The War of the Worlds

What's this? A 1950's science fiction film that I actually like? Well yes. Sort of. And yes, I'm talking about the 1953 version of War of the Worlds here, not the 2005 abomination starring Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, with all the personality and charisma of congealed rice pudding, but with less acting ability. Seriously, he's shite. But anyway, I digress. So what makes this an okay sci-fi movie? I'll try to explain.

The film begins with an overly dramatic voice over introduction, quickly followed by equally overly dramatic orchestral music. Then there's a bit more of a voice over intro which will sound very familiar to anyone who's listened to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. And let's be honest, who hasn't? The narration explains why the martians need a new home and why Earth is the only other suitable planet in the solar system. A nice touch when they show the Earth is that you can see clouds within the atmosphere. A lot of sci-fi at this time neglected to show any clouds, so well done for that.

Then we cut to southern California and we see what looks like a flaming comet travelling through the sky and crashing to earth. Fire crews arrive at the scene to put out the fire caused by the crashed object. A load of the nosy local residents arrive too. The fire is quickly extinguished, but the crashed object itself remains hot and smouldering. A suave scientist is fishing nearby. The authorities call for his help in working out exactly what the object that crashed might be.

So doctor suave shows up at the scene. He of course immediately meets a young girl who is aware of his work and is a massive fan. The girl introduces doctor suave to the local vicar, who also happens to be her uncle. Doctor suave says the object is too hot to get a proper look at and that he'll have to stay in town until it cools. The vicar of course says that doctor suave can stay at his house. The girl doesn't seem to have any objection to this. She invites doctor suave to a square dance at the social hall that evening.

While most of the town are at the square dance, three local guys are standing guard at the crash site. Then all of a sudden a hatch in the object begins to unscrew. A snake-like periscope appears through the opening and begins surveying the area around it. The three men approach the crashed object in an attempt to show that they're friendly. But the laser eye at the head of the periscope fires at the men and instantly vaporises them. At the same time all the lights in the town go out. At the square dance doctor suave discovers that everyone's watch has stopped at exactly the same time. He finds out that all the watches have become magnetised, and with the use of a compass that the magnetic field is emanating from the crash site. The police and doctor suave head up there. The periscope thingy vaporises one of the policemen, but doctor suave and the remaining policeman manage to take cover. They quickly decide to call in the military for help. At this point they begin to get reports of similar objects landing all over the world.

The military arrive and surround the object. They decide to fly a plane overhead to try and get a look at the object from the air, but rather predictably the periscope thingy blows the plane to shit. Then they decide to bring in more military. As in all the military. The girl who's keen on doctor suave obviously needs some plot reason to be hanging around, so at this point she's magically transformed into a nurse who's busy handing out coffee and doughnuts (coffee and doughnuts are always good for laser burns).

Early the next morning three small flying craft complete with periscope thingies appear from inside the crashed object. The military prepare to fire at the craft. The vicar bloke thinks they should try to communicate first before shooting (yeah, that really worked well last time) so he wanders out towards the craft and gets turned into toast. The military fire everything they have at the three craft. But the craft have their own force fields and nothing the military fire at them can get through. In return the martian craft start blasting everything and everyone to shit. The military retreat, along with doctor suave and his girl. Doctor suave and his girl attempt to escape in a nearby plane, because of course doctor suave is a pilot. But he's a bit of a shit pilot and they crash land soon after taking off. They take shelter in a nearby farmhouse. They manage to get something to eat, but then another of the meteor objects crashes from the sky, skids and smashes into the side of the farmhouse. One of the smaller craft emerges and sends its periscope thingy inside the farmhouse for a closer look. The periscope thingy retreats, but the girl gets a glimpse of one of the martians outside. Yes, in this film they actually bothered to show us the martians. Another plus for that I think. And they don't look all that terrible considering when this film was made. Think of E.T. but with a camera lens for a face and you're not far off. A periscope thingy comes back for another look but doctor suave manages to chop its head off. Doctor suave and his girl finally make their escape from the farmhouse, just before the martians destroy it.

At this point there's another voice over, basically telling us that everything has gone tits up and that the world has gone to shit. Washington decide the last resort is a nuclear strike. And the first target is the original landing site in California. One of the science boffins estimates that if the bomb doesn't work the martians will take over the world in six days. So doctor suave and his girl go back to observe the nuclear strike because obviously that seems like a sensible thing to do. Rather predictably the martians activate their force fields and the nuclear strike fails. So at this point all the cities are evacuated.

Doctor suave and his girl get separated. She takes off with a load of people in a school bus while he steals a truck. Doctor suave gets pulled from his truck by a mob and gets left behind in the abandoned city. His priority now, realising that everything else is lost, is to find his girl and to make sure she's okay. Cue scene of him running through empty city streets while dramatic orchestral music plays. Eventually the martians show up and start blasting everything to shit. But still doctor suave won't give up the search for his girl. Eventually he finds her taking refuge with a load of other people in a church. The martians attack the church and it looks like everything is lost. But suddenly the martians stop attacking and their craft begin to fall from the sky. The people in the church venture outside. The door to one of the crashed craft opens and a dead martian arm flops down from inside. All the martians are dead. Killed by the bacteria in our atmosphere to which they had no resistance. Humanity is saved. Hooray! The end. The moral of the story? Always get your vaccinations before you go abroad.

I like this film. It held my attention for its duration and I actually sort of cared about what happened to the suave doctor and his girl. There's not much of a plot I admit, but what there is of it is well executed. And there's no extra padding in this film. Unlike many other films I could mention, there are no pointlessly long scenes that drag on serving little or no purpose. The science is credible and the story doesn't seem too far fetched. It's basically martians come to conquer the world but end up dead. That's it. It doesn't get much simpler. The effects are good for a film of its time, and they're far superior to many other films from the time or even later.

If I have a criticism (and I do) it's that the female character is once again too much of a damsel in distress, needing to be rescued and comforted by the suave doctor. But I think you have to put that down to 1950's attitudes towards women. You can't blame the film for that, it's just reflecting society at the time. Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long before we saw strong female characters in films becoming the rule rather than the exception.

IMDb rates this film higher than the 2005 version and I think that's fair. For me this film is the better of the two. I found it to be more engaging and entertaining, and I'm sure that's not solely down to Tom Cruise's plank-like performance in the newer film. The 2005 film for me is all special effects and no substance. The 1953 film had to have substance because it couldn't just rely on special effects to pull it through. I wasn't expecting much from this film but I was pleasantly surprised. As long as you keep in mind that this is a sci-fi film made in 1953 then I think you'll be pleasantly surprised too.