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The Day the Earth Stood Still

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The Day the Earth Stood Still
File:Day the Earth Stood Still 1951.jpg
Color-enhanced reprint of the 1951 Film Poster
Directed byRobert Wise
Written byEdmund H. North
Story by Harry Bates (Farewell to the Master)
Produced byJulian Blaustein
StarringMichael Rennie
Patricia Neal
Hugh Marlowe
Sam Jaffe
CinematographyLeo Tover
Edited byWilliam H. Reynolds
Music byBernard Herrmann
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release dates
September 28, 1951
Running time
92 min.
LanguageEnglish

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 black-and-white science fiction film that tells the story of a humanoid alien who comes to Earth to warn its leaders not to take their conflicts into space, or they will face devastating consequences.

Produced in the aftermath of World War II, the start of the Cold War, and the development and use of the first hydrogen bombs, the film strongly and iconically addresses issues of violence, politics, and the fear of global annihilation.

The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe and Hugh Marlowe. The supporting cast includes noted journalist Drew Pearson. Screenwriter Edmund H. North adapted Harry Bates's short story "Farewell to the Master" for the film, with the direction of Robert Wise. The score was composed by Bernard Herrmann and is notable for its use of two theremins.

Plot

A flying saucer lands in Washington, DC. Klaatu (Michael Rennie) emerges and declares he has come in peace. However, when he opens a small device with a snap, he is shot and wounded by a nervous soldier, who mistakes it for a weapon. In response, a large robot called Gort steps out of the spaceship and melts all weapons present without harming the soldiers,[1] until Klaatu orders him to cease. Klaatu explains the "weapon" was a gift to the President and could have been used to study life on other planets.

He is taken to Walter Reed Hospital and quickly recovers. While there, Klaatu meets the President's secretary, Mr. Harley, but is unable to convince him to organize a gathering of world leaders. Klaatu suggests the United Nations, but is told it does not represent all countries, and later, that world leaders cannot even agree on a meeting place for such a momentous occasion. When Klaatu suggests he live amongst ordinary people, to understand them better, Harley rebuffs him and implies that he is a prisoner. Klaatu escapes into the night.

File:Klaatu Incognito.jpg
Klaatu dressed in the stolen coat of "Mr. Carpenter"

He goes to a boarding house, as "Mr. Carpenter", the name on a laundry label of the suit he has taken. Among the residents are Helen Benson (Patricia Neal), a government employee, and her son Bobby (Billy Gray). Helen is a widow; her husband was killed in World War II. The next morning, Klaatu listens to the radio commentator and the breakfast table banter of the boarders wondering whether the spaceship is from outer space or perhaps the work of the Soviets. When Helen's boyfriend, Tom Stephens (Hugh Marlowe), plans a day-trip getaway for the two of them, Klaatu offers to take care of Bobby.

Bobby takes Klaatu a tour of the city, including a visit to the grave of his father in Arlington National Cemetery, where Klaatu learns with dismay that most of those buried there were killed in wars. The two next visit the Lincoln Memorial and the heavily-guarded spaceship where Gort stands motionlessly on guard. Klaatu, impressed by the inscription of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, is hopeful that there may be people wise enough to understand his message. When he asks Bobby to name the greatest person in the world today, Bobby mentions a leading American scientist, Professor Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe), who lives nearby.

Bobby takes Klaatu to Barnhardt's home. The professor is absent, but Klaatu goes into his study and helps solve an advanced mathematical n-body problem written on a blackboard, before leaving his address with the housekeeper. Later, government agents escort Klaatu to see Barnhardt, who has seen the correction of his work as a calling card which could not be faked.

Klaatu warns the professor that the people of the other planets are concerned for their own safety because human beings have developed atomic power. Barnhardt offers Klaatu the opportunity to speak at an upcoming meeting of world scientists he is organizing; Klaatu accepts. Barnhardt is stunned when Klaatu declares that if his message is rejected by the leaders of the nations, "Planet Earth will be eliminated." The professor pleads that Klaatu first provide a minor demonstration of his power as a warning.

File:GortKlaatumessage.jpg
Klaatu gives his message, while Gort looms in the background.

Klaatu returns to his spaceship that night to implement the professor's suggestion. Bobby trails him and is amazed to see his new friend enter the ship. When Tom Stephens and Helen Benson return from their evening out, Bobby tells them that Mr. Carpenter is the spaceman. They do not believe him at first, but when Bobby goes upstairs to bed, they notice that his shoes are soaking wet. Their suspicions grow when Tom finds an expensive diamond in Carpenter's room.

The following day, Tom takes the diamond to a jeweler, who claims that he has never seen the like before. Meeting Helen at work, Klaatu insists on speaking to her. While riding in an elevator, it stops. A series of montage scenes show that Klaatu has suppressed electric power all over the world (with exceptions for critical systems, such as hospitals, planes in flight etc.). This has brought the entire world to a standstill. During the blackout, Klaatu confirms Helen's suspicions and enlists her aid. She urgently searches for Tom to stop him from telling the authorities, but he tells her that he intends to turn Klaatu in and become rich and famous. Helen rushes home to warn Klaatu. Together, they take a taxi cab to hide at Barnhardt's home until the meeting with the scientists. On the way, Klaatu tells Helen that if anything should happen to him, she must go to Gort and say, "Klaatu barada nikto." As they approach Barnhardt's, they are spotted; when Klaatu runs from the cab, he is shot dead.

Battling her fear, Helen does as Klaatu instructed, then faints in terror as the robot comes toward her. Gort gently carries her into the spaceship. It then retrieves Klaatu's corpse and brings him back to the spaceship where, using equipment on board, Klaatu is miraculously (but only temporarily) brought back to life. Klaatu steps out of the spaceship and speaks to the assembled scientists. He tells them Earth's penchant for violence and first steps into space have drawn the attention of other spacefaring worlds. These worlds have created a race of robot enforcers like Gort, and given them absolute power to deal with any outbreak of violence. He warns that the people of Earth can either abandon warfare and peacefully join other spacefaring nations – or be destroyed. "The decision rests with you." He then enters the spaceship and departs.

Cast

* Not credited on-screen.

Critical reaction

The film was attacked from some quarters, due to Sam Jaffe's participation in the film and his politics.[2] The film's explicit message of peace, in combination with its dark outlook regarding human society, struck a chord with audiences, earning it lasting acclaim. The movie is ranked seventh in Arthur C. Clarke's List of the best Science-Fiction films of all time, just above Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, for which Clarke himself wrote the screenplay. In 1995, The Day the Earth Stood Still was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant"

Differences from the short story

In the short story "Farewell to the Master", the ship appears on Earth instantaneously rather than being tracked during approach and landing. Klaatu is killed after emerging from his ship and greeting those present. Professor Barnhardt and Helen Benson -- and, with them, the phrase "Klaatu barada nikto" -- are not in the story. Instead, a newspaper photojournalist named Sutherland deals with the robot, which is named Gnut, not Gort (the name was changed for ease of pronunciation). Unlike Gort, Gnut can speak.

In the film, Klaatu states that Gort's race was created and given absolute power to enforce the peace. The relationship between Klaatu and Gnut is much different. In the surprise ending, when Gnut prepares to leave, Sutherland insists that Gnut tell its master that Klaatu's killing was accidental. Gnut corrects the reporter: "I am the master."

Religious allegory

Religious allegory is woven throughout the film. Allusions to the story of Jesus Christ can be seen as a means of supporting Klaatu's character and his message of peace:[3] Klaatu, upon arriving on Earth, uses the name Carpenter, escapes the government and prefers to stay with common people. Klaatu lecturing Professor Barnhardt (played by Jewish actor Sam Jaffe with Einstein's hairdo) on his own blackboard subject, is a parallel to the young Jesus lecturing the rabbis in the temple. Klaatu's death at the hands of soldiers echoes the death of Jesus; just as Jesus' crucifixion was carried out by soldiers, so also is Klaatu's killing. Jesus is removed from a sealed tomb by the angel, and Gort removes the body of Klaatu from a locked jail cell. Klaatu's friend Helen plays the part of Mary, questioning what is happening. Like the resurrection of Jesus, Klaatu is revived for a short time by the robotic Gort.[4] Klaatu gives his climactic speech and then departs earth in his spaceship; in Biblical accounts of Jesus' life, he gave a final address to his disciples before ascending into heaven (New Testament, Acts Chapter 1). In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is sometimes called the "carpenter's [Joseph's] son", and like Jesus, Klaatu adopts the Earthly name "John Carpenter".[3][4]

The contemporary rendering of the Christ story was deliberately written into the film by screenwriter Edmund North: "It was my private little joke. I never discussed this angle with Blaustein or Wise because I didn't want it expressed. I had originally hoped that the Christ comparison would be subliminal."[5] In a 1995 interview, producer Julian Blaustein explained that the studio censors balked at the portrayal of Klaatu's resurrection and limitless power. At their behest, a line was inserted into the film: When Helen asks Klaatu if Gort has unlimited power over life and death, Klaatu explains that he has only been revived temporarily by advanced medical science and states that the power of resurrection is "reserved to the Almighty Spirit."[2][6]

Production

Principal outdoor photography for The Day the Earth Stood Still was shot on 20th Century Fox sound stages and its studio backlot (now Century City), with a second unit shooting background plates and other scenes in Washington, D.C. The film's stars never traveled to Washington for the making of the film.[2]

In a DVD commentary track, interviewed by fellow director Nicholas Meyer, director Robert Wise stated that he wanted the film to appear as realistic and believable as possible, in order to drive home the work's core message against armed conflict in the real world.

Wise's background in directing horror (his solo directorial debut had come with producer Val Lewton some five years before) lent itself to a "haunted house" feel to the movie's spookier scenes, with a stark use of deep shadow, often patterned to resemble the bars of a cage (his hospital room, the wallpaper and balustrade of the boarding house, the elevator). High angle shots are often used to create a feeling of vulnerability or isolation; here, they are presumably used to augment Klaatu's separation from the people of Earth, whose warlike ways are alien to him. Low angle shots are believed to give the subject an aura of potency; it can be inferred that shooting Klaatu in low shot was intended to highlight the unlimited power he represents. Theories of cinematography such as the effect of camera angles were, at the time of the making of this film, an art not a science.

Producer Julian Blaustein set out to make a film that illustrated the fear and suspicion that characterized the early Cold War and Atomic Age. He reviewed over 200 science fiction short stories and novels in search of a storyline that could be used, as the genre was well suited for a metaphorical discussion of such grave issues. Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck green-lighted the project, and Blaustein contracted Edmund North to draft a screenplay based on elements from the Bates story.[2]

Although the film contains its share of dramatic special effects scenes, such as the destruction of military hardware by the robot Gort, special effects were also used more subtly. For example, the aerial shots of crowd scenes surrounding Klaatu's spaceship were achieved with a combination of optical printing or matte work (to include the Washington D.C. skyline) and a "held take" approach, where the same film is run through the camera for multiple exposures of the same crowd standing in different locations on the studio backlot in order to give the appearance of a much larger crowd.

Other examples of special effects work include rear projection or "traveling matte" work in the scenes depicting Bobby and Klaatu's tour of the Arlington National Cemetery and Lincoln Memorial, and the taxi chase sequence at the film's climax when Helen and Klaatu are chased by the military. According to the DVD commentary, Wise carefully prepared his shooting list from storyboards so that his second unit would return with "background plate" footage with appropriate action (an MP calling on a radio, an increasing number of military vehicles) for each rapid cut in the complex finished sequence.

Many shots of of the now defunct Peoples Drug Store in downtown D.C. are seen in this film.

Soundtrack

Untitled

The soundtrack was composed in August of 1951 and was Bernard Herrmann's first soundtrack after he moved to Hollywood. Herrmann chose unusual instrumentation the film including violin, cello, and bass (all three electric), two theremin electronic instruments (played by Dr. Samuel Hoffman and Paul Shure), two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, two vibraphones, two glockenspiels, two pianos, two harps and three trumpets, three trombones, four tubas.[7] Unusual overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques were used, as well. 20th Century Fox later re-used the Herrmann title theme in the original pilot episode for Irwin Allen's 1965 TV series Lost In Space.

Track listing

  1. "Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare" – 0:12
  2. "Prelude/Outer Space/Radar" – 3:45
  3. "Danger" – 0:24
  4. "Klaatu" – 2:15
  5. "Gort/The Visor/The Telescope" – 2:23
  6. "Escape" – 0:55
  7. "Solar Diamonds" – 1:04
  8. "Arlington" – 1:08
  9. "Lincoln Memorial" – 1:27
  10. "Nocturne/The Flashlight/The Robot/Space Control" – 5:58
  11. "Elevator/Magnetic Pull/The Study/The Conference/The Jewelry Store" – 4:32
  12. "Panic" – 0:42
  13. "Glowing/Alone/Gort's Rage/Nikto/The Captive/Terror" – 5:11
  14. "The Prison" – 1:42
  15. "Rebirth" – 1:38
  16. "Departure" – 0:52
  17. "Farewell" – 0:32
  18. "Finale" – 0:30

See also

References

  1. ^ In fact only two men out of a crew of four leave the tank (a M41 Walker Bulldog) before it is destroyed; this can be regarded as a goof.
  2. ^ a b c d Julian Blaustein, Robert Wise, Patricia Neal, Billy Gray (1995). Making the Earth Stand Still (LaserDisc; DVD). Fox Video; Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
  3. ^ a b Holloway, David (2005). American Visual Cultures. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 135. ISBN 0826464858. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ a b Gianos, Phillip L. (1998). Politics and Politicians in American Film. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0275960714.
  5. ^ Matthews, Melvin E. (2007). Hostile Aliens, Hollywood and Today's News: 1950s Science Fiction Films and 9/11. Algora Publishing. p. 54. ISBN 087586497X.
  6. ^ Shermer, Michael (2001). The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense. Oxford University Press. pp. 74–75. ISBN 0195143264.
  7. ^ Score analysis by Bill Wrobel, on www.filmscorerundowns.net

Further reading

  • North, Edmund H. (1951-02-21). "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Original Script. ScifiScripts.com. Retrieved 2007-08-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  • Leroy W. Dubeck, Suzanne E. Moshier, and Judith E. Boss (1994). "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Fantastic Voyages: Learning Science Through Science Fiction Films. Springer. pp. 249–252. ISBN 1-56396-195-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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