From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie War of the Worlds released in 1953.
Starring:
Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne
Directed by:
Byron Haskin
Genre:
Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rating:
PG
Budget:
$2,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb Rating is currently:
7.2
The Synopsis is:
Aliens from Mars attack Earth, exterminating humans to make it their new home.
Story:
The War of the Worlds began as a popular H.G. Wells 1897 science fiction novel. And considered a masterpiece.
The first film attempt of the book was originally conceived by Cecil B. DeMille when he got the rights to it in 1925. In the 1930’s he wanted Alfred Hitchcock to direct it, but that fell through.
The next swing at the property was not a book at all, but a radio broadcast, orchestrated by Orson Welles on Sunday evening, October 30th, 1938 as a Halloween prank.
The broadcast being so scandalous and successful, Wells was often pressured into making War of the Worlds his first feature film, but he declined.
In the 1950’s it was picked up by Paramount Pictures, produced by George Pal, and directed by Byron Haskin.
The biggest issue with film for many lovers of the book, is how very different from the original novel it is. So your enjoyment will really depend on your openness to seeing the alterations. When I first saw the film, I knew nothing of the book and that freed me to enjoy the film for the story it told.
Here are some of the differences to the book…
There is a religious spin woven into the film, especially at the end, but none in the book. This spoke to the time in which the film was made, when America was seeking a very wholesome image and the story agreed with it’s 1950’s audience members.
One distinct difference from the book is that the novel's spacecrafts are fired from the Martian surface by a cannon. I really like that idea a lot, but the budget might not have allowed it so that is probably why instead the martians crash land like meteors.
The aliens appear to have no use for humans in the film. In the novel, however, the invaders are observed "feeding" on humans by fatally transfusing their captives' blood supply directly into Martian bodies and the Martians eventually using trained human slaves to hunt down all remaining survivors after they have conquered Earth. Pretty interesting, huh?
The aliens die from the effects of the microorganisms within three days of the landing of the first meteorite-ship according to the film, but in the novel the Martians die within about three weeks of their invasion.
Even the look of the martians were different as described in the book. The novel's Martians are bear-sized, brown round heads for bodies, a beak-like mouth with eight tentacles on each side of their mouths and two large disk-like eyes.
The novel's machines are 10-story tall tripods and carry a heat-ray projector on an articulated arm connected to the front of the war machine's main body.
In the film the war machines seem to fly or float, but one of the characters notices that they are lifted by "invisible legs" like the book describes, that are briefly animated in the film.
In the novel, the war machines are vulnerable to weapons, like cannons. But in the film a little more added terror is added to the fact that the war machines have a protective blister to shield them from our weapons and seem indestructible. This really ramps up the tension.
In the novel the narrator and main protagonist is a writer who journeys through Victorian London while the Martians attack.
Whereas the film's protagonist is Clayton, a California scientist who falls in love with a former college student after the Martian invasion begins.
A lot of the gore from the book is removed from the story most likely because it would have been too expensive to portray realistically, but the what gore there was, was wonderfully replaced with incredible suspense.
As an homage to Orson Welles, a radio reporter in the film impersonates Orson’s voice.
As tribute to Cecil B. DeMille his film Samson and Delilah (1949) listed on a theater marquee early in the film.
Pacing:
At an 1h 25min it's got good pacing. Fast. There a lot of slow suspenseful moments but it all seems to work to flesh out more empathy for the characters.
Challenge:
The aliens are the clear danger here and their weapons overwhelm the earthlings into a devastating defeat, leaving survivors mad with panic and irrational mindsets.
The wonderful narration and beautiful illustrations of other worlds at the very beginning of the film tells the story of the aliens, needing to migrate to a habitable world and having looked over all of the planets in our solar system, earth was the best choice.
The martians are first shown in their metal war machines and they are intimidating. This is beautifully demonstrated by the way the martian cobra head works as a scanning eye with a gliding movement, so sneaky, smooth and it is accompanied by music that sets a tone of complete suspense and terror. They also make a sound that sounds like the rattling of a rattlesnake as they move, helping to swell an uneasy feeling as a viewer.
This all clearly communicates that the martians are not our friends in this tale and are a serious threat. People are dying, burning and there is real danger for them.
Empathy:
The film focuses on a small town in california where well known scientist, Dr. Clayton Forrester is vacationing with some other scientists just as the mysterious meteors hit the earth.
As one of the leading scientist, Clayton has been given the task of trying to figure out how to affect the aliens.
Much of the time spent with Clayton, is with him flirting with Silvia Van Buren, a librarian with a masters degree who was also one of his former students.
The relationship starts off very fast and builds as they cling to each other for some kind of comfort amid the terror and chaos… especially after Silvia’s uncle, Pastor Collins is murdered by the aliens in a brave effort to communicate with the aliens.
Silvia has no one to turn to but Clayton… a familiar face and someone who cares about her. In many ways she’s the damsel to scream at the horror, a one of the original scream queens.
She has this beautiful little monologue in the middle of the film when she and Clayton are hiding out from the aliens in an abandoned house. (I call it the Gremlins Kate confessional, when a character tell you a weird story in order to get you to care about them.)
At first, it seems like movie filler, but then it has some significance later on. Silvia says that when she was a little girl she’d always hide in a church when she was ever scared and prayed that the person who loved her the best would come for her.
Her uncle, Pastor Collins always came. Her mind only knows what it knows. It never comprehended that as a pastor, he would end up at the church any way.
Near the end, when everything is totally chaotic and all hopes of beating the aliens have been abandoned, Clayton goes searching for Silvia because he knows she is scared, and he searches every church in the city during the worst of the invasion looking for her.
Is it love? I’m not sure. He’s concerned for her as a friend and maybe even more. At this point, she is the only person he can affect in the world.
Technical:
The color in this film is outstanding even for today. It was a 3 strip technicolor of red, green, blue.
The gorgeous paintings for the prologue were made by Chesley Bonestell, a famous astronomical painter whose works were often published in books on astronomy and space travel in the 1950s.
The composer of the film score was Leith Stevens and it really hit all of the right notes for me. No pun intended. I especially loved the suspenseful driving music of mystery when the martians are close by.
Originally, the Martian war machines were supposed to walk on visible electronic beams. It was mentioned and briefly viewed in the beginning of the film. It was abandoned for being too cumbersome to pull off throughout the story.
Albert Nozaki designed the war machines and when looking at the book’s description of the design, created his designs differently to suit the budget and updated the idea of what a sophisticated war machine would look like and he decided to make them into a cross between manta rays, cobras, and swans. The movements were much like them too.
They also used life-size models to get a more realistic movement from them using about twenty wires for suspension, maneuvering, lights and various mechanisms.
Unfortunately, there were no radio or remote controls invented at the time.
And one of the big drawbacks to enjoying this film for modern audiences are that the wire strings are very visible. However, 1953 this was a remarkable special effect that lead to the seamless ones we see today with the advancement of technology.
What people would consider cheesy effect today, won the film an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and went on to influence all other science fiction and horror films.
It’s so very important to know that and appreciate where we started. Movies like this is where you can see how the magic works and gives hope to filmmakers to innovate effects with small or large budgets.
The sound of the war machines were incredibly terrifying in a savagely brutal way and that is because the sounds were derived unconventionally.
The sound of the heat ray gun were created from three electric guitars played backward. How cool is that.
The visuals for the heat ray emission was done by burning welding wire with a blowtorch forcing the sparks off of it.
The sound of the spaceships shutting down was made by vacuum cleaners being turned off.
Makeup artist Charles Gemora and his daughter built the Martian out of paper-mâché and sheet rubber.
Fifty actors were actually filmed for the scene on the hill, then their images were copied and pasted to create hundreds.
An 8-foot-tall miniature of City Hall was blown up from the inside and filmed with high-speed cameras.
Any vaporizing in the movie was created by rotoscoping otherwise known as tracing the object or character, and then animating them over live-action footage.
Performances:
The performances were pretty good.
Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne and the rest of the cast were all very good. There were a few 1950’s idiosyncrasies to overlook but that goes with the territory with such a time capsule of a movie.
Best:
The martian war machines. I just love the design and movements, and accompanying sound effects. Wow. When they attack it’s incredible. I just love those scenes.
Wish List:
I wish that this film could be re-released, with a few digital enhancements to remove the strings on the war machines. That would really help younger generations see the film in a better light. Just as we have options for a director's cut or theatrical versions of films, I would love an enhanced version of these older sci-fi classics so you can feel the impact of the special effects.
The ending:
I rather liked the ending. And I want to talk about the book versus the film in that regard, because at the end of the film, you get the sense, you’ve traveled all this way and got the whole premise of this film.
In the book, the whole martian invasion was a mimicry of the western colonization of indigenous people commenting on how after decimating the homes of these people, the colonials would often die from mysterious illnesses.
The film’s story is a commentary of humanity humbling themselves to a higher power, be it the unknown, luck, chance, or a divine intervention.
In the book and the film you see that the humans don’t kill the martians with ingenuity and human skill. They can’t. The Martians are just too powerful.
I think a lot of people didn’t like the fact that the aliens die because of a viral infections from the earth’s atmosphere. They aren’t killed by a human hero which makes one feel small and humble.
The main character even says at the end when the martians begin to die, “we were all praying for a miracle.” And sometimes it’s just chance and luck… or something unexplainable that happens.
The film went this route because for the time in 1953, divine intervention made more sense to audiences than the colonialism commentary.
But if you were inclined to see it the way I see the ultimate message, it is the Earth that kills the martians rejecting the alien species. Mother Earth itself is acting as a character in the story, protecting itself and its children with alien killing atmospheric microbes.
Don’t you just love that?!
Enjoyment:
In 2011, it was selected for preservation in the United States' National Film Registry in the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
I love this film. It’s one of my favorite old films mostly because it was one of the most frightening visuals for an alien invasion of Earth for at least 30 years until V the TV series.
Now, most of these visuals have been copied by that TV series and most notably in Independence Day released in 1996 with updated special effects. The visual has become pretty commonplace for alien invasion properties, but after rewatching this film recently, I can see how it is still an incredible classic.
Sure, the special effects doesn’t hold up today, but the story, mood and tension does.
My Rating:
9.4
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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