The War Of The Worlds (1953)
Posted by James Mayor on Jan 28th 2023
The War of the Worlds (1953) is the classic sci-fi film depicting most Earthlings as paranoid, insensitive, violent, and dirty. Unfortunately, in this case it seems to be warranted. It is vaguely based on the H. G. Wells novel of the same name. The cast is adequate with Gene Barry as the scientist that speculates on everything, Dr. Clayton Forrester, and Sylvia Van Buren as the romantic interest, Ann Robinson. She either used a glue-based hair spray or a hairdresser at her beck and call as even after driving a school bus, being attacked by an angry and desperate mob, and seeking refuge in an over-crowded church, her elaborate hairdo never changes. There is nary a wisp out of place. No matter how you watch this one it is better than the Tom Cruise one. (I haven’t seen any of the other EotW five movies.) The special effects are also adequate for the 50s. One can only wonder why they assume the demise of the Martians is bacterial rather than viral (due to a pathological virus rather than popularity), but one must ignore things like that.
Unfortunately, my copy from Zeus (they aren’t perfect!) was poorly “framed” (if that is the term). It didn’t seriously detract from the viewing, except for a couple of times, one was the flight of the flying wing, which always held a fascination for me. This one, that dropped the atomic bomb on California, was the Northrop YB-49. It was beautiful. The Wikipedia article was very interesting.
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