The film's enduring power seems to arise from its very simplicity, which lifts the story of a visitor from outer space from mere sci-fi pulp to the level of a parable. As frequently noted, the film contains significant religious symbolism.

Yes, the credits list Christian Nyby as director, but Howard Hawks was on the set nearly every day, each scene has elements of style unique to Hawks, alone, and even the cast members, when interviewed, have said Hawks ran the entire show. Perhaps, as Science Fiction films were not highly regarded in the early 50s, he felt his reputation might suffer if he acknowledged his contribution; perhaps he thought it might help Nyby's credentials if he were given credit for this masterfully crafted tale. Who knows? But rest assured...this IS a Howard Hawks film!

The story, based on John Campbell's short story, 'Who Goes There?', is a nifty, claustrophobic tale of a group of soldiers and scientists in the Arctic, discovering a giant 'flying saucer' under the ice. When the ship blows up during the excavation, the 'pilot', a huge green chlorophyll-based humanoid (played by a young James Arness), is recovered, frozen in a block of ice. Bringing the ice-encased figure back to the base, it is then accidentally thawed out...and all Hell brakes loose!

While the cast lacks big-name stars, each actor is wonderful, delivering wryly funny Hawks' dialogue at a breakneck pace. The military commander, Capt. Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), is a no-nonsense boss, respected and lovingly chided by his men, led by Dewey Martin, who constantly try to 'set him up' with a pretty scientist he had 'struck out' with, on a recent 'leave' (Margaret Sheridan). She is now at the base, assisting brilliant yet blissfully naive Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), who, naturally, assumes 'the Thing' is only homicidal because he is misunderstood! As the truly frightening potential of the creature reveals itself, it becomes a race against time to destroy it, before it kills everyone, leaves the base, and reproduces countless seedlings of itself to conquer the world!

The FX are low-budget, but very effective, as is the extensive use of light and shadow, sound effects, and an eerie Dimitri Tiomkin score. Unlike the benevolent 'visitors' of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, this alien doesn't warn of total annihilation as the final option, should we carry our nuclear weapons into space; it's ONLY agenda is to KILL!

This is a truly amazing film, one that has aged little, and is every bit as enjoyable today as when it was released.

• a famous Orson Welles radio broadcast that terrified a very naive American culture on the day before Halloween, on October 30th, 1938.
  
• Listen to the broadcast at: SCARYNIGHT
• the first visual experience from the 1953 film which is featured here.
• A subsequent television series (1988-1990),
  
• other made-for-TV versions and
  
• a 2005 blockbuster film have followed. (See below)
  

Directed by Byron Haskin (whose behind-the-camera film career includes cinematography and special effects), "The War of the Worlds" begins when a meteor lands in the hills outside of a small California town not far from Los Angeles. Shortly after a scientist from a nearby university, Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), comes to investigate the meteor, the meteor opens to reveal several deadly Martian machines whose weapons and defenses are unmatched by anything that man can muster. (In H.G. Well's original novel, Clayton Forrester is a reporter and the meteor lands in England.) In the nearby town, Dr. Forrester meets Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson) and her uncle Matthew Collins (Lewis Martin), a local church pastor. For 1950's special effects technology, the Martian machines and their weapons are done very well. Instead of rising on mechanical legs as envisioned by H.G. Wells, they rise on invisible electromagnetic energy allowing them to float above the ground. Over the course of the film, more meteors land around the earth harboring more seemingly unstoppable Martian machines, and a romance develops between Dr. Forrester and Sylvia.

The film has many memorable scenes including Dr. Forrester and Sylvia attempting to escape the Martians in a light airplane, their encounter with more Martians in an abondoned farmhouse, Dr. Forrester battling with frightened mobs in the streets of Los Angeles and his relentless search for Sylvia. Other memorable characters include Major General Mann (Les Tremayne), Dr. Bilderbeck (Sandro Giglio), Dr. Dupree (Ann Codee, uncredited) and the commentary as read by Cedric Hardwicke. Producer George Pal did an excellent job by picking Byron Haskin to direct the film. He also produced "When Worlds Collide" (1951) and both produced and directed "tom thumb" (1958), "The Time Machine" (1960) and "Seven Faces of Dr. Lao" (1964).

Matthew Broderick introduced the masses to the world of hacking, phreaking and global thermo nuclear war.

The average person at that time had never heard of a phone phreak, but we see the lead character get free calls on a payphone and stealing software via his 300 baud modem before anyone knew there was software worth stealing.

Not only are his parents affluent enough to supply him with a computer, he gets discarded computer hardware from friends at a local university to make the super-duper hacking machine that ends up getting him in big big trouble.

While a lot of this story is pretty improbable, some of the plot was dead on for the time. There were no minature computers and cameras and while the government had satelites, they couldn't count your eyelashes from the stratosphere like they can today.

Nuclear war with the Soviet Union was a real threat when this movie came out... all of my friends talked about it and posters with mushroom clouds were all over our school. Sting came out with the song "Russians" and we all peed in our pants when they show "The Day After" aired on prime time TV.

It was a scary time and this movie masterfully played on the fear of nuclear threats and the real likelihood (and nowadays a reality) of having formerly human-manned stations automated by computers."