NFR Project: “The War of the Worlds”
Dir: Byron Haskin
Scr: Barre Lyndon
Pho: George Barnes
Ed: Everett Douglas
Premiere: Aug. 13, 1953
85 min.
One of the most innovative and accomplished science-fiction films of the 1950s, The War of the Worlds is the finest achievement of the collaboration between director Byron Haskin and producer George Pal.
George Pal (1908-1980) was born Gyorgy Pal Marczincsak in Hungary. He rapidly became an expert in the art of replacement animation – that is, using a different puppet in each frame of the animation, producing a whimsical effect that would become known in America as Puppetoons. He emigrated to the United States in 1940, and created 40 Puppetoon films between 1941 and 1947. He received a special Oscar for his efforts in 1943.
He then moved on to feature films: his love of special effects and camera magic influenced his choice of projects. He produced several films, four with director Haskin at the helm, and the works of the science-fiction great H.G. Wells seemed a natural challenge to put before an audience. (Pal would go on to produce and direct Wells’ The Time Machine in 1960).
Special effects are the key to this film’s success. Using many models, and an extensive bundle of cinematic tricks Haskin and Pal capture the overwhelming experience of seeing the Earth get destroyed by Martian spaceships. This was cutting-edge technology in its day, akin to the advances seen in 2001 and Star Wars. Looking at it today, it is easy to see its techniques in play. There are wires; there are seams. But Haskin and Pal create absorbing scenes that trot slowly at first, then snowball into landscapes of hell-bent destruction. The film won a Special Achievement Award at the Oscars, for Visual Effects.
Sadly, the rest of the film is rather perfunctory. The plot consists of scientist Gene Barry and his partner in danger Ann Robinson fleeing from the Martians. The visitors like blowing up stuff and killing people. This happens at scenic locations worldwide. Ann can scream real good. Ann’s uncle, a minister, walks into the maw of the aliens, chanting verse. He is quickly reduced to a scorch mark on the ground. People behave badly.
That’s pretty much it. The great Les Tremayne plays a consternated general; Sir Cedric Hardwicke is the narrator, who explains the plot admirably before and after, saving the filmmakers thousands in special-effects sequences. The immortal Ned Glass gets one line.
For you see, ‘twas not technology (they even try an atomic bomb! nothing works) that slayed the invaders, ‘twas germs. And just as the white man killed off the Native Americans by infecting them with new, untested diseases, so do the Martians fall to what to you or me would be nothing more serious than a hangover.
Everybody sings a hymn. (Gene Barry has been going from church to church in search of his lady love.) It is all pretty much taken as being a divinely imposed fate. Now to rebuild, etc.
Another distinguishing feature of this film is the name of its hero – Clayton Forrester. This moniker was later adopted by a character on TV’s bad-movie-mocking Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Tell-Tale Heart.
