Ken Van Wagner

When the name H.G. Wells is mentioned, inevitably the thought of classic science fiction and fantasy is brought to mind. Wells, along with Jules Verne popularized this literary genre in the late 19th Century, which though often mingled with fantasy elements, included more (what was then) topical scientific theory. While in most of Verne’s works, science and technology are espoused as advancements highlighting the progress of mankind, Wells tended to look at science through a more skeptical lens; his messages were more ambiguous, his tales cautionary in nature. Nowhere was the scale and scope of this criticism more broadly expressed than in Wells’s classic The War of the Worlds. First published as a serial novel in 1897, the book has never been out of print in the 121 years since its release.

I won’t go into details about the novel itself; if you’re a fan of science fiction or fantasy in general the book should be known to most readers. Indeed, my first exposure was when I found a battered Scholastic Books copy in my house while I was still in high school; the cover art alone was enough to compel me to read it.

Sadly, not my copy; it was donated to charity several years ago.

What resonated with me as I read the novel was not just the late Victorian England locale, but the first person narrative by the anonymous protagonist who witnessed the Martian invasion from its start until the aliens’ downfall.  I was not seeing the catastrophe unfold from a third person vantage, but through the eyes of the narrator, complete with all the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations he experiences. Although having spent time in the UK I can safely say few of my memories were of oppressive summer heat, Wells goes to describe in detail the invasion taking place in a hot, dry, dusty June countryside, with only a single thunderstorm breaking up the parched landscape Wells evokes in his writing. I was totally immersed while reading the novel; finding myself imagining what being caught up in such a fantastic yet terrifying scenario would be like.

The novel was a success for Wells; he continued for almost another half century to write on a variety of topics, some more controversial than others. However, it was The War of the Worlds that popularized the genre of alien invasion; with the possible exception of The Time Machine, no other work of the author could be sourced as inspiration for so many other works in a variety of different mediums.

For obvious reasons then, the idea of translating this novel into a motion picture had been kicking around almost since the earliest days of cinema. The film rights to the property had been purchased by Paramount Studios as far back as the 1920’s but it took nearly thirty years for the film to make it past the screenplay stage. This was due to several factors; perhaps the most infamous being the Orson Welles Mercury Theater Radio version broadcast on Halloween Eve in 1938.  With World War Two only a year away, the real world tensions of the time overshadowed the entertainment value of the property and by various accounts was either dismissed as in bad taste or taken literally as a real invasion (some believing the “Martian invaders” were actually Nazi or Japanese forces using advanced technology.)

Orson Welles speaking to reporters after the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast.

“Why did I do it? Seriously? To impress Rita Hayworth. Have you seen the gams on that dame?”

By the late 1940’s Paramount once again considered making a film adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Several ideas were considered at the time; some like the version Ray Harryhausen dearly wanted to make, were fairly faithful to the literary source, with turn of the century England as the setting. The Martians and their machines were story-boarded by Harryhausen based off the descriptions in the novel of hundred-foot-tall tripods with their octopus-like pilots; Harryhausen even went so far as to build and animate a test scene of a Martian emerging from its space traveling cylinder.

It would have been a joy to have seen this in stop motion, but with the tiny budgets Ray had to endure throughout the 1950’s I can’t see how it wouldn’t have fallen short of the scope and scale of that was needed for this story.  Had Ray not retired after Clash of the Titans, he probably would have been in a better position to negotiate with MGM the budget his version deserved.

Paramount had several prestigious directors who were considered for the project; Cecil B. DeMille was an early choice, and he certainly could have handled the epic scale of the production, but the famed director turned his attention to other projects. After several years of no starts, it was ultimately producer George Pal who championed the film and imbued the production with his own unique style of film making. Although the version Harryhausen hoped to make was intriguing, Pal opted to update the story and locale for his production. As a post-war science fiction film, I think he made the right choice. Not only would 1950’s audiences identify more closely with a contemporary setting, but by having the film take place in the present Pal could pull out all the stops when it came to updating not only the Martians, but also showcase US military technology that had advanced far beyond the pre-World War One artillery and dreadnoughts of the novel. Pal also had one big advantage; He had a solid record of producing films that did well at the box office, from his stylized but charming Puppetoons series to his more recent (and Oscar-winning) sci-fi features, Destination Moon and When Worlds Collide.  With his formidable box-office track record, this allowed Pal the option to pursue and obtain a larger budget for the production; in this case a staggering two million dollars, unheard of for a science fiction film at that time. While a bigger budget is not always a guaranteed formula for success, (in fact, my real admiration for Ray Harryhausen is for what he was able to accomplish on the crumbs he was tossed in his earliest films for Columbia’s Sam Katzman unit) but for a film as epic in scale as what Pal sought, the extra expense needed to produce The War of the Worlds paid off handsomely.

So now that I’ve given an abbreviated background history of the film in general, what is it about this 1953 film that I love? In a word – spectacle. From the introduction, with the distinctive voice of Paul Frees summing up how warfare has escalated to now truly unimaginable weapons (implying nuclear weapons as the product of “super science”) with a military drum march in the background as the title cards sudden jump from black and white stock footage to beautiful three-strip Technicolor, the film rarely slows its pace. With Sir Cedric Hardwicke providing a Wellsian overtone after the credits, we are told the of the fact of Mars being inhabited, and their nefarious intentions. This voice-over narration provides enough information about the Martians as we need to know without dwelling on it. They considered the other planets of the Solar System (except Venus, apparently) but found all of them inhospitable. This then was the purpose of their invasion; with their own world slowly dying, the Martians have no choice but to migrate to Earth; it is strictly a matter of their survival.

Mars: circa 1953. I dunno; kinda looks like Vegas from a distance…

The War of the Worlds was not the first film of the 1950’s to depict an alien invasion; 1951 saw both The Thing and The Day the Earth Stood Still become successful box office entries, no doubt due to the very public reporting of UFO’s making news, and the speculation that sightings were of extraterrestrial craft. However, while both of these films are considered classics in their own right, Pal’s film did not stop with one alien, or one spaceship. Instead, the Martians send multitudes of ships to engage in full-scale conflict on a global scale. War was indeed depicted, with humanity pitted against a merciless enemy that had absolutely no desire to negotiate or accept any form of surrender any more than humans would against ants or any other species considered vermin. For an alien invasion sci-fi film, this was the first one that really showed destruction on a grand scale. Most science fiction films of the period (including Ray Harryhausen’s Earth vs. the Flying Saucers) had a more limited scale, contrary to what the lurid movie posters for those low-budget films often insinuated.  Perhaps a few landmarks would be destroyed and even hundreds of lives lost, but on the whole far less devastation compared even to World War Two conventional bombing raids. The War of the Worlds with its larger budget, (and perhaps George Pal’s own sense of the horrors of World War Two – he having fled Germany shortly after the Nazis came to power and later invaded his native Hungary) showed – at least what was allowed to be shown by the censorship standards of the early 1950’s the terror of total war.

A sequence that really struck home for me was the initial appearance of the Martian war machines, and their obliteration of the Earthly military forces. Director Byron Haskin’s skill at handling non-action scenes often incorporated tracking shots, providing a wonderful build up to the action as both military and scientific minds initially ponder what this new enemy is up to, believing them very dangerous, but almost certainly stoppable once surrounded by overwhelming numbers of heavy artillery pieces, tanks and troops.

At dawn, the first Martian machine slowly rises out of the gully their meteor craft has landed in; serene yet deadly, as its cobra-like head surveys the countryside. Gene Barry playing the lead as nuclear scientist Clayton Forrester, is giddy with excitement, exclaiming as he views the manta-shaped craft, “This is amazing!” The surrounding forces prepare to open fire; only Sylvia Van Buren’s (portrayed by a very young Ann Robinson) uncle Pastor Collins is doubtful. Believing the Martians to be not only more scientifically advanced, but spiritually and morally more advanced as well, he willingly risks his life in a vain attempt to show the aliens mankind is willing to communicate, not just attack. An advancing Martian craft takes notice as the unarmed minister approaches; the man holding his Bible aloft, the golden cross on its cover glinting in the early morning light. It slowly drops down, takes but a moment before the inevitable humming of the Heat Ray powering up makes its intentions clear before burning the hapless Collins to a crisp. To the Martians, Collins attempt at communication is no more than how an ant’s approach to a cruel child with a magnifying glass would be interpreted; initially interested, but only since the ant represents an easy target to incinerate without a second thought.

This is not 1977; and this close encounter is not going to end well….

This callous murder unleashes the full fury the US military can throw; in glorious Technicolor we see artillery fire, close-ups of tank turret guns going off, mortars being set off by ground troops in trenches. Caught in this barrage, any Earthly army would have been wiped out. Not so these invaders; using what was then the new idea of electromagnetic force fields to update the story from the novel, Pal’s Martians calmly hover while the world explodes around them, their shields briefly flickering between explosions to give Barry’s Dr. Forrester just enough visual data to deduce that the solid shells and cannon fire cannot penetrate these defenses. For almost a minute they let the military do its worst; then as if they have toyed enough with their unsuspecting  adversaries, the Martians turn the tables and show mankind what they are capable of. Not just the hellish Heat Ray that showered fire and fury in a colorful display of sparks, but their even more devastating disintegrating beam; a volley of bright green energy blobs that annihilate anything they contact. In seconds, the Earthly forces are routed; no armor is safe from these war machines. In one particular scene, the Heat Ray scorches the military command center; a hapless soldier screaming as he is set on fire from the sparking ray; in another, Colonel Heffner (Vernon Rich) yells to Forrester to leave the carnage, only to walk into the path of the disintegrating beam. In a wonderfully macabre (and technically challenging) moment, Heffner freezes in shock, as over the course of 144 separate matte paintings his body first glows green, his features vanish, with the ghostly effect of his skeleton showing briefly before he disappears completely.

If you gotta go, go out in three-strip Technicolor!

This sequence, from the wonderful special effects to the quick jump cuts between Martian Heat Rays striking guns, tanks, soldiers, to the memorable sound effects to the bright greens, reds yellows of the Martian machines and their weapons deservedly became a favorite of mine. However, Pal doesn’t stop with scenes of conventional combat; after an interlude where Forrester and Sylvia Van Buren take refuge in a farmhouse surrounded by a nest of Martians (a moment that hearkens back to the novel) we are told that nowhere on Earth has been spared.  Sir Cedric narrates through a montage of scenes of chaos and destruction; the Martians are on a world-wide campaign to wipe out humanity.  From a hastily convened conference with military leadership in Washington DC, the realization is clear-only one weapon left in Earth’s arsenal can stop the Martians. Anyone guess what that is? Yup.

Here again is where I find this film so compelling. Nuclear weapons were in the forefront of many science fiction films of the 1950’s, but their depiction usually fell flat for two reasons. One, because the majority of these films were of far smaller budgets and scale, invariably if an atomic bomb were shown as either a last resort (as in Kronos) or as a catalyst for creating the aliens or monsters (think The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms) it was alway stock footage of an actual nuclear test-usually the Crossroads Baker underwater shot, or the original Trinity test of 1945. Seeing this same stock footage in many movies had to have been tiresome even to 1950’s audiences. Secondly, nuclear weapons were often discussed or considered, but never used for various reasons (again, due to the budgetary restrictions – even though movie posters hinted that audiences might really see a nuclear weapon in use.) Not so with this version of The War of the Worlds. Not only was the use of the bomb a showcase of the movie, but to create it, two novel approaches were engaged. Although stock footage was used, the method of delivery of the A-bomb on the Martians was as high-tech as anything available at the time, the experimental Northrop YB-49 flying wing. Looking almost as alien as the Martians themselves, this very real aircraft could have been the main striking force of the US Air Force bomber inventory. Instead, due to various technical issues, it was the more conventional B-52 that went on to be America’s strategic nuclear bomber of choice. In an ironic twist, in the 1996 Independence Day, the nuclear bomber used was a B-2 stealth bomber, a flying wing built by Northrop, the same company that failed to get the government contract to produce the YB-49 over forty years earlier.

How could this thing not be expected to return from a mission – it’s a freaking boomerang!

But for the actual bombing of the Martian war machines, Paramount’s effects team didn’t resort to stock footage or water tank clouds to reproduce their bomb. Oh no, they went full on and used real explosives and colored powders ignited on one of Paramount’s sound stages. Reputedly the mushroom cloud reproduced was 75 feet tall and reached to the top of the set.

“Define overkill..”

Yet, underneath the swirling maelstrom of indescribable heat, blast and radiation the Martians are once again seen untouched behind their protective shields, nonchalantly shrugging off the power of the atom. With this last chance to stop them now gone, humanity has but one hope –  head for the hills, and pray the war machines can’t handle steep slopes! But say goodbye to civilization, art, culture, technology or even agriculture.

This next sequence is another that truly showed why a large budget was needed for this film; the exodus from doomed Los Angeles by millions of refugees. Filmed mostly on Sundays to allow real location photography to be intertwined with scenes shot on the Paramount backlot, I truly felt a sense of impending doom, especially once the city streets were deserted with only Forrester driving his truck as one of the last to leave. These shots were so clear and have held up well in the sixty-five years since the film’s release that aside from the vintage autos, a viewer would be hard pressed to date the film.

Forrester and his colleagues determine that there could be a slim chance to stop the Martians; not by military hardware, but by a clue found in the anemic blood of the Martians that was briefly studied prior to the futile dropping of the A-bomb. Regrettably, even this opportunity is lost as Forrester and his team, having delayed their departure from LA to gather scientific equipment, are caught up in a mob of criminals who were looting the abandoned city.

This part of the movie always troubled me; firstly because as Forrester said, “Fools, they cut their own throats!” but secondly, if what Forrester and his team were doing was so vital to possibly defeat the Martians, why they weren’t assigned a full military escort was beyond me.  Especially since after the failure of the A-Bomb, General Mann (Les Tremayne) was the one who knowingly nodded to Forrester, “Our best hope lies in what you people can develop to help us.” However, I think Pal wanted to keep this sequence that mirrored a similar scene from the novel not only to showcase the fabric of civilization unraveling under the onslaught, (he did a similar sequence towards the finale of When Worlds Collide) but also to take away any chance that mankind would be the savior of itself. Beaten and robbed of his truck, Forrester was brought down to the level of pure survival, just like everyone else. Stripped of any scientific rank, (finally losing his trademark glasses – and by connotation his position as one of humanity’s greatest scientists) the man runs through the city, not seeking answers or a way to escape, but only to find Sylvia, whom he suspects would be too terrified to do anything but hide in a church as she had told him she had done as a child years earlier. His feelings for this young woman he had scarcely known but a few days ago become his obsession; if the world is coming to an end, he wants to be with her.

And the end certainly looks near, as the finale of the film puts the Martians on full display. They arrived not to conquer, but to raze the city to the ground, inhabited or not. Unlike the novel, where the Martians spare a good portion of an evacuated London, these Martians are the Mongols from space; not a building, bridge or landmark is spared. Again, showing this destruction was unique among American science fiction films of the time; perhaps because the Second World War and all it’s horrors had ended only eight years earlier.  At the time the film was in production the Korean War was still raging; other studios shied away from showing images that might be too close to reality for audiences to accept. The Cold War was in its darkest days as Stalin still ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist. Obviously, the “Red Menace” of the Martians could be a metaphor for Communism, and showcasing the aliens as pitiless invaders devoid of compassion hell-bent on destroying any semblance of Western European or American culture fit well with the anti-communist hysteria of the time. Of particular note is during the narration of the Martians invading countries one by one; not once is the Soviet Union mentioned either as ally or foe. Even in the main military conference room, where a giant world map shows the advancing Martians, the U.S.S.R. does show some Martians within its borders, but no Soviet military personnel are present (odd considering they and the US would be the only countries at the time capable of using nuclear weapons on the Martians.)

“мы приходим в мирные товарищи!– We come in peace, comrades!”

Communist stand ins or not, the Martian’s destruction is put on full display as LA is destroyed block by block as Forrester dodges both Heat Rays and crashing debris in his search for Sylvia. He searches three churches; the first finds him briefly looking around before deducing she isn’t there. The second, a Catholic cathedral he vainly searches and is almost out the door when he encounters two of his colleagues; attacked by the mob that attacked him, they lie wounded and helpless, unable to provide a clue to the fate of the other scientists or Sylvia. Finally he finds her in the third church, as the Martians move ever closer, the sound of their weapons overwhelming the hymnals sung by the stoic refugees awaiting their fate in the church’s pews. A stained glass of the Lord is shattered by the touch of the Heat Ray, as Forrester and Sylvia cling to each other in the destruction.

That moment when you just KNOW things are going to turn Old Testament real fast…

Enough is enough apparently as the Martian machine sputters, falters, and crashes. In the deafening silence, the masses huddled in the church slowly come to the realization the sounds of Martian weaponry have stopped. Furtively, they make their way to the door, unsure of what awaits them; the sight of the now silent machine awes and puzzles them. Forrester, once again the curious scientist, makes his way to the front of the crowd. Slowly a single hatchway opens; the arm of a Martian weakly attempting to make its way out, before its pulse stops and life ceases. Forrester turns to the other survivors, “We were all praying for a miracle,” he says humbled, as the chimes of churches in the city proclaim their salvation from the invaders. Sir Cedric wraps things up with an epilogue paraphrased from a line in the novel.  “When all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved…by the littlest things that God in His wisdom had put upon this Earth.”

While there are those who complain the main difference in the novel and the movie are the seemingly polar opposite views of religion, I found this last narration taken from the novel (as was most of Sir Cedric’s narration) compelling evidence that even Wells, an avowed humanist and socialist was actually more religious than he let on. Wells’s beef was more that entrenched dogmatic religious doctrine had no place in the modern world, not that religion itself was a bad thing in and of itself. It is true that Wells has his protagonist fall in company with a curate who represented an outmoded and useless burden of religion while Pal’s Pastor Collins is more sympathetic, if hopelessly naive about a shared spiritualism with the Martians. When watching Pal’s films, a common theme of a higher power intervening on behalf of the beleaguered is often showcased.  His Puppetoon short Tulips Shall Grow showed a divine intervention halting the nuts and bolts Nazis invading Holland. In When Worlds Collide, although it is scientific achievement that allows humanity to evacuate Earth before it is destroyed, the ending with its Biblical reference clearly showed God was still rooting from the sidelines for a literal salvation of the human race.

For 85 minutes, the boredom of the summer doldrums can be alleviated by watching this wonderful film. It’s just long enough to be completely entertaining without becoming ponderous, the effects and saturated Technicolor are gorgeous, the stylized 1950’s dialog and characters quaint and sometimes over the top, but subtlety was not what this film is about. I’m not going to compare this film with the 2005 adaptation with Tom Cruise, nor with Independence Day or other more recent alien invasion films; for better or worse these other films exist within the context of their times and standards. To appreciate George Pal’s film, you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief by the standards of the 1950’s complete with understanding the popular attitudes and trends of the period. When I first saw this film many years ago on television, my mind was far more receptive to the story unfolding; the war machines were frightening and unstoppable, the enigmatic Martians terrifying in a spooky kind of way, while the desperation of millions driven headlong in flight an ominous warning of how humanity could lose itself when reduced to the lowest common denominator – survival.

**Updated 7/14/20** Two years after I had commented that Paramount needed to release this on Blu-Ray, it happened! And not just any typical Blu-Ray release, this was given the Criterion Collection treatment!  Beautifully remastered in 4K definition with a choice of a conventional monaural soundtrack or a special 5.1 surround mix that took original sound elements and made them pop like never before!  This was the film that goaded me into buying a high-end laserdisc player over twenty years ago – superseded ten years later by the DVD release. I have overdosed on Technicolor now that this gem of a Blu-Ray is available!   See my new link to this one-of-a-kind cinematic masterpiece!

**NOTE – as an interesting coincidence, Mars is going to be at its closest approach to Earth the end of July 2018 – keep an eye open for any unusual meteor showers!**

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on this sci-fi classic – next up – the H-bomb in physical form – the original Gojira

Ken

All images used under the rights of Fair Use