Invaders from Mars (1953)

Jimmy's mom being being taken to the infamous sandpit by his father.

 

The original 1953 version of  Invaders from Mars was well-praised by critics and made an acceptable profit. It also haunts the memories of the thousands of Baby Boomers who saw it on the big screen in general release that year, or a few years later at Saturday Matinees.

 

Title Card,

 

 

Summary:

A young boy, Jimmy Hunt, is settled into bed by his loving parents. A bit later, he is awakened by a greenish light and strange sound. He looks out the window and sees a flying green object appear to land behind asandy hillock—beyond a winding trail—adjoining the family’s property. He wakes his parents, who persuade him that it was all a bad dream. Later, due to the classified nature of the neighboring rocket project that he’s working on, Jimmy’s dad grabs a flashlight and goes outside to investigate. We see him making his way along the trail and up the hill. He doesn’t notice, but the audience does, that a hole a yard or so wide is opening in the sand along the trail. The appearance of the hole is accompanied by an unforgettable eerily haunting male choir composed by uncredited Mort Glickman, then orchestrated and conducted by department head Raoul Kraushaar (who received credit). Then from Jimmy’s point of view, his dad vanishes before his eyes when he reaches the top of the hillock.

 

 

Jimmy’s mom is naturally worried when she can’t find her husband in the morning and calls the police. Two officers investigate and when they near the top of the hill, we see and hear another hole being made, and they too soon vanish. Jimmy’s dad comes home disheveled and bad-tempered. He orders around his family and hits Jimmy hard enough to knock him to the floor. Jimmy sees a mysterious X-shape on the back of his dad’s neck. The two policemen return and they too act strangely and their conversation with Mr. Hunt implies some kind of conspiracy. Jimmy sees the X on the back of their necks, as well. The dad says he wants to show something to Jimmy’s mom and we see them walking up the trail.

 .

Meanwhile, Jimmy happens to see a neighbor girl vanish on the trail and tries to tell her mother, but the girl appears just as their house goes up in a blaze. Panicked, Jimmy goes to the police station and demands of the office in charge to see the Chief, but Jimmy sees the X-shape on the back of the Chief’s neck and tries to run away. (It turns out that the X is the wound left after a 2-inch-long control devise is implanted.) The Chief orders Jimmy to be locked in a cell until his parents can pick him up. 
 .
Concerned about the boy, the kindly desk officer calls the school psychiatrist, Dr. Blake, who shortly visits the boy in the cell. She deems Jimmy’s story preposterous, but his passion and sincerity need to be addressed. Just then Jimmy’s mom and dad appear to take him home, but their appearance and behavior are so suspicious that Dr. Blake insists that the boy is sick and needs to stay with her for observation. The parents scowl and leave. Dr. Blake takes Jimmy to visit a mutual friend, astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston. They banter about the planet Mars being near, and soon Kelston believes Jimmy, deciding that this attack at this time and place is due to the Martian’s fear of the rocket project, which they imagine will threaten Mars. Kelston points his huge telescope towards the trail near Jimmy’s home and sees Jimmy’s dad and the commander of the rocket project, General Mayberry, at the top of the hill ... and the general vanishes. Kelston notifies the authorities and soon the hillock is sur- rounded by Army tanks and armed forces led by Col. Fielding (played by the wonderful and ubiquitous Morris Ankrum).

.

The army successfully blasts holes in the area and finds a network of tunnels. The army attacks through the tunnels, blasting at 8-foot tall, green, bug-eyed monsters, while discovering that the Martians have a bazooka-like tool that quickly and efficiently melts rock walls and makes tunnels. Taking a breather, Jimmy and Dr. Blake get swallowed by one of the ubiquitous holes and are captured by the Martian “mutants.”

 

The green, tentacled Martian “Intelligence” from Invaders from Mars was played by little person Luce Potter (uncredited). This Martian “brain” is an astonishingly original and clever conception— truly unforgettable. According to noted science-fiction and fantasy artist Vincent Di Fate on the Tor.com Publishing site, “Without the benefit of dialogue, Ms. Potter’s eyes are the only means of expressively conveying the strange aloofness of this otherworldly character. The brothers Howard and Theodore Lydecker molded the brontocephalic dome of the creature and its atrophied body in rubber. The tentacles were operated by grips with wires positioned beyond the range of the camera and a special gold metallic make up was formulated by cosmetics expert Anatole Robbins and applied by make up artist Gene Hibbs.” (courtesy Wade Williams Distribution).

 
 .

They are taken before the Martian Intelligence, a small green and gold disembodied head with two pulsing tentacles and two bloodshot roaming eyes, all nicely contained within a glass bowl, like a snowglobe or an upside-down fishbowl, and guarded by two huge green Martian mutants. Dr. Blake is taken away to have a control device inserted into her neck.

Two giant Martian mutants guarding the "Martian Intelligence."

Jimmy manages to escape and helps guide Col. Fielding in his pursuit of the Martians. While all this is going on, the policemen and Jimmy’s parents, under Martian control try to destroy the rocket plant. Only Jimmy’s parents are captured alive, and we learn that they have been taken to the hospital to have the control devices removed. The military swarm into the spacecraft. Dr. Blake is saved in a nick of time and bombs are planted throughout the ship. Their mission thwarted, the Martian spaceship takes off from its underground lair, and blows up. Suddenly Jimmy awakens frightened and is again comforted by his parents ... only to see out his window the spaceship arrive again and disappear behind the hillock (at least in the American version; in the British version, Jimmy merely goes to sleep—end of story).

Comments:    

“The tale is weird and terrifying, but well-done with ... exceptional color.... [T]he audience is almost frozen with fear until the finale is reached. This is entirely too terrifying and realistic a picture for children.”—Southern California Motion Picture Council
.
Despite this dramatic appraisal above from the Southern California Motion Picture Council (which a surprising number of other commentators agree with), there are also many whose assessment more falls in line with Ed Naha’s thoughts in his Horrors from Screen to Scream, that the film is an “imaginatively made kiddie-matinee-oriented chiller.”

.
The film in reality began as a nightmare experienced by writer John Tucker Bottle’s wife as a child. As the screenplay changed hands from one producer to another and was revised by other hands, eventually the dream ending was added and filmed, much to the dismay of Bottle who, according to his wife, was incensed, had his name removed, and never did see the movie.
 .

I saw the film three times at Saturday-Matinee performances at the Manor Theater on 25th Avenue in San Mateo, California. That was circa 1957–1958 when I was 12 and 13. At that age, I was something of a special-effects geek. Thus my first viewing mainly focused on what was wrong with the picture, points that are now legendary: the wide zippers down the backs of the Martian mutants, the cloying sugar-coated impossibly perfect parents at the beginning of the film, countless shots, repeated over and again, of Martians running (or “loping” as most commentators say) back and forth through their maze of tunnels, the exaggerated acting of nearly every performer, the clearly exaggerated and absurd sets, the seemingly never-ending stock footage of tanks, and so forth.

And I was perplexed by the revelatory ending that established that all of the preceding movie was merely a dream, which was then followed by David looking out the window and seeing a flying saucer land in his back yard. On one hand, this makes his dream prescient, which is fodder for a whole movie in itself, but then on the other hand establishes that David and his family and friends are now forever caught in an endless time loop, rather like Groundhog Day, a point that is never addressed.

Extremely detailed lengthy articles

and book chapters cover all aspects

of this film—from concept through

production to release and reception.

When I saw it again about a year later, I was more open to the movie, and saw that the atmospheric autumnal trail and white fence leading up to the sandpit were quite beautiful and that the score ranged from the majestic to full-on creepy, especially when the sand opened and closed; the Martian intelligence in her glass globe seemed positively real; and the concept and flow of the movie both worked well enough.
 .

In other words, I went from being critical of the movie to roundly enjoying it, and I now credit it with being the classic that it is, warts included. Why? Since those early days, I learned that the film was designed and directed by William Cameron Menzies.
.
Please indulge me for a moment while I try to briefly explain why having Menzies onboard was important. The January 2016 issue of cable’s Turner Classic Movies’ magazine TCM Now Playing, which featured Menzies that issue, says:

.

"William Cameron Menzies (1896–1957) was perhaps the most celebrated art director in all of cinema, so defining the profession that a new and elevated term, 'production designer,' was coined especially for him. Menzies was the first person to win an Academy Award for Art Direction (for 1927’s The Dove) and for the new category of "Production Design" (a special Oscar for 1939’s Gone With the Wind)."
.

An early directorial triumph for Menzies.

Menzies stamp was on every frame of this film.

As Art Director, Menzies’ job often overlapped with the Director of Photography. According to classic-cinema authority Rudy Behlmer, offered in his Memo from David O. Selznick:

"[Menzies] pioneered the use of color in film for dramatic effect.... David O. Selznick’s faith in Menzies was so great that he sent a memorandum to everyone at Selznick International Pictures who was involved in the production [of Gone with the Wind] reminding them that “Menzies is the final word” on everything related to Technicolor, scenic design, set decoration, and the overall look of the production."
.

Film enthusiast David Bordwell says this parallel thought in an essay on his blog www.davidbordwell.net/essays/menzies.phpwww.davidbordwell.net/essays/menzies.php:
.

"Sound movies had lost the pictorial splendor of the great silent era, but Menzies thought that could be recovered if someone coordinated the overall look of the film, including lighting (traditionally the province of the Director of Photography) and figure movement (a task for the director). In 1929–1930, Menzies began to campaign for this new production role by giving lectures, signing articles, and publishing his drawings of film shots."
.

He got his way, which has forever since changed the way movies are made. In other words, William Cameron Menzies was a certifiable VIP.

.
It is the rare moviegoer who thinks of things like design and lighting, which, I suppose, is as it should be because the audience pays good money to be entertained, not to be become cinema geeks. Nevertheless, these days and all the way back to the era of silent mega-movies, a movie is as much the responsibility of the Director of Photography and the Production Designer as the Director (before Menzies, the closest title approximate to Production Designer was Art Director). Of course, virtually every movie or TV show has dozens or hundreds of real-life specific instances of how these disciplines work together. There are literally countless instances. 
 .
But I have a simple—albeit important beyond measure—example in mind that is probably familiar to most of my readers. During the three seasons of the original Star Trek in the 1960s, I was always enchanted by the look and lighting of the sets. Onboard the Enterprise, during nearly every episode, production designer Matt Jefferies designed, built, and colorfully painted hallways, rooms, corners, and backgrounds to accommodate the story as required by the script, as well as chambers, caverns, and alien planet surfaces and skies. Usually he was able to use and redress previous sets, which made his life a little less complicated.

.

Colored gels as mood lighting in the original Star Ttrek.

Once built, each set needed to be lit according to the instincts of the principal Director of Photography, Gerald Finnerman, who frequently cast highlights on the background walls, corridors, and joins where walls met ceilings with splashes of colored lighting. It is not unusual to see a scene that is lit with some combination of pinks, and oranges, and blues, and reds, and greens, and purples. It was always one of my favorite elements of the show. Finnerman is quoted in his Wikipedia listing as saying, “On a show like Star Trek, you have to push the envelope; the result of playing it safe is a diet of pabulum.” The listing continues, “He used light placements and colored gels as mood lighting. Using lighting techniques and changing background wall colors, he discovered that a range of effects could be seen on a single set.” However, Star Trek associate producer Robert Justman in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story claims it was his own idea to encourage Finnerman to use colored gels extensively: “We’re in outer space, Jerry, and we’re in color.... When you light the sets, throw wild colors in—magenta, red, green, any color you can find.... Be dramatic.” Doubtless, it was a team effort as any complicated TV show must be.

.

Alas! Unfortunately, as much as I adore the follow-up show, Star Trek: The Next Generation did away with this sort of lighting, as is the case with all the other properties of the franchise.

.

Well then, my point is that William Cameron Menzies did it all—all of the above. He was a genius, and toward the end of his career, he directed several inexpensive genre B-movies, the most important of which was Invaders from Mars.
.

As a pertinent aside, there is a verifiable story that in 1919 T.E. Lawrence—Lawrence of Arabia—had completed the manuscript for his classic autobiography Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and had it with him as he visited a cafe at Reading Station while changing trains. It was only after he boarded the new train that he realized he did not have the manuscript. He was never able to find it and had no carbon copy. Undaunted, he started again and rewrote the entire book. Who’s to say which version was better? But he got the job done.
 .
Well, something very similar happened to Menzies. As he was preparing Invaders from Mars, he filled several notebooks with hundreds of sketches, detailing every scene of the movie. The word is that nobody had ever gone to this much trouble before to storyboard an entire live movie. Of course, these days storyboards are common. Then when principal photography began, his assistant went into Menzies’ office to refer to the drawings, but they were not there, and they never were found. Menzies was devastated. But he had a movie to make and he remembered enough to persevere—creating something of a masterpiece.
 .
Funny enough, Invaders from Mars has something else in common with Lawrence of Arabia, this time the film. The constituent parts of both films were shelved, misplaced, and forgotten for decades, much of it lost and/or allowed to rot in the never stopping onslaught of commerce. Fortunately, both films were miraculously restored (as have been many others as word of the loss of our film legacy spread).
.
Well ahead of his time, around 40 years ago, the enterprising entrepreneurial film exhibitor Wade Williams, of Kansas City, Missouri, began the thankless job of tracking down those constituent parts of the films he loved as a child (often scattered worldwide) and reassembling them and restoring them as well as humanly possible. High on his list, after Flight to Mars (see posting in this blog) was Invaders from Mars and it is now available in both its American and British versions on a fine DVD, with informative booklet, from Image Entertainment/Corinth Films/The Wade Williams Collection.
.
The DVD booklet lays out the history of the production; but it also includes Wade Williams’ own story of how he saved the film from extinction by tracking down its crucial negative elements:
.

"Invaders from Mars was designed for three-dimensional photography. Cameras were not available as many studios were shooting in the new dimensional process. It was shot on the new single strip Eastman negative. Feature and trailer (prevues) prints were made in the new three-color Cinecolor process which had emulsion on both sides of the film, giving a softer focus and a darkness to the look of the film which hid many flaws such as the zippers on the Martians. A black and white 16mm reduction negative was made from the original release for domestic television distribution. Cinecolor Labs went bankrupt in the late ’50s, and the printing matrices and other original materials were lost when the IRS sold the lab assets for salvage.

.

"In 1954 the film was sold in the UK and the distributor complained the film was not long enough and the dream sequence not a satisfactory climax, requiring the producer to shoot additional footage to lengthen the observatory sequence and to delete the dream sequence montage at the end of the film.
.

"The original camera negative was cut and the footage lost. The new footage was inserted and color separations were made. The negative materials were sent to the UK in 1954 for the release in Europe. The original version was not seen outside the U.S.  The color reduction negative was made in the 1960s by the former owner from an original release 35mm Cinecolor print for rental libraries and television. In 1977 fifteen new Eastman color prints were made by Precision Film Labs in New York City for the only domestic theatrical re-release, made from the re-cut UK negative. It was re-cut and dupe sequences inserted to approximate the original release. These sections were made from the only existing Cinecolor print materials and the cuts were obvious.
.

"Today the 35mm negatives, color separations and Cinecolor master is preserved in cold climate- controlled vaults in Kansas along with such classics as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.
 .

"The Fiftieth Anniversary release DVD is made from the original 35mm Cinecolor release print master. This is how America first saw the picture."
.

In Glenn Erickson’s dvdtalk.com discussion of the film (see link above), he shouts from the rooftops: Invaders from Mars is “a sci-fi classic that, at least in Savant’s opinion, should be showing in the Louvre.” High praise indeed.

 

Extremely detailed lengthy articles and book chapters covering all aspects of this film—from concept through production to release and reception—can be found in a variety of sources, including Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies!, Vincent Di Fate’s “The Magic of Menzies” in Filmfax #106, Robert Skotak and Scot Holton’s “Invaders from Mars” in Fantascene #4, and DVD Savant Glenn Erickson’s mammoth 2-part discussion titled “The Ultimate Invaders from Mars” at www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s96InvadersA.htmlhttps://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s96InvadersA.html and also published in abridged form in his film overview volume Sci-Fi Savant: Classic Sci-Fi Review Reader. Rather than covering the same ground, I’ll merely offer a summary, then touch on the origin of the story, and finally segue into my own memories. 

Invaders from Mars (1953)

USA. Released by 20th Century-Fox, An Edward L. Alperson Production. C. 1.37:1. 78m

CREW: Director William Cameron Menzies. Associate Producer Edward L. Alperson, Jr. Script Richard Blake, John Tucker Bottle (uncredited). Score Mort Glickman (uncredited). Score Arranger and Conductor Raoul Kraushaar. Director of Photography John Seitz. Color Consultant Clifford D. Shank. Production Designer William Cameron Menzies. Art Director Boris Leven. Editorial Super- vision Arthur Roberts. Special Photographic Effects Jack Cosgrove. Matte paintings and Optical Effects Irving Block and Jack Rabin (both uncredited). Miniature and Mechanical Effects Howard and Theodore Lydecker (both uncredited).

CAST: David MacLean Jimmy Hunt. Dr. Pat Blake Helena Carter. Dr. Stuart Kelston Arthur Franz. George MacLean Leif Erickson. Mary MacLean Hillary Brooke. Col. Fielding Morris Ankrum. Sgt. Rinaldi Max Wagner. Kathy Wilson Janine Perreau. Martian Intelligence Luce Potter (uncredited).

Formal Notice: All images, quotations, and video/audio clips used in this blog and in its individual posts are used either with permissions from the copyright holders or through exercise of the doctrine of Fair Use as described in U.S. copyright law, or are in the public domain. If any true copyright holder (whether person[s] or organization) wishes an image or quotation or clip to be removed from this blog and/or its individual posts, please send a note with a clear request and explanation to eely84232@mypacks.net and your request will be gladly complied with as quickly as practical.

Featured in Mars in the Movies: A History—The MARS MOVIES of the Wade Williams Collection

All graphics courtesy of wade williams distributor.

For the purposes of this blog post, it so happens that five movies, which are vital and at the very heart of the history of Mars movies, are owned outright by Wade Williams, a Kansas City, Missouri, film buff, film exhibitor, restorer and archivist who has amassed a fantastic collection of old genre films, many of which would have been lost forever if he hadn't decided decades ago to find, restore, and make them available once again. Those five films are listed here (and I am indebted to Mr. Williams for his courtesy and openness).  Please simply click on each poster to access my thoughts and comments on the film, all derived from equivalent chapters of my book, "Mars in the Movies: A History" from McFarland publishers.

(1) DESTINATION MOON (1950)—While of course not a Mars movie in itself, without George Pal's DESTINATION MOON (1950), very few subsequent space movies, including probably all the Mars movies covered in my book and this blog, would have ever been made. 

 

 

(2)  ROCKETSHIP X-M (1950)—This film exists only because a "B-"-movie producer was captivated by the tsunami of promotion and advertising that preceded for many months the release of DESTINATION MOON. The producer, Robert L. Lippert, knew clear as day that if he could get a cheap, quickly-made rocket/space movie into theaters before the Pal film's release, audiences would be confused and pay to see his movie, thinking they were about to see the OTHER movie. Therefore, the two movies are positively linked.

 

 

(3)  FLIGHT TO MARS (1951)—This film was made by Walter Mirisch because the previous two films were more successful than anybody could have ever imagined. It even reuses some central props from ROCKETSHIP X-M.

(4)  INVADERS FROM MARS (1953)—Crafted by the genius production designer William Cameron Menzies, many thousands of young baby-boomers in the U.S. and England were petrified by this movie.  [Truth be told, Menzies was literally responsible for the entire LOOK of GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), which is saying a lot!]

 

 

(5)   DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS (1954)—If approached with an open, non-judgemental mind, this British film is far, FAR better than critical reviews would have you believe.

Formal Notice: All images, quotations, and video/audio clips used in this blog and in its individual posts are used either with permissions from the copyright holders or through exercise of the doctrine of Fair Use as described in U.S. copyright law, or are in the public domain. If any true copyright holder (whether person[s] or organization) wishes an image or quotation or clip to be removed from this blog and/or its individual posts, please send a note with a clear request and explanation to eely84232@mypacks.net and your request will be gladly complied with as quickly as practical.



https://www.amazon.com/Mars-Movies-Thomas-Kent-Miller/dp/0786499141

The Title Sequence of The War of the Worlds (1953)

 

The title sequence of The War of the Worlds (1953) is in my view one of the finest title sequences conceived. Military stenciling flashes repeatedly, hypnotically, in changing colors, fast dissolves, and swipes of various shapes, all against an unchanging black background. In fact the titles clearly were conceived to mimic or reflect the quality of the film's vast, colorful, epic battles.

Following a montage of scratched footage from both World Wars showing the evolution of weaponry, accompanied by a stirring voice-over call to arms by Paul Frees in his most solemn, adamant voice, the Leith Stevens’ impressive martial score begins with a crash and flaring horns as “The War of the Worlds” in red military stencil lettering appears in a smash cut, rising in a mere second to fill the screen; then the lettering changes into green;

This is followed by a circular iris swipe that reveals yellow stenciling “Based on the novel by H.G. Wells”;

Another circular swipe reveals the cast names in green, which then flash yellow rapidly then back to green;

A horizontal swipe from the left reveals in blue stencil “Screenplay by Barré Lyndon”;

Followed by a swipe revealing more blue lettering listing technical crew;

Another vertical swipe from the top reveals pulsating, flashing purple letters with more crew;

Another swipe from the top showing in flashing orange and yellow stenciling the composer and associate producer;

Another swipe with flashing red letters reveal the special effects artists;

Swipe again this time with flashing red and white letters “Produced by George Pal” right into “Directed by Byron Haskin.”

Now that you've read a description in words, please view the real thing. This YouTube.com site with tens of thousands of views is dedicated to presenting the 1953 The War of the Worlds title sequence: 

Formal Notice: All images, quotations, and video/audio clips used in this blog and in its individual posts are used either with permissions from the copyright holders or through exercise of the doctrine of Fair Use as described in U.S. copyright law, or are in the public domain. If any true copyright holder (whether person[s] or organization) wishes an image or quotation or clip to be removed from this blog and/or its individual posts, please send a note with a clear request and explanation to eely84232@mypacks.net and your request will be gladly complied with as quickly as practical.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

The crew adjusts one of the war machines that is hanging over the fabulously detailed and realistic miniature set of mountains in the background and a forest and clearing in the foreground.

H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel had Martians fall to earth in huge hollow meteors with the intention of colonizing the earth through the devastating power of their awesome war machines. The book does not have a plot per se as it is a series of connected war-time incidents. Despite every human effort to fight the Martians, when guns and shells and armies and navies prove impotent, when all seems irrevocably lost, the invaders all die virtually overnight because they had not thought to protect themselves from ordinary terrestrial germs. The 1953 movie has largely the same sequence of events, but they are ordered in a more coherent plot rather than the book’s string of episodes. Other differences are that the locale was changed from Britain in 1898 to Southern California in 1953, the machines’ tripod legs have been replaced with electric beams, and the novel’s nameless protagonist is changed from an inhabitant of the town of Woking, England, looking for his wife to a nuclear scientist searching for the attractive young woman who befriended him only the day before, at the outset of the catastrophe.

In the bottom left corner of this lobby card is the autograph of George Pal (who was my hero for the longest time!): "Best wishes to Tom. George Pal.". I provided the lobby card and he signed it for me during the one time I met him when I accompanied a friend who interviewed Pal in the filmmaker’s home while writing a book.

 .
I’ve watched George Pal’s 1953 production of The War of the Worlds many times—perhaps dozens, at least half a dozen in theaters—and each time I think to myself that I am fortunate, as I’m in the presence of that rarity of rarities—a perfect movie. It is a model of economy. Not one shot is extraneous. There is no padding. The movie opens like gangbusters, and then, from first shot to last, the story builds headlong momentum until the colorful and ironic deus ex machina conclusion. The lavish Technicolor special visual effects were lovingly conceived and perfectly executed by the absolute master in the field. When I say “economy,” I mean as opposed to more recent films that seem intentionally padded, often by as much as 30 minutes or more. For example, as far as I can tell, nearly every summer tent-pole franchise blockbuster of recent years has unnecessarily elongated scenes (though, happily, there a few exceptions).

And when I say above “first shot to last,” I mean from the first frame of film.  To see what I mean, please see the separate post of this blog titled  The Title Sequence of The War of the Worlds (1953)

Within a few minutes after the start of the movie, Dr. Clayton Forrester meets Sylvia Van Buren at the edge of the steaming crater formed by a huge meteorite. Due to the excitement caused by the meteor strike and the fact that the town nestled against the San Gabriel Mountains is a very small community, where everybody knows everybody, and, indeed, where a forest ranger can and does double as a square dance caller, the two “hit it off.” Their relationship never seems strained or artificial. It always seems authentic in the sense that they were thrown together by a catastrophe and shared and survived horrible events, and they simply feel comfortable with one another, as neither has any other like-minded soul to lean on at that moment.

Here, Silvia and Clayton meet (left), later to be thrown into an abyss of horror with only one another to depend on (center), and later, after being separated, with Los Angeles burning and in ruins, Clayton searches for Sylvia, finding her in a church (right).

Special photo juxtapositions by Thomas Kent Miller; copyright © 2016-2017 by Thomas Kent Miller.

 .
Silvia is living in a small town where she knows everybody; she is intelligent and well-educated (probably the best educated person in the town) but unworldly in some ways. He is a self-absorbed scientist whose picture had been on the cover of Time magazine. They meet and at that same moment the world crashes down around them. Me? I agree with Bill Warren, who in both editions of his Keep Watching the Skies!, says, “I like the idea [of Clayton and Sylvia], very much. It humanizes the characters and increases the feeling of desperation important to the story."

The visible wires holding up the war machine.

Each of the three Martian war machine models shown in 1953’s The War of the Worlds was 42-inches across, but so heavy and complicated and filled with all sorts of special effects equipment that they each had to be supported by fifteen piano wires and electric cables connecting to overhead tracks on the studio ceiling. The technical and optical technicians who collaborated to make The War of the Worlds, primarily the director Byron Haskin (one-time special visual effects department head for Warner Bros.) and Gordon Jennings, the supervisor of Paramount Pictures special visual effects, were well aware that the fifteen wires holding up each of the three Martian war machines would be clearly visible under normal lighting conditions if the film was to be black and white.  

For example, in his black-and-white Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956). which involved a multitude of objects moving through the air or falling with the aid of wires, Ray Harryhausen solved this problem by painting out each little bit of wire that appeared as he painstakingly moved his stop-motion models one or two frames at a time. Well in fact, Steve Rubin, in his ground-breaking Cinefantastique making-of "The War of the Worlds" article, quotes Wallace Kelly (effects cameraman) saying, “Naturally, you had to camouflage the wires so they don’t pick up on camera. You simply paint them so they will blend into the background.” Thus, this base was clearly covered during shooting. But this was not the final optimal solution, and could only be minimally effective in a complex color film like The War of the Worlds. The real solution lay elsewhere, and the many top effects experts on the job put their heads together and came up with the solution to create the illusion that the Martian war machines did truly hover effortlessly over the terrain and streets.

For his black-and-white Earth vs. the Flying

Saucers (1956). Ray Harryhausen needed to

animate multiple flying saucers moving

through the air and the falling masonry of

several of Washington, DC’s iconic structures.

He attached wires to everything that would

fly or fall. The wires hung from a stable

support out of the camera range. Then he

would painstakingly move the diving, turning

and crashing saucers and all the falling debris

one frame at a time. In order for the camera not

to see the wires, Harryhausen painted all

the myriad wires whatever the background

color was during each frame of animation.

As you will see later on, it's important to understand how those Academy-Award winning effects were created, specifically how the wires holding up the Martian war machines were removed from the finished film. 1953 was a long time ago, and information about something as obscure as 65-year-old visual effects techniques is not necessarily readily at hand. During my research to determine what exactly the “trick” was that obscured the wires, I contacted 50s sci-fi film expert Bill Warren, 50s film-restorer Wade Williams, and The War of the Worlds authority Justin Humphreys, as well as conducting an Internet search.

So let’s hop in our time machine and travel back to 1952-53. If we conferred with the cinematographer, with the head of effects, the director, and producer George Pal, we would learn that, unlike today, 3-strip Technicolor was the color film stock of choice for major motion pictures because it produced gorgeous very saturated colors (see Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Black Narcissus, Singin’ in the Rain, and Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea).  However, due to the simple fact that the Technicolor process required for every single inch of the finished film three separate strips of film (literally, one strip for each critical color), and that those three strips needed to be perfectly synchronized, and also due to the insanely complex several-step exposure and Technicolor dye-transfer process, the final film, while gorgeous, would be less than optimally clear, that is to say, its image resolution would be somewhat reduced. Your average film-goer would never notice this, of course.

Simplified schematic of the 3-strip Technicolor process from camera to negatives to final film. Though, for commercial reasons, the use of 3-strip Technicolor was common from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, it was nonetheless a difficult and complicated system. According to Smithsonian.com “Making a Technicolor feature film was such a complex undertaking that movie studios were required to hire specially trained Technicolor staff to oversee production. These included color consultants.”

 .
But it was a God-send for the special visual effects crew of The War of the Worlds. This resolution reduction would, in effect, blur the hyper-thin piano wires just enough so that they would not be visible in the final film! Yes, miracle of miracles, special visual effects expert Gordon Jennings and his handy staff were able to magically remove the wires.

Yet, none of this is especially obvious to either those poor souls who don't have ready access to a time machine, or to those other deprived souls who've never had a chance to see The War of the Worlds 65 years ago when it was originally presented in the intended manner.
.

The Martian war machines for the 1953 The War of the Worlds were designed by Paramount Art Director Al Nozaki, who was inspired by the sleek but eerie appearances of both the manta ray and the cobra’s head. Director of Special Effects Gordon Jennings had three large-size models built of copper and roughly 42-inches wide. The fiery blasts were produced with a welding torch and the green disintegration rays were cartoon animation, both optically printed onto the scenes. According to George Pal, 70 percent of the picture’s budget was spent on the effects, which filled more than half the film. The effects won an Academy Award, but, sadly, Jennings died before he could accept the award.

Special photo juxtapositions by Thomas Kent Miller; copyright © 2016-2017 by Thomas Kent Miller.

An excellent trailer for The War of the Worlds (YouTube.com)

The obligatory tie-in pocketbook.

So instead of all audiences being able to enjoy the unsullied movies throughout the decades, in the late 1960s, for reasons of both economy and ease of handling, The War of the World prints were commonly struck (that is, copied) onto the one-strip industrial strength Eastman Color film stock, which was much, much easier to use than Technicolor.  However, Eastman Color had almost no blurring effect and also tended to be brighter with higher resolution than the Technicolor prints. As a result the carefully hidden wires of the 1950s version of the movie suddenly popped into plain sight, so that some late 60s theater audiences laughed out loud. To make matters worse, transferring the Eastman Color prints onto Laserdisc and DVD only accentuated the problem due the discs’ inherent higher-resolution. 
 .

As a result, severe criticism of the visible wires has been for 50 years, and still is, commonplace amongst the critical community today, none of whom, as far as I'm able to find, indicate any awareness that the wires were not visible during the original showings in the 50s. Neither do any indicate any understanding of the change in technology that has resulted in the wires becoming increasingly visible. And they seem hopelessly ignorant that due to progressive transferals of the film onto newer and newer media with no attempt whatsoever to minimize or solve this problem, the wires are clear as crystal on recent DVDs. To make 100% clear my assertions about the critical community being oblivious to the pristine nature of the original film, and how the careless transfers onto a different stock basically wrecked the film—with no professional paying any apparent attention!—I copy below some real quotes from real professional reviewers (and, frankly, it is very hard to align the sheer volume and degree of scorn represented here with any sort of reality). Every one of these respected critics ought to have known from the get-go, without having to be told, that the wires were never visible in the original presentations of this crown-jewel film. Instead, too many have persistently and tediously complained about a nonexistent deficiency:

• Leonard Maltin’s Family Film Guide: “Kids are likely to smirk at some of the special effects (as when the wires holding up the war machines are visible).”

• John Brosnan’s Future Tense: “Unfortunately these wires are often visible on the screen, particularly during the sequence when the war machines first emerge from their crater and engage the army in battle.”

• Phil Hardy’s The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction: “Not all Jennings’ spectacular special effects work well—on their first appearance the Martian war machines have an obvious network of wires surrounding them.”

• John Clute’s and Peter Nicholls’ The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: “The wires holding up the machines are too often visible.”

• Gary Gerani’s Top 100 Sci-Fi Movies: “While those cables holding up the machines are painfully visible, viewers tend to cut pre-digital fx a good deal of slack.”

• C.J Henderson’s The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies: From 1897 to the Present : “Wells’ unique walking tripods are replaced by ordinary spaceship-like designs that move on beams of light. This wouldn’t be so bad if the wires holding them up weren’t visible in many scenes.” (By the way, Mr. Henderson, there is nothing “ordinary” about the manta ray/cobra design of the war machines; these are some of the most unusual yet elegant and beautifully conceived alien machines ever filmed.)

• John Clute’s The Science Fiction Encyclopedia: “The first appearance of the war machines, after an impressive build-up of suspense, is spoilt by the obvious maze of wires supporting each one.”

• Time, Inc.’s Special magazine publication, LIFE—Science Fiction: 100 Years of Great Movies, Vol. 16, No. 9, June 24, 2016: “The movie cost $2 million, and its $1.4 million worth of special effects remains, despite visible wires, impressive even in an age of CGI.”

• Barry Forshaw’s The War of the Worlds (BFI): “[I]t has to do be said that [the use of wires] is one of the most dated elements of the special-effects, as they are all too clearly visible in many sequences of the film.... In British showings of the film (when it was re-released in a curious late-1960s US/UK double bill with Hitchcock’s Psycho [1960]), the more sophisticated audiences of the day chuckled at these antediluvian special-effects.” Note that these British audiences just mentioned happened to catch the movie just at the time when the wires began to be made visible when the first Eastman Color prints of the film were struck in the 1960s.

Here are two reviews by critics who clearly saw and remembered the original Technicolor prints of The War of the Worlds in theaters:

British film authority John Baxter in his truly ground-breaking and universally acclaimed 1970 volume, Science Fiction in the Cinema, does in fact take many predicable potshots at elements of 1953’s The War of the Worlds, yet he also says, “Colorful, cleverly worked out, [The War of the Worlds] ... marked the beginning of a durable collaboration between Pal and director Haskin....Together they have made a series of sf films which for the literal depiction of the fantastic, are hard to fault. No stylist, Haskin brings to his films a stolid realism which is ideally suited to his stories of space exploration and alien worlds. In his hands, the already impeccable special-effects seem even more real.” 
.

In addition, John Stanley said in his Creature Features: The Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Movie Guide, “George Pal’s commendable version of H.G. Wells novel of a Martian invasion— imaginatively depicted in the Oscar winning effects of Gordon Jennings ... unfolds with such compelling swiftness and breathless action that the invasion takes on epic proportions ... the opening prologue is beautifully rendered.... One of the few sci-fi classics of the cinema.

HOWEVER, all that said and done, by 2018 somebody in power FINALLY, miraculously—FINALLY, PRAISE GOD!—restored the film to original 1953 quality!—in UHR 4K even! Be still my heart! Practically speaking, then, this means, the five paragraphs above ARE pretty much MOOT. It only took 50 YEARS, but somebody FINALLY noticed that this priceless crown jewel of a film had severe problems through no fault of its own, and decided to do something about it!

Visual effects expert Robert Skotak, says, “Some theaters in L.A. and New York projected The War of the Worlds at 1.85:1 
with the proper 1.85:1 mask. The ads in newspapers featured the words ‘in widescreen.’” 
This was during the era of CinemaScope and the like.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

USA. Paramount Pictures. Color by Technicolor. Three-channel stereo. 1.37:1/1.85:1. 85m.

CREW: Director Byron Haskin. Producer George Pal. Script Barré Lyndon. Based on the Novel By H.G. Wells. Score Leith Stevens. Assistant Director Michael D. Moore. Director of Photography George Barnes. Technicolor Color Consultant Monroe W. Burbank. Art Directors Albert Nozaki, Hal Pereira. Associate Producer Frank Freeman, Jr. Astronomical Art Chesley Bonestell. Sound Effects Gene Garvin, Harry Lindgren. Special Photographic Effects Gordon Jennings, Wallace Kelley, Paul Lerpae, Ivyl Burks, Jan Domela, Irmin Roberts. Costumes Edith Head. Editor Everett Douglas. Sets Decorators Sam Comer, Emile Kuri.

CAST: Narrators Paul Frees, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Clayton Forrester Gene Barry. Sylvia Van Buren Ann Robinson. General Mann Les Tremayne. Dr. Pryor Robert Cornthwaite. Dr. Bilderbeck Sandro Giglio. Reverand Collins Lewis Martin.

Formal Notice: All images, quotations, and video/audio clips used in this blog and in its individual posts are used either with permissions from the copyright holders or through exercise of the doctrine of Fair Use as described in U.S. copyright law, or are in the public domain. If any true copyright holder (whether person[s] or organization) wishes an image or quotation or clip to be removed from this blog and/or its individual posts, please send a note with a clear request and explanation to eely84232@mypacks.net and your request will be gladly complied with as quickly as practical.