EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS
US, 1956, 83 minutes, Black and white.
Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor, Donald Curtis, Morris Ankrum.
Directed by Fred F. Sears.
Earth vs the Flying Saucers is one of many B-budget science fiction films that emerged during the mid-50s. It was the time of the Cold War, of nuclear experimentation. The film was also the Eisenhower period when middle America was very traditional and comfortable (as seen in Back to the Future).
This film is above average of its kind, with special effects by British Ray Harryhausen who was to make the special effects for such films as Jason and the Argonauts during the 1960s. However, they seem particularly primitive by today’s standards.
The film echoes the themes of such stories as H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (which was also made in 1953). The aliens are seen as enemies from another planet, threatening Earth. In fact, the culmination of this film is an attack on Washington with the destruction of such features as the Washington Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and even the Capitol. Forty years on, this was to be repeated in Independence Day. However, thirty years from Earth vs the Flying Saucers came Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This means that in the fifty years after this film, big-budget science fiction became very popular and there were close encounters of a friendly kind as well as the experience of threats. Fifty years later Steven Spielberg was to make a big-budget The War of the Worlds.
Hugh Marlowe had appeared in the classic science fiction film about aliens, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1950). The film was directed by Fred F. Sears, prolific maker of small B-budget films – even eight films listed for 1956 including this film and Rock Around the Clock.
1. The impact of the film in its time: the mid-50s, the Cold War, nuclear atmosphere, the Eisenhower era? The possibility of this kind of invasion? The popularity of sightings of UFOs and speculations about aliens?
2. The small budget, the special effects with the saucers and the aliens? The realism of the American countryside, installations, Washington? Musical score?
3. The title – straightforward? Evocative of serials and comics?
4. The plausibility of the situation, the aliens and their background, their capacities for reading human minds and taking memories? Their technology in space? Swift travel through space? Their crafts, their uniforms – and seeing the skeleton beneath the uniform? The voices, the threats? The battles?
5. Russell and Carol, their marriage, their work? The pursuit by the saucer? The aliens wanting to contact Dr Marvin? Sympathetic – but turning hostile because of their threats? His work, the message, the investigations? The contact with the alien? Carol and her caution? The meetings with the Pentagon? The decisions for the weapon, experiments? Magnetism to deflect the gravity? The testing, the confrontations with the spacecraft? The destruction of the aliens?
6. The general, Carol’s father? The discussions – his being taken, his memory gone? His body being thrown from the craft? The motivation for hostility against the aliens?
7. The authorities, the stances, scepticism? The proof with the sinking of the ship by the aliens? The weapons, the confrontation?
8. Russell and Carol, the official and the motorcycle cop confronting the aliens? The death of the cop?
9. The attack of the aliens, the destruction of the Washington monuments, of the Capitol? The brief attack by the humans, their destruction of the saucers? The quick move to peace with Russell and Carol on the beach?
10. The place of this kind of film in a tradition of science fiction, encounters of hostile and friendly
