The Second World War ended with the use of nuclear weapons, which, for the first time in history, allowed humans not only to end civilisation but to exterminate themselves. This disturbing realisation, even more unsettling with the Cold War and the prospect of another world war that would almost certainly involve the use of nuclear weapons, caused deep anxiety that would influence popular culture in the decades to come.
One of the most notable reflections of such anxiety is The Day the Earth Stood Still, a 1951 film directed by Robert Wise, known as one of the first grand classics of science fiction cinema in the second half of the 20th century. The film is very loosely based on “Farewell to the Master,” a 1940 short story by Harry Bates.
The plot begins when a mysterious object enters Earth’s atmosphere and later reveals itself to be a spaceship after landing in Washington, D.C. The ship is immediately surrounded by the US Army, and two figures emerge from it – humanoid alien Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie) and his robot Gort (played by Lock Martin). Klaatu states that his mission is peaceful, but nevertheless gets shot by a trigger-happy soldier, after which Gort demonstrates his ability to vaporise soldiers’ weapons. Klaatu is brought to Walter Reed Army Hospital to recover, where he explains that he comes from a nearby planet and belongs to a civilisation that is disturbed by humanity’s recent development of rocketry and nuclear weapons, considering it a threat. His mission is to deliver a message that is to be heard by all the world’s leaders.
After Mr. Harley (played by uncredited Frank Conroy), a presidential advisor, states that fulfilling such a request is impossible due to politics, Klaatu escapes the hospital, steals the clothes of a man, and takes the identity of “Mr. Carpenter” in order to better assess humans. Along the way, he meets young widow Helen Benson (played by Patricia Neal) and befriends her young son Bobby (played by Billy Gray). The latter accompanies him when he seeks Professor Jacob Barnhardt (played by Sam Jaffe), a notable scientist whom he helps solve an important problem and also asks to gather the world’s top scientists to whom he would explain his cause. In the meantime, Helen’s boyfriend Tom Stevens (played by Hugh Marlowe) is jealous of “Carpenter” and, after realising that he is actually an alien, informs the authorities about his whereabouts.
The Day the Earth Stood Still looks incredibly fresh and surprisingly modern for a film made a long time ago. This can be best attributed to Robert Wise, one of the most versatile and talented directors of his time. His skills are best seen at the beginning, when he, despite rather limited resources, uses impeccable editing and semi-documentary techniques to quickly display the confusion, fears, and dilemmas that face the world and its leaders during the First Contact. Wise also employed special effects that were quite impressive for their time and, except for a few scenes depicting chaos in various world capitals, work quite well even today. The design of Gort might be a little dated, but this cannot be said of the interior of the spaceship, which looks “otherworldly” despite being inspired by the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. The black-and-white cinematography of Leo Tover is very good, and the excellent editing by William Taylor keeps the running time within an hour and a half, allowing Wise to deliver everything the script by Edmund H. North needed to say in an efficient and easily digestible manner.
However, the most impressive aspect comes at the very beginning when the audience is introduced to the musical score by the legendary composer Bernard Herrmann. Here he mixes classical score with theremin and various electronic instruments, creating an atmosphere of tension and signalling to the audience that the protagonists would have to face something not of this world. Many future science fiction films would use similar scores, but few would do it as effectively as Herrmann in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Wise and producer Julian Blaustein were quite fortunate with the cast. Classic Hollywood veteran Claude Rains, who had been chosen for the role of Klaatu, became unavailable and had to be replaced by Michael Rennie. This worked perfectly in the film’s favour because Rennie was a relatively unknown British actor at the time and, as such, more suitable to play a humanoid alien whose real agenda remains mysterious until the end. Rennie played his role very well, and the same can be said for the rest of the cast, including Patricia Neal in a role that starts as some sort of eye candy, only to evolve into something of a protagonist near the end and give her the honour of delivering the film’s iconic line, “Klaatu barada nikto.” Sam Jaffe, one of the greatest character actors of Classic Hollywood, is very good in the role of an Einstein-like physicist, a role very much like the one played in Gentleman’s Agreement.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is not only very good but also a very brave film, at least when seen in the context of the Cold War and the raging anti-Communist hysteria that would soon make Sam Jaffe blacklisted for years over his leftist beliefs. The script by Edmund H. North openly criticises militarism and the nuclear arms race while advocating peace and understanding, even with the Soviets, and does so at a time when thousands of American soldiers were still dying fighting Communists during the proxy war in Korea. Just like French director Abel Gance in his 1938 remake of J’accuse, the authors of this film suggested that humanity’s path towards self-destructive war required supernatural, superhuman, or, in this particular case, extraterrestrial intervention.
To make things even more obvious, the script depicts Klaatu as a Christ-like figure with some not-so-subtle hints and references. This, however, did not sit well with Joseph Breen, a Catholic activist and MPAA chief censor, and his favour had to be won by a clumsy line of dialogue suggesting that aliens had the same faith as Christian Earthlings. This and a few more minor details deprived The Day the Earth Stood Still of its perfection, but the film nevertheless became moderately successful at the box office and, later, an object of many pop culture references, as well as a forgettable 2008 remake starring Keanu Reeves. The original Cold War version, with its pacifist and humanist message, is, sadly, looking more relevant today than it was only a few years earlier.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
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