of my witterings you should listen to
Ribbon of Memes.
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