H.G. Well's classic novel is brought to life is this tale of alien invasion. The resisdents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills. Thier joy is tempered some what when they discover it has passengers who are not very friendly. The movie itself is understood better when you consider it was made at the height of the Cold War - just replace Martian with Russian...
Summary written by KC Hunt {khunt@eng.morgan.edu}
Plot Description
The story is updated to the 1950s for this film, and the Martians face more impressive weaponry, including an A-bomb (dropped by a "Flying Wing"); but, unlike the book, the human weapons have absolutely no effect on the Martian fighting machines. All is lost, with humanity defeated, until the Martians succumb to the "smallest and humblest of Earth's living creatures" (viruses and bacteria).
Instead of walking tripods, the movie presents the Martian war machines as sleek, sinister-looking bowed crescent-shaped spaceships that float above the ground. Tipped with glowing green and featuring a towering mobile eye, pulsing, peering around and firing beams of red sparks, all accompanied by thrumming and a high-piched clattering shriek when the weapon is fired. In addition to the "Heat-Ray" fired from the mobile eye, the new Martian war machines used rapid fire green blasters from the tips of the war machines. The green blasters had a sort of booming sound, instead of the shrieking heat-ray. This latter feature seems to replace the machines' lack of the black smoke, which did not appear in the film, unfortunately. The Martians, rather than being octopus-like in appearance, are instead presented as small, brown hulkish creatures, with two hands and three fingers on each. The Martians have no head mounted on their shoulders; their single eye with three distinct lenses, one colored blue, one red and one green, peers out from the middle of their chests.
The special effects hold up quite well even when viewed over fifty years after the movie was made, although the briefly glimpsed Martians are rather weak. The movie is a visual feast, and one of the few science fiction films that do not talk down to the audience. There is plenty of scientific debate, while the Martians rampage across the Earth.
It was one of few science films to show a full-fledged invasion by an extraterrestrial army, and World War II stock footage was skillfully used to produce a montage of destruction to show the worldwide invasion, with armies of all nations joining together to fight the invaders.
Wells used the second half of his novel to make a satirical commentary on civilization and the class struggle. Pál did not write the satire into the movie, though he did add a religious theme to the film, which would probably have annoyed the atheistic Wells.
The movie stars Barry as Dr. Clayton Forrester (whose name was also used in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 TV series as a homage to the film), Robinson as Sylvia Van Buren, and Tremayne as Major General Mann. The voiceover commentary was by Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Haskin, the director, was a veteran of television who directed episodes of a number of TV series, including several episodes of The Outer Limits. [top]
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