Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Fred F. Sears

Writers (WGA):

Donald E. Keyhoe (book)
Curt Siodmak (screen story)

Release Date:

July 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Before You Scoff at Flying Saucers - See the Greatest SHOCK Film of All Time !

Plot:

Extra-terrestrials flying in high tech flying saucers contact scientist Dr. Russell Marvin as part of a plan to enslave the inhabitants of Planet Earth.

Plot Keywords:

Rocket | Alien | Flying Saucer | General | Tape Recorder

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Hugh Marlowe	...	Dr. Russell A. Marvin
Joan Taylor	...	Carol Marvin
Donald Curtis	...	Maj. Huglin, Liason Officer
Morris Ankrum	...	Brig. Gen. John Hanley
John Zaremba	...	Prof. Kanter
Thomas Browne Henry	...	Vice Adm. Enright (as Tom Browne Henry)
Grandon Rhodes	...	Gen. Edmunds
Larry J. Blake	...	Motorcycle cop (as Larry Blake)

Also Known As:

Invasion of the Flying Saucers
Anfall från rymden (Sweden) [sv]
Epidromi iptamenon diskon (Greece) [el]
Fliegende Untertassen greifen an (West Germany) [de]
La terra contra els plats voladors (Spain: Catalan title) [ca]
La terra contro i dischi volanti (Italy) [it]
La tierra contra los platillos voladores (Spain) [es]
Lentävien lautasten hyökkäys (Finland) [fi]
Les soucoupes volantes attaquent (France) [fr]

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | West Germany:12 (nf) | USA:Approved (Certificate #17854) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:U | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Hyperion Water Treatment Facility - 12000 Vista Del Mar, Playa del Rey, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Clover Productions

Trivia:

Columbia's publicity department created publicity stills using the cut-and-paste technique. The resulting stills of the flying saucers were vastly inferior to the special effects in the film itself. In fact, one of the more infamous stills shows Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor standing on top of the water in the middle of the Potomac River.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The animated diagram shown to the audience while Russell is dictating his memo depicts satellites in circular orbit at different altitudes with the same period, which is impossible.

Quotes:

Russell Marvin: [into tape recorder] July 16, to Internal Security Commission, re: Sky Hook. Summary and progress report, from project director, Dr. Russell A. Marvin.
Carol Marvin: And Mrs. Dr. Russell A. Marvin, without whose inspiration and untiring criticism this report could never have been written.
Russell Marvin: Married two hours and already she's claiming community property!
[directs his attentions to her neck]
Carol Marvin: Now that you're married, Dr. Marlowe, you don't have to sneak up on me.
Russell Marvin: You always did have eyes in the back of your head.
Carol Marvin: Besides, it's not safe when we're driving.
Russell Marvin: But pretty...
Carol Marvin: I thought intellectual giants were supposed to be backwards and shy.
Russell Marvin: My third-grade teacher, Miss Hickey, said I was a quick study.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Harryhausen Chronicles (1998) (TV)

Better-than-average '50's saucer flick

Ray Harryhausen should have received top billing in this film, since his superb stop-action animation is the real star here. None of this nonsense about wise and benevolent aliens a la "The Day the Earth Stood Still"! Here, the aliens are nasty and mean business. The mass saucer attack on Washington is a classic scene; swiped by everything from "Independence Day" to a TV commercial for a nationwide chain of fast-food restaurants. Although the saucer's "magnetic propulsion" is scientific balderdash (Earth's magnetic field is just about strong enough to swing a compass needle.); still it's thrilling to see the military and the scientists racing around D.C. in 1-and-a-half ton trucks with diesel generators and "magnetic disruptor's" mounted on the truck beds. (They look a bit like an out-sized Maxim machine gun.) When these are fired at an alien ship, it starts to wobble wildly until it falls and crashes. At one point, a saucer lands on the White House lawn in an attempt to kill or capture the President (Eisenhower) (gasp!) The aliens step out clad in silver spacesuits that act as powered exoskeletons that enable them to walk while under Earth's gravity. Fortunately, these are magnetically powered like their ships and Hugh Marlowe (who played Patricia Neal's lunkhead boyfriend in "The Day the Earth Stood Still") arrives on the scene with one of those disruptor's and drives them off.

There is an interesting scene earlier in the film where an alien is subdued and the helmet wrenched off of his suit. Before crumbling to dust in our atmosphere, you can see out-sized black eyes, no nose, and a slit-like mouth set in a light-bulb shaped head. I didn't think this idea of an alien occurred to anybody until the 1970's.

Despite perfunctory acting and scientific howlers, this movie is still endearing, not only for the fine special effects (CGI is a bit too slick for me.), but also for an innocence that would soon be lost. For the following year after this film was made, the Soviet Union would shock America by launching the first artificial satellite (Sputnik I) into Earth orbit using the first ICBM. This meant that the Soviets could launch a nuclear warhead at the United States. From then until the Cuban Missile Crisis persuaded both sides to back down from hair-trigger postures, fears of nuclear war would put possible interplanetary war very much in the shade.