The War of the Worlds (1953 film)
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It stars Gene Barry as Dr. Clayton Forrester, Ann Robinson as Sylvia Van Buren, and Les Tremayne as Major General Mann, and runs a taut 85 minutes. The voiceover commentary was by Sir Cedric Hardwicke.
This was the first of several adaptations of Wells' work to be filmed by Pál, and is considered to be one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s. It won an Oscar for its special effects.
The film opens with a prologue in black and white and switches to Technicolor at the opening title sequence.
Plot
The story is updated to the 1950s for this film, and the setting is moved from the environs of London to southern California. The first meteorite lands near the small town of Pine Summit, and the climax takes place in Los Angeles.When the Martian spaceships emerge, they begin attacking immediately. The invaders face more impressive weaponry, including an A-bomb (dropped by a "Flying Wing"); but, unlike the book, the human weapons are totally ineffective. All is lost, with humanity defeated, until the Martians succumb to the "smallest and humblest of Earth's living creatures": viruses and bacteria.
The movie is one of the more literate science fiction films, as there is plenty of scientific debate among the humans while the Martians rampage across the Earth. It is also 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, to the point that the Martians begin dying shortly after blasting a church in Los Angeles.
Special effects
Both audiences and critics alike have praised the special effects, which still stand the test of time, even in spite of the claims that the strings holding up the spaceships are visible. In contrast, many fans believe that the briefly glimpsed Martians are rather weak.
Much effort was put forth to recreate the tripods of the novel, but they proved problematic for various reasons and it was eventually decided to make the machines float on three invisible electronic legs instead. To show their existence, sparks are seen directly under the hovering machines as they move along. The machines were designed with a conscious effort to avoid the "flying saucer" look of stereotypical UFOs; they are instead sleek, sinister-looking manta-shaped constructs that float above the ground. The tips glow green, and the whole is topped with a towering mobile eye, pulsing, peering around and firing beams of red sparks, all accompanied by thrumming and a high-pitched clattering shriek [link] when the weapon is fired. In addition to the "Heat-Ray" fired from the mobile eye, the machines use rapid-fire green blasters from their tips. The blasters have a sort of booming sound [link], instead of the shrieking of the Heat-Ray. This latter feature seems to make up for the missing black smoke chemical weapon, which does not appear in the film. The Martians, rather than being octopus-like, are instead presented as small brown hulkish bipeds, with two hands and three fingers on each. The Martians have no head mounted on their shoulders; their single eye with three distinct lenses, blue, red and green, peers out from the middle of their chests.
Trivia notes
For many years, the distinctive sound effect of the Heat-Ray was utilized as a standard "ray-gun" sound on children's television shows.
The Heat-Ray sound effect was created by the orchestra performing the musical score. It is created mainly through the use of violins and cellos.
The sound effect for the Martian Disintegration Weapon (green blasts from the wing tips) was reused in , accompanying the launch of photon torpedos.
Three Martian war machines were made for the film, out of copper. One was modified for use in the film Robinson Crusoe on Mars and it is said was later given to a copper drive and melted down. Forrest Ackerman owned one machine, and it is said that the remaining machine was destroyed in a fire.
Fictional influences
- The 1988 War of the Worlds TV series was essentially a sequel to this film, and employed several elements from the film, including having Ann Robinson reprise her role as Sylvia Van Buren in three episodes.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 named one of its lead characters Dr. Clayton Forrester in an homage to the film. Ironically (and perhaps intentionally so for humour), the series' Forrester was a mad scientist.
- Independence Day (1996), directed by Roland Emmerich. The aliens (not from Mars) use Earth satellites for their communication system. They were defeated by the plucky heroes installing a computer virus onto one of the motherships, a "clever" update of the microbes that wipe out the Martians in The War of the Worlds. The film also features an attempt to use the atomic bomb (even to the point of again being deployed by a "Flying Wing" built by the Northrop company--this time a B-2 Spirit); that fails as well, and in the ruins of what was once Houston, a downed streetlight is made to look like the gooseneck of the original war machines.
- Mars Attacks! (1996), directed by Tim Burton, a more humorous treatment, and very loosely based upon the original story, but more directly adapted from Topps' famous 1962 trading card series. The film primarily spoofs 1950s alien invasion films, including The War of the Worlds. In this version, the Martians are repelled not by the natural germs on Earth, but by Slim Whitman's yodeling, which causes their heads to explode, an obvious parody of the film's (and novel's) ending.
- Steven Spielberg's 2005 updated adaptation features cameo appearances from Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. In addition, the movie features a few scenes that mirror this film, as well as the aliens' hands having the same three-finger structure and a scene where a long-necked alien surveillance device searches the smashed house where the heroes have taken refuge.
- Ann Robinson did a quasi-reprisal of her role in two later films: first as Dr. Van Buren in 1988's Midnight Movie Massacre and in 2005's The Naked Monster as Dr. Sylvia Van Buren.
External links
- [War of the Worlds Movies.info]
- [The War of the Worlds Movie Site]
- [Making of the movie] at site dedicated to all things War Of The Worlds
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