[Above still depicts the Martian “war machines” devastating the California countryside. In the foreground lies a small propeller-driven spotter plane of terrestrial origin, which has crash-landed — as they are wont to do at the peak of military operations against aliens.]
So last night we’re watching the 1953 Hollywood version of The War of the Worlds, starring Gene Barry and directed by George Pal. First time I’d seen it in a long time — and, more importantly for me, the first time I’d seen it with closed captioning.
The first scene I’ll highlight occurs early in the film. Somewhere in the hills outside Los Angeles, a “meteor” has crashed to the Earth. Fearful for some reason (this is around the time we sat down to watch it, so their motivation isn’t clear), the people of the nearest town have picked three men from among them to stand guard around the thing.
(Obviously they’re not that fearful, since all the rest of them then adjourn to a barn dance.)
The three men engage in some conversation which pegs them as, like, not scientists. The “meteor” starts to make a pinging sound, like a sonar device, and one of them draws the obvious conclusion:
That’s not a meteor — it’s a bomb!
At this point they notice something strange about the “bomb”: it has something on the top which looks like a hatch or manhole cover. As they watch, this hatch cover begins to turn… slowly…
[Following dialogue is all by one speaker.]That’s no bomb. Bombs don’t unscrew!
[Hatch cover continues to turn… and turn…]
It’s the darnedest thing. It keeps unscrewing!
Eventually, of course, the hatch opens and a colored, three-lensed “eye” comes out on a long stalk. So now they know they’re dealing with something pretty seriously odd — probably, well, Men From Mars. They determine to approach the meteor bomb extraterrestrial vessel on foot, with white flags, because “everybody knows” a white flag means the bearer intends no harm. But they still have a problem. Luckily, one of them has an immediate solution:
Guy #1: What do we say to them?
Guy #2: “Welcome to California.”
So things go rapidly to hell from that point forward, as you can imagine even if you haven’t read the book or seen the film. But the US military, with help from their counterparts elsewhere, notices that the big levitating “Martian war machines” behave similarly wherever they land. They always come down in threes, for instance, and then there are those artificial eyes with three lenses — modeled on the Martians’ own three-eyed selves. Perhaps the people of Earth can use these observations to combat the aliens… if only they could figure out some of the remaining mysteries…
Military officer: Pattern-wise, one lands, then two, making groups of threes joined magnetically. Is that possible?
Scientist (Gene Barry): If they do it, it is.
Eventually, the government and military decide to use the “atom bomb” (which presumably isn’t unscrewing) against the aliens. Everyone in the (surviving) central cast and a bunch of other people (who are a little dumber and hence don’t take cover behind walls and such, and come to be tossed around like rag dolls in the shock wave) don radiation-proof suits and goggles so they can observe the explosion. As they watch, a PA system’s loudspeaker counts down the minutes and seconds:
Four minutes to bomb time…
Indeed.
Froog says
I love that movie! Don’t shatter my childhood illusions.
And I rather think people may really have been that cheesy in the 1950s. Have you ever seen the ’90s documentary The Atomic Cafe, about the dawn of the A-bomb era?
At one point GIs, with no protective clothing at all, are marching towards the mushroom cloud of a recently detonated bomb only a few miles distant in the New Mexico desert, and the film-maker asks one of them, “So, these tags you’re wearing will show you if you’ve received a fatal dose of radiation, is that right?”
I think that “Welcome to California” line is brilliant.
porcine $30
DarcKnyt says
That’s comedy gold. Gold. Some of those old B-movies were awesome, but I haven’t really seen any of them since I’ve seriously studied the writing craft.
To make up for that flaw, however, I’ve sat through a few FEARnet movies and some on what is now known as SyFy, and I have to tell you, if you’re of the impression the 56 year-old dialog is bad — nothing’s changed.
Fun stuff! Thanks for the stroll down memory lane.
marta says
Having come over here with recent news on the brain, I couldn’t help but wonder if you meant there is a loud speaker somewhere above us all counting down to bomb time.
Where is the wall I can hide behind?
recaptcha: dane society.
Funny. At first glance I didn’t think that read dane.
cynth says
The thing I most love about these old movies is how shocked and surprised everyone seems to be by–well–just about everything! Welcome to California is a great line, but the waving of the white flag thing is just perfect, isn’t it?
The recaptcha is: citation already (said with an excalmation mark, I’m sure!)
John says
Froog: Atomic Cafe — one of the hallmarks of documentary films in the ’80s. The only thing scarier than some of what it depicted was seeing it with others who scratched their heads and said, “I didn’t get that.”
There was a comedy troupe at around the same time called Ground Zero; they specialized in ban-the-bomb-/nuclear-freeze-related humor. Their slogan was, “If we weren’t so serious, we wouldn’t be laughing.”
Darc: I admit to watching some of the SyFy [aside: I still can’t get used to that spelling!] features myself — like their Sea-Monster Saturday (or whatever they called it) back in July. Their dialogue, oh yeah. But the one thing I can’t help thinking when I watch ’em is The folks sure do love their shiny new CGI software, don’t they? :)
marta: Know what you mean… sometimes it’s good to take a news blackout for a few days!
(I wouldn’t mind at all if we captcha’d a little Dane society.)
cynth: The surprise in people’s faces and voices may be one of those “in the world of the m0vie you’re watching, the movie you’re watching doesn’t exist” phenomena. Also watched some of The Time Machine, which came on after WotW, and found myself wondering — as Rod Taylor’s character experimented with the device’s fine-tuning — If he jumps ahead to 2009 and lands in somebody’s living room, will he see himself on TCM? At which point, he’d be (yes!) shocked and surprised.
Froog says
A young chap I know is all set to start a ‘Beijing Cephalopod Club’. He’s been amassing a comprehensive collection of giant squid/octopus movies which he’s now ready to share with the rest of the world.
Jules says
“Welcome to California” brings “Waiting for Guffman” to mind and Catherine O’Hara’s line delivered wonderfully-poorly (she’s *supposed* to be a very bad actress in the movie): “California will be a sight for THESE weary eyes.” Ever seen that film? Have we talked about this before? Please tell me you have. Most quote-able movie, after “The Princess Bride.”
I must see this version of “War of the Worlds” one day.
s.o.m.e. ones brudder says
Froog’s citation of Atomic Cafe is so right. Is this available through NetFlix or the now so old fashioned Block Buster? I could use a view of it again while awaiting the next wacky steps of the remaining “axes of evil” – N. Korea and Iran. Bring on Slim Pickens and Stanley Kubrick.
s.o.m.e. ones brudder says
One other kind of scary thought: I can kind of imagine the prior inhabitants of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and especially “the Basilisk” quoting quite literally from this flick without any sense of irony or sarcasm whatsoever. We need more mileage between now and those years.
John says
Froog: This past Saturday night, the made-for-the-SyFy-network feature was called Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus. How mega was the mega-shark? It took a good chunk out of the Golden Gate Bridge. Also, there was this moment:
The two creatures actually fought to a draw, so you can imagine what the octopus must have been like. And among the cast were Deborah (“Debbie”) Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas, so right there we’re talking quality.
Er, not that I myself watched it.
Jules: We’ve seen Guffman once. (We’d just seen Best in Show and decided we needed to backtrack through the rest of the canon. :)) Liked it a lot, although I/we haven’t seen it again so my quoting from it would be shaky at best.
I couldn’t help noticing that both Guffman and Princess Bride are Christopher Guest projects. Coincidence? Inconceivable!
(And btw, you sometimes mention your embarrassment that you haven’t seen one movie or another. Well, I [stage whisper] have never seen Spinal Tap.)
brudder: You’re the sort of blog audience a blogger longs for — one who can quote from a
five- or sixfour-year-old post, long after its author has forgotten it!s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
Please tell me this clip came from a spoof site….Please…I mean it. It could be the next sign of the apocalypse…
John says
brudder: Alas, I can’t tell you that. I didn’t see that actual moment in the actual movie — of course I didn’t see the movie AT ALL, and if I had I think I probably must have tuned in somewhere past that point. But it was included in the trailer shown during the week-long run-up to the broadcast.
cynth says
I was actually channel flipping and saw the ending of this with the huge mega-beasts battling each other. I gotta say, this was a very weird movie. And will probably play over and over again in the next few weeks as the cable’s wont to do. So you’ll have plenty of time to catch it John.
Froog says
It was two decades before I realised Christopher Guest was ‘The Six-Fingered Man’. I don’t think you can really call that one of his projects. He just agreed to do it, for a laugh, as did a host of other great talents like Wallace Shawn, Peter Cook, Billy Crystal, etc.
John, amongst the things you have to do, not just in your lifetime but THIS WEEKEND, is watch Spinal Tap.
And I can just see Christopher Guest (or Harry Shearer maybe) playing today’s ReCaptcha mess-with-your-head: grandmother Hodgman.
John says
cynth: Caught quite enough of it already, thank you!
Froog: Sssssh ssshhh quiet, man, keep your voice down! Why do you think I was all stage-whispery about never having seen it? Right: I’m embarrassed.
Can’t promise to watch it this weekend; I’ve already committed us to a pile of new releases. BUT I will promise to watch it soon.