It was an attack on a small town in California that changed things for long periods. This attack was done by Mars with the formation of alien ships continuing to destroy everything around the world. Now, the army appears, but it remains unable to stop this enemy while scientists are racing to find a new path to fight this enemy.
For a movie that already succeeded in scaring the Grape Nehi out of every ten-year-old in the audience, how disquieting it must have been for the Cold War-agitated grownups to witness U.S. might, tanks and A-bombs alike, brushed away helpless...
Though it's bogged down by a stiff cast, a yawn-inspiring conventional romance, and a sappy religiosity, it remains a landmark in the history of special effects.
Definitely a sci-fi classic from the 1950s...great George Pal effects.
Time Out
January 26, 2006
Too bad about the wooden cast, the tackily conventional romance, and a draggy religious message; but at least, given the time it was made, it isn't imbued with Cold War hysteria.
A half-century after its creation, the film's best moments are still so enjoyably unnerving that they easily carry a viewer through the necessary but inevitably dated exposition.
As the perfect crystallization of 50s ideology the film would be fascinating enough, but the special effects in this 1953 George Pal production also achieve a kind of dark, burnished apocalyptic beauty.
