Sci-fi of the 1950's Week: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Howdy all and as promised we begin our late week with a 1951 Sci-fi classic brought to us from the pulp Sci-fi novelist Harry Bates (Farewell to the Master, Space Hawk: The Greatest of Interplanetary Adventurers, Hawk Carse, The Affair of the Brains, The Bluff of the Hawk and The Passing of Ku Sui) this humble black and white mono recorded number about a humanoid visitor from another world bringing with him a large and powerful robot and a message for all mankind.  So prep the Army, check your weapons and vehicles and by all means shoot profusely at the unknown.  This is The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Wow Gort, they drop some clams on this set, huh?

Klaatu: You must go to Spoiler. You must then recite these three words. Klaatu barada nikto.

A flying saucer lazily approaches the Earth and eventually lands in Washington, D.C.  Naturally the US military completely encamp around it awaiting any sign of life and/or trouble.  A hatch and gangplank opens from the ship and a tall humanoid name of Klaatu (Michael Rennie of The Robe, The Third Man, The Lost World, Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel) exits the craft announcing that he comes in peace, but as he just jets down from the gangway he draws a small cylinder from his side which a twitchy soldier mistakes for a weapon and shoots him.  Yeah we are off to a fine start of intergalactic representation.   Without any warning a large robot name of Gort (7’7” Lock Martin of Lost in a Harem, Lady on a Train, Off Limits, Invaders from Mars and The Snow Creature) pops out of the ship and proceeds to disintegrate every weapon around him with a ray of awesome power from his head visor Cyclops style. 

Optic blast...fire.

Klaatu gets him to cease the destruction and goes on to explain the device he held would allow the President to see other worlds; a sort of an inter-dimensional View Master full of wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff.      

Rushed to the hospital he floors the Army medical by applying some healing salve that heals the wound instantly while the Army attempts to get inside his spaceship to no doubt reverse engineer the thing.  So blasting the guy wasn’t insult enough they now move on to the lesser crime of breaking and entering.   

After escaping military personnel, Klaatu snags a suit and calls himself Mr. Carpenter to better blend in and learn of this primitive backwater world that still think atomic power is a neat idea.  Staying at a boarding house under this alias he befriends the residents and listens with great interest on his fellow boarders’ opinions of why the alien is here on Earth. 

From petty fear to typical kneejerk reactions to the unknown, Klaatu is then attacked by the Army yet again as he flees off world stopping his servitor from killing the lot of them and leaves the assembled scientists with these thoughts how the penchant of humanity’s blood lust, harnessing the power of the atom and the exploration of space that the Earth will be viewed as savages of the cosmos and to tread carefully for it could very well mean the end for the planet.

From the paranoia of the Americans only six years after World War II and the Cold War coming to affect; this really is an excellent example of human behavior large and small.  Showing the military’s standing on zero tolerance to the innocence of a small boy befriending a total stranger, director Ray Wise (The Body Snatcher, Born to Kill, The Haunting, The Andromeda Strain and The Hindenberg) and crew go the message across that the jumping to conclusions without clear thinking or rational behavior could lead to devastating consequences. 

No Helen, Scientology is complete and utter crap.