Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
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| Earth vs. the Flying Saucers | |
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 Earth vs. the Flying Saucers DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Fred Sears |
| Produced by | Charles Schneer/Sam Katzman |
| Written by | Donald E. Keyhoe (book) Kurt Siodmak/George Worthing Yates/Bernard Gordon |
| Starring | Hugh Marlowe/Joan Taylor |
| Music by | Mischa Bakaleinikov |
| Cinematography | Fred Jackman Jr. |
| Editing by | Danny B. Landres |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 1, 1956 |
| Running time | 83 min. |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is a black and white 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred F. Sears. The film is also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers. It is based on the novel Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald Kehoe, and the flying saucer effects were created by Ray Harryhausen.
[edit] Plot Overview
The film is set in 1956, a year before the first satellite, Sputnik I went into orbit. In the film, "Project Skyhook," a U.S. effort to launch a dozen satellites, is visited by a flying saucer. A misunderstanding leads to the aliens being fired on, and they respond by immediately attacking in retaliation. The sequence of events quickly spirals out of control and leads to a full scale invasion. Flying saucers attack Washington, DC, Paris, London and Moscow. In the end, the alien saucers are defeated over the skies of Washington by a device using high-power sound.
Ray Harryhausen animated the saucers in this movie. That may be considered easier than animating dolls for the usual monsters, but he also animated all the stones of the buildings they crashed into in this picture so that the action would appear realistic. Some figure animation was used to show the aliens emerging from the saucers. A considerable amount of stock footage was also used, notably scenes during the invasion which showed batteries of US 90 mm M3 guns and an early rocket launch, presumably standing in for the recently introduced Nike Ajax missile.
The voice of the aliens was produced from a recording of Paul Frees reading the lines by jiggling the speed control of a reel-to-reel tape recorder so that it continually wavered from a slow bass voice to one high and fast.
[edit] Connections to Other Films
Several plot points are shared with George Pal's 1953 filmed version of The War of the Worlds:
- The aliens kill a relative of one of the main characters.
- The aliens go out of their way to use their ray on a wooden water tank atop a building.
- The defeat of the aliens is shown by having their vehicles crash into buildings.
- The aliens required apparatus to see (and hear) adequately; this was acquired by the scientists, who tested it and noted that the aliens were sensorially degenerate.
The film also has several connections with Robert Wise's influential 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still:
- In both films, the initial encounter between the alien(s) and humans ends in violence through a misunderstanding.
- Both films involve alien spacecraft visiting Washington, DC, a situation that has since become a science fiction cliche (exploited notably in the 1996 film Independence Day).
- Actor Hugh Marlowe stars in both films, and in both films his character at one point decides on a course of action that his love interest tries strenuously but unsuccessfully to dissuade him from taking.
- Earth vs. the Flying Saucers even uses some stock footage taken directly from The Day the Earth Stood Still. The borrowed footage in both cases portrays the public apprehension and disruption caused by the alien(s) all over the world; in the British segment, the same actor can be seen mouthing the words "It's that spaceman—that's what it is!" although, of course, his voice is only heard in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Scenes of the flying saucers were later re-used in The 27th Day. The scenes of destruction were later used in a 1957 film called The Giant Claw.
Tim Burton's 1996 film Mars Attacks! consciously spoofs several aspects of this film, especially in the design of its flying saucers (right down to the ray weapon deploying from the bottom of the spacecraft) and the climactic battle over Washington, DC—specifically the famous scene of the collapse of the Washington Monument crushing bystanders, which in Mars Attacks! becomes a deliberate act on the Martians' part. The weapon used to defeat the aliens is also similar, sound, although in the case of Mars Attacks! this happens to be country music in particular.
The film has shots of several old technologies in action, including paper tape communications and a differential analyser.
