| The War of the Worlds | |
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| Directed by | Byron Haskin |
| Produced by | George Pal |
| Screenplay by | Barré Lyndon |
| Based on | The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells |
| Narrated by | Sir Cedric Hardwicke |
| Starring | Gene Barry Ann Robinson |
| Music by | Leith Stevens |
| Cinematography | George Barnes |
| Editing by | Everett Douglas |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 26, 1953 |
| Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,000,000 US (est.) |
The War of the Worlds (also known promotionally as H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds) is a 1953 science fiction film starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It was the first on-screen loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic novel of the same name. Produced by George Pal and directed by Byron Haskin from a script by Barré Lyndon, it was the first of several adaptations of Wells's work to be filmed by Pal, and is considered to be one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s. It won an Oscar for its special effects and was later selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
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Following the opening credits, the film begins with a preamble of illustrations by space artist Chesley Bonestell showing the planets of our Solar System, over which the film's narrator explains why the Martians find Earth the only world worthy of invasion (not much was known at the time about the habitability of Venus, due to its dense cloud cover, so the planet was omitted from the choices considered by the Martians).
Wells' novel is updated to the early 1950s and the setting moved from the environs of London to southern California. Dr. Clayton Forrester, a scientist and veteran of the Manhattan Project, is fishing with colleagues when a large meteor comes crashing to earth, near the town of Linda Rosa. At the impact site, he meets Sylvia Van Buren and her uncle, Pastor Dr. Matthew Collins. The meteor appears to have slid in and seems curiously lighter than normal for its large size; it is also slightly radioactive and still too hot to examine closely. Forrester ponders these anomalies and decides to wait in town overnight for it to cool down.
Later that evening, a round hatch on top of the meteor slowly begins to unscrew; a pulsing mechanical cobra-shaped head emerges, supported by the long neck of a Martian war machine. When the three men who remained at the site to keep guard approach in friendly greeting, waving a white flag, the cobra head fires on them without provocation with a heat-ray, vaporizing them and destroying a large electrical tower nearby, which knocks out the power in Linda Rosa. In town, with the power out, Dr. Forrester discovers that his and other people's wrist watches have stopped running at the same time; his compass also points away from magnetic north and toward the location of the fallen meteor. Forrester and the sheriff go to investigate and are attacked by the heat-ray. Both manage to survive and raise the alarm.
Amid reports that other meteor-ships are landing throughout the world, the Marines surround the original landing site. Three large copper-colored, Manta Ray-shaped war machines rise from their ground fog shrouded gully and begin to slowly advance. Pastor Collins approaches them, reciting the seventh psalm, his Bible held up high as a sign of peace and goodwill; the Martians spot him and fire, disintegrating him instantly with their heat-ray. The Marine force immediately opens fire with everything in their arsenal, but each war machine is protected by an impenetrable force field. The Martians then use their heat- and disintegrator rays to send the rest of the military force into full retreat.
Forrester and Van Buren escape the carnage in a small military spotter plane, but later crash land, just barely avoiding colliding with other Martian war machines now on the move. They eventually hide in an abandoned farmhouse, but are trapped inside when another meteor-ship comes crashing down nearby. Later, a Martian electronic eye on a long, flexible cable from a hovering war machine inspects the ruined house's interior, but fails to initially spot them. When a lone Martian later confronts them, Forrester wounds it with an axe; Forrester takes a sample of Martian blood and then smashes the returned electronic eye with the axe, taking its undamaged three-lensed camera housing. The hovering war machine blasts the farmhouse after Van Buren and Forrester have made their escape. They eventually are able to rejoin Forrester's co-workers at Pacific Tech in Los Angeles. From the blood sample and the electronic eye's optics, the scientists make deductions about Martian eyesight and physiology, in particular that they are physically weak and have anemic blood.
In a desperate bid to stop the invaders, a United States Air Force YB-49 Flying Wing bomber drops an atomic bomb on three war machines, but it has no effect, due to their protective force fields; the Martians continue their advance and the government orders an immediate evacuation. The Pacific Tech group must now come up with something, because they estimate the Earth can now be conquered in just six days. As they evacuate, widespread panic among the general populace scatters the Pacific Tech group personnel; a mob steals their trucks and wrecks their equipment, and in the chaos Forrester and Van Buren are separated.
All seems lost; humanity is helpless against the advancing Martians. Forrester searches for Van Buren in the burning ruins of Los Angeles, now under attack. He remembers something she told him, and he eventually finds her in a church with other refugees, awaiting the end. An approaching war machine suddenly crashes into a building down the street. Then another one falls nearby. Forrester soon discovers that the seemingly all-powerful invaders are dying. As in H. G. Wells' novel, the Martians have no biological defenses against the Earth's viruses and bacteria. The smallest creatures that "God in His wisdom had put upon this Earth" has saved mankind from extinction.
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A conscious effort was made to avoid the stereotypical "flying saucer" look of UFOs. The Martian war machines (designed by Al Nozaki) were instead sinister-looking constructs shaped like manta rays floating over the ground. Three Martian war machine props were made for the film out of copper. The same blueprints were used a decade later to construct the alien spacecraft in the film Robinson Crusoe on Mars (which Byron Haskin also directed) and was supposedly later melted down as part of a copper drive; The model that Forrest Ackerman had in his vast collection was actually a replica made from the "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" blueprints; it was constructed by Ackerman's friends Paul and Larry Brooks.
Each machine was topped with an articulated metal arm, culminating in a cobra-like head, housing a single electronic "eye" that operated both like a periscope and a weapon. The electronic eye housed the Martian "heat ray", pulsing, peering around and firing beams of red sparks, all accompanied by thrumming and a high-pitched clattering shriek when the ray was fired. The distinctive sound effect of the weapon was created by an orchestra performing a written score, mainly through the use of violins and cellos. For many years, it was utilized as a standard "ray-gun" sound on children's television shows and the science fiction anthology series The Outer Limits, particularly in the episode "The Children of Spider County".
The machines also fired a green ray (referred to as a "skeleton beam") from their wingtips, generating a distinctive sound and exposing the interior of its target (in the case of humans, their skeletons became briefly visible) before disintegrating it; this latter weapon seems to have been substituted for the chemical weapon black smoke described in Wells' novel. The sound effect (created by striking a high tension cable with a hammer) was reused in Star Trek: The Original Series, accompanying the launch of photon torpedos. Another prominent sound effect made by the machines is a chattering, synthesized echo, perhaps representing some kind of Martian sonar, that can be described as the sound of electronic rattlesnakes.
Much effort was put forth to recreate the waling tripods of Wells' novel; they proved problematic for various reasons. It was eventually decided to make the Martian machines "float" along on three invisible, electronic legs. To show their existence, subtle special effects rays were to be added directly under the moving war machines; however, in the final film, these only appear on screen when the military and Dr Forrester first see one of the machines rising from the Martian's original landing site. It proved too difficult to mark out the invisible legs when smoke and other effects had to be seen beneath the machines. In several scenes, however, the three invisible leg beams create small fires where they touch the ground.
The war machines could also deploy from the belly of their craft a long, articulated cable tipped by an electronic eye with three colored lenses.
The War of the Worlds had its official premiere in Hollywood on February 20, 1953, although it did not go into general theatrical release until the autumn of that year.[2] The film was both a critical and box office success. It accrued US$ 2,000,000 in distributors' domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's biggest science fiction film hit.[3]
The New York Times review noted the film was "an imaginatively conceived, professionally turned adventure, which makes excellent use of Technicolor, special effects by a crew of experts and impressively drawn backgrounds...Director Byron Haskin, working from a tight script by Barre Lyndon, has made this excursion suspenseful, fast and, on occasion, properly chilling".[4] "Brog" in Variety felt it was "a socko science-fiction feature, as fearsome as a film as was the Orson Welles 1938 radio interpretation...what starring honors there are go strictly to the special effects, which create an atmosphere of soul-chilling apprehension so effectively audiences will actually take alarm at the danger posed in the picture. It can't be recommended for the weak-hearted, but to the many who delight in an occasional good scare, it's sock entertainment of hackle-raising quality".[5]
The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning in the category Special Effects.[6]
In December 2011, The War of the Worlds was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.[7] The Registry noted the film's release during the early years of the Cold War and how it used "the apocalyptic paranoia of the atomic age".[8] The Registry also cited the film's special effects, which at its release were called "soul-chilling, hackle-raising and not for the faint of heart."[8]
American Film Institute Lists
War of the Worlds – 2005 film by Steven Spielberg
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