Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is an American black and white science fiction film, directed by Fred F. Sears and was released in 1956. The film is also known[1] as Invasion of the Flying Saucers. It was ostensibly suggested by the non-fiction work Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald Keyhoe. The flying saucer effects were created by Ray Harryhausen.
Plot Overview
The film is set in 1956, a year before the first satellite, Sputnik I, orbited the earth. "Project Skyhook," a U.S. effort to launch a dozen satellites, is visited by a flying saucer. A misunderstanding leads to the aliens being fired on, and they retaliate by destroying the project site, killing everyone except the two principal scientists, Dr. and Mrs. Marvin (a married couple). The sequence of events quickly spirals out of control and leads to a full scale invasion. Flying saucers attack Washington, D.C., Paris, London and Moscow. In the end, the alien saucers are defeated over the skies of Washington by a device using high-power sound coupled with an electric field that stops the saucers' propulsion systems.
Cast
- Hugh Marlowe as Dr. Russell A. Marvin
- Joan Taylor as Carol Marvin
- Donald Curtis as Maj. Huglin, Liason Officer
- Morris Ankrum as Brig. Gen. John Hanley
- John Zaremba as Prof. Kanter
- Thomas Browne Henry as Vice Adm. Enright (as Tom Browne Henry)
- Grandon Rhodes as Gen. Edmunds
- Larry J. Blake as Motorcycle cop (as Larry Blake)
Visual Effects
Ray Harryhausen animated the saucers in this movie. That may be considered easier than animating dolls for the usual monsters, but he also animated the falling stones when saucers crashed into buildings so the action would appear realistic. Some figure animation was used to show the aliens emerging from the saucers. A considerable amount of stock footage was also used notably scenes during the invasion which showed batteries of U.S. 90 mm M3 guns and an early rocket launch, presumably standing in for the recently introduced Nike Ajax missile. Stock footage of the explosion of HMS Barham in WWII was used for a USN destroyer attacked by a saucer.
The voice of the aliens was produced from a recording of Paul Frees reading the lines by jiggling the speed control of an analog reel-to-reel tape recorder so that it continually wavered from a slow bass voice to one high and fast.
During a question and answer period at a tribute to Harryhausen and a screening of Jason and the Argonauts in Sydney, Australia, Harryhausen said he sought advice from George Adamski on the depiction of the flying saucers in the film, but felt that Adamski grew increasingly paranoid as time went on.
Connections to other films
Several plot points are shared with George Pal's 1953 filmed version of The War of the Worlds:
- The aliens kill a relative of one of the main characters.
- The aliens go out of their way to use their ray on a wooden water tank atop a building.
- The defeat of the aliens is shown by having their vehicles crash into buildings (in this film's case, the Washington Monument, Union Station, and the Capitol Building).
- The aliens required apparatus to see (and hear) adequately; this was acquired by the scientists, who tested it and noted that the aliens were sensorially degenerate.
The film also has several connections with Robert Wise's influential 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still:
- In both films, the initial encounter between the alien(s) and humans ends in violence through a misunderstanding.
- Both films involve alien spacecraft visiting Washington, D.C., a situation that has since become a science fiction cliché (exploited notably in the 1996 film Independence Day).
- Actor Hugh Marlowe appears in both films, and in both films his character at one point decides on a course of action that his love interest tries strenuously but unsuccessfully to dissuade him from taking.
- Earth vs. the Flying Saucers even uses some stock footage from The Day the Earth Stood Still. The borrowed footage portrays the public apprehension and disruption caused by the alien(s) all over the world; in the British segment, the same actor can be seen mouthing the words "It's that spaceman—that's what it is!" although, of course, his voice is only heard in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The film by Edward D. Wood, Jr., Plan 9 from Outer Space released in 1959, was finished in 1957 after the release of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and shares many similarities, including the extensive use of military stock footage to depict clashes between the military and the saucers. The comparison of production values is striking.
Scenes of the flying saucers were later re-used in The 27th Day, Orson Welles' F for Fake, The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man, and the Three Stooges short Flying Saucer Daffy (1958). The scenes of destruction were used in a 1957 film called The Giant Claw.
Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996) consciously spoofs several aspects of this film, especially in the design of its flying saucers, as well as aspects of other films of the 1950s invaders from space genre.
The 2008 direct-to-DVD film The Day the Earth Stopped has several similarities with this film, including the attack on the four world capitols.
The film has shots of several 1950s technologies in action, including paper tape communications, a telautograph and a differential analyzer.
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