The Day the Earth Stood Still

One day in 1938 thousands of Americans panicked at Orson Welles' unprecedented broadcast of "The Invasion from Mars." Since then science fiction on a big scale has infiltrated pulp magazines, medicine, and more recently the movies. Most of the results have been pretty bad. Pictures like "The Thing," and "Rocket Ship X-M" are displacing Westerns as the favorite form of movie entertainment. But "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a notable exception to the general run of outer-space productions.

Most of the recent science fiction movies have been involved with trick celestial photography, pseudo-scientific rocket ships, and little else. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" has a strong undercurrent of meaningful philosophy and little emphasis on fantastic detail. The script seems almost plausible.

A distant planet, inhabited by men far more scientifically advanced than earth, has done away with war. Now that the earthmen have rocket power almost within their grasp, the space people are afraid that aggression will spread to other hemispheres. They send an envoy on a mission to rid the earth of war, but people have become so imbued with a distrust towards anything that will bring about real peace, that the envoy has to take drastic measures and is almost destroyed in the process.

Here we see the United States, supposedly involved in a fight for freedom, contrasted with another land where people are really free. And the contrast is not pleasant. The message that "The Day the Earth Stood Still" brings is not that we better be on the lookout for an invasion from above. Rather it shows how petty the squabbles between nations really are, and more important, that these squabbles have blinded our thinking. This is a frightening movie, not because of any startling photography, but because here we can really see to what depths the world has sunk.

The acting is not outstanding, but it doesn't have to be. Michael Rennie is more than adequate as the envoy, and he has the advantage of a fine script to carry him along. The production's realism is heightened by running commentary from Drew Pearson, H. V. Kaltenborn, and Elmer Davis, played by themselves.

This is not a great movie, but a thought-provoking one, and one that is very meaningful to all Americans.