The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Anyone who enjoys a good sci-fi flick won’t want to miss this classic from the Fifties.  It has a great story about flying saucers, a giant robot and a beautiful woman (what more could you want?).  But it has lots of other stellar qualities that raise it well above the campy outer-space movies that came after it.

A humanoid alien named Klaatu and his giant robot Gort land in a flying saucer and attempt to warn Earthlings that if they do not stop their warring ways, then they will be destroyed. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that it is part morality play and part reflection of the fear and hysteria that was so common during the Cold War. The film was based on a story by Harry Bates and directed by Robert Wise, who went on direct The Sound Of Music and West-Side Story.

Michael Rennie is very convincing as Klaatu, the serious and well-spoken messenger from another world. With minimal special effects and a good deal of dialogue, the film has to have first-rate acting, and it does.  Rennie is backed up by a solid supporting cast, including Patricia Neal, Billy Gray, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe.

The music is really good and really creepy: I got goosebumps less than three minutes after the movie started! It was composed by Bernard Hermann, who wrote the music for many of the great Alfred Hitchcock films, including North by Northwest and Vertigo. Here, he used an instrument called a theremin, sort of an early version of the synthesizer that creates weird tremolo effects that help to set the mood. Hermann was nominated for a Golden Globe award for his work on this movie.

Of course, the technology of the time was a far cry from what we have today, and it shows in some of the special effects. We have to believe that the ball of light that moves across the sky is a spaceship. And the costume of Gort the giant robot is crude and even a little funny at times. But what the movie lacks in special effects it more than makes up for in the elements that really matter, which include great acting, great music and great directing. Unfortunately, too many movies today (including the remake that came out in 2008) rely so heavily on computer-generated effects that the truly important parts either get lost or fail to show up alltogether.

Check the WRL catalog for The Day the Earth Stood Still