| Earth vs. the Flying Saucers | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Fred F. Sears |
| Produced by | Charles H. Schneer Sam Katzman |
| Written by | Donald E. Keyhoe (book) Curt Siodmak George Worthing Yates Bernard Gordon |
| Starring | Hugh Marlowe Joan Taylor |
| Music by | Mischa Bakaleinikoff |
| Cinematography | Fred Jackman Jr. |
| Editing by | Danny B. Landres |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 1, 1956 |
| Running time | 83 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) is an American black and white science fiction film, directed by Fred F. Sears and released by Columbia Pictures. The film is also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers. It was suggested by the non-fiction work Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald Keyhoe. The flying saucer effects were created by Ray Harryhausen.
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Scientist Dr. Russell Martin and his new bride Carol are driving to their common workplace when a flying saucer appears over them, then zooms away. Without proof of their encounter other than a tape recording of the sound of the UFO, Martin is hesitant to notify his bosses in the military. He is in charge of Project Skyhook, an American space program that has already launched ten of twelve research satellites into orbit. General Hanley, Carol's father, returns from an investigation and informs his new son-in-law that many of the satellites are known to have crashed. Martin admits that he has lost contact with all of them and privately suspects alien involvement. The Martins themselves witness the eleventh tumbling to the ground.
When a saucer lands at his project site the next day, the guards begin firing, to no effect. The aliens retaliate by killing everyone except the Marvins, who are trapped in an underground room, and the general, who is taken away in the saucer. When the power goes out, by chance, Marvin is playing the tape recorder. As it slows down, he hears a message from the aliens, informing him that they wanted to meet him that day. Once rescued, Marvin plays the message for his superiors, but they have to wait, as they do not have the authority to act.
Impatient, Marvin contacts the aliens on his own and sneaks away to meet them. Carol and Major Huglin follow him. They and a motorcycle cop are taken aboard a spaceship. They discover that the aliens have extracted the knowledge from Hanley's brain, and have the general under their control, though they reassure Carol that they can restore her father. They also claim to be the last survivors of their species and that they shot down the satellites because they feared they were weapons. As proof of their power, the aliens give Marvin the coordinates of where they sank a destroyer that fired on them, then release the humans with the message that they want to meet the world's leaders in two months in Washington, D.C.
The flying saucers prove invulnerable to conventional weapons, but from what the aliens have revealed in their talk and from his own observations, Marvin comes up with an idea for a weapon. With government backing, he feverishly sets out to build a prototype. However, he is being watched by an alien device. Just as he finishes, a saucer arrives. Marvin tests his weapon and finds it works well enough to send the saucer wobbling away. In response, however, the aliens jettison Hanley and another captive to fall to their deaths.
When the aliens show up in force in the skies over Washington, Paris, London, and Moscow, and begin firing, Marvin has manufactured enough weapons to shoot them down. One topples the Washington Monument, while another crashes into the Capitol Building, but the Earth is saved.
Special effects expert Ray Harryhausen animated the flying saucers in this movie. Harryhausen also animated the falling stones when saucers crashed into buildings, in order to make the action appear more 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 that showed batteries of U.S. 90 mm M3 guns and an early rocket launch, presumably standing in for the recently introduced Nike Ajax missile. Stock footage of the explosion of the warship HMS Barham during World War II was used to fill in for a U.S. Navy destroyer that is destroyed by a flying saucer.
The voice of the aliens was produced from a recording of Paul Frees reading the lines by jiggling the speed control of an analog reel-to-reel tape recorder, so that it continually wavered from a slow bass voice to one high and fast.
During a question-and-answer period at a tribute to Harryhausen and a screening of Jason and the Argonauts held in Sydney, Australia, Harryhausen said he sought advice from noted 1950s UFO "contactee" George Adamski on the depiction of the flying saucers in the film, but he thought that Adamski grew increasingly paranoid as time went by. The iconic saucer design, a static central cabin with an outer rotating ring with slotted vanes, matches descriptions given to Donald Keyhoe of flying disc sightings.
The film has shots of several 1950s technologies in action, including paper tape communications, a telautograph and a differential analyzer. The Project Skyhook in the film (released 1 July 1956) reflects the public interest in announcements about the earth satellite projects of the International Geophysical Year (1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958; first satellites in orbit included Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957 and Explorer 1 on 31 January 1958.)
The invaders' flying saucers use magnetic drives capable of near light speed velocities, resulting in a distortion of time: while time seems like minutes to the passengers, events on board occur in split seconds of real time. They use spy drones that look like ball lightning or Foo fighters. Their language translator device resembles a glowing crystal rose which also serves as the input device for their "Infinitely Indexed Memory Bank". Humans captured by the invaders are subjected to scanning for the "Infinitely Indexed Memory Bank" which strips the victims' mind of all knowledge, leaving them mindless zombies. At one point, the invaders seize control of all communications to broadcast their ultimatum: "People of Earth, Attention!"
The invaders induce solar flares that disrupt earth's weather and mankind's communications. The invaders' main weapons are disintegrator rays housed in the arms of their space suits (which are unarmored and vulnerable to gunfire) and in a parabolic device that extends and retracts from the base of their saucers. The ray reduces humans and trucks to ashes and causes aircraft, ships and buildings to explode or fall apart.