241. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Running Time: 92 minutes
Directed By: Robert Wise
Written By: Harry Bates, Edmund H. North, from the story Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates
Main Cast: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe
Click here to view the trailer

WISE WEEK: PART 3

A frequent commenter here on the blog, Ray, took a shot in the dark and predicted that I wouldn't care too much for "The Day the Earth Stood Still". In fact, the shot he took wasn't that much in the dark. I haven't been silent about my dislike toward the sci-fi genre and I really didn't expect to like this one too much either. But every once in a while, a sci-fi movie surprises me and this is one of those instances.

When the film starts, many different nations around the World are tracking a unidentified flying object (UFO), that is traveling at unearthly speeds. It doesn't take too much screen time for the saucer to finally make a landing in Washington D.C. and make it clear that this is indeed an alien spacecraft. When the door's open, out steps Klaatu (Rennie), seemingly a human being, but proclaiming to be from another planet. He is shot by a trigger happy soldier and transported to Walter Reed Hospital. Later, Klaatu makes it known that he has an important message for the entire planet of Earth and that it is necessary for him to speak to the heads of every nation. He is informed, by the Chief of Staff, that his request is impossible, due to the rising tensions in the World. Klaatu eventually escapes from the hospital and takes refuge in a boarding house, populated by a handful of guests, including Helen Benson (Neal) and her young son Bobby (Gray). Klaatu and Bobby get along wonderfully and eventually Bobby leads Klaatu to Professor Barnhardt (Jaffe), whom Klaatu sees as a wise man, who might understand his important message. Eventually the message from Klaatu becomes evident: The people of Earth will eventually begin to travel to other planets and possibly inhabit them. Since the people of Earth seem to rely so heavily on war, if they travel to other planets, alien life fear for the peace that they have been able to sustain.

I think there were equal parts of good and bad in "The Day the Earth Stood Still", but that the good was good enough to make this film worthwhile, while the bad was just nitpicky stuff. The film obviously promotes a strong anti-war message, but for me there were other messages hidden within the contents of this movie. The anti-war message is obviously a good one, because lets face it - no one likes war. Anytime you can slip that message into popular culture, like movies and television and do it cleverly enough, that's a good thing. When you take that message and you spin it together with an alien story, it becomes really interesting and you suddenly have a lot of things to think about when the film ends. There's also, in my opinion, a very clear message of racial prejudices here. When Klaatu (an alien being) arrives in Washington D.C., everyone is quick to label him as a danger and fear him, simply because he's different. It kind of mimics the day to day, social prejudices that we always hear about - people fearing/disliking men of different color, religion, ethnicity or even because they have different sexual preferences. The film also took an early jab at the media and how they have a tendency to overblow certain situations and stories. Bottom line is that the film makes a lot of bold statements and at a time when bold statements weren't so cliche.

SPOILER ALERT!

Aside from the symbolism and themes of "The Day the Earth Stood Still", lets talk about the character of Klaatu and the performance of Michael Rennie. I thought Rennie was excellent, while at the same time couldn't quite get a grasp on the actual character of Klaatu. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be able to get a grasp on this guy, because he WAS an alien and maybe we just weren't supposed to be able to relate to him. In fact, none of the characters in the film are very relateable and the film really just tells us a story, without ever letting us get really close to anybody. The other downfall of the picture is the ending, which was basically non-existent. Nothing is ever really solved and Klaatu leaves Earth not really knowing if his mission was a failure or a success. I don't think the speech at the end of the film was really quite as powerful as the filmmaker's intended and it really didn't work out as a climax at all, but simply a decent little piece of dialogue. I also didn't like how the relationship between Billy and Klaatu is never really finalized and the film ends with Klaatu leaving and with Billy left hanging, never knowing if his temporary hero had good or bad intentions.

I often talk about movies being too long or certain pictures that could have said what they needed to say in half the time they took to say it. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was one that I could have endured for double it's running time. If you had stretched the film out to epic length, fleshed out the story and the characters a little more, I think this could've really been a mind-blowing piece of sci-fi, film history. However, as it is, the story was good enough to pull me out of the slump I've been in and the cast, most notably Michael Rennie, turned in good enough performances. I enjoyed the messages that this film preached, without the film coming off as preachy or simply a vehicle to talk about how bad war is. And hey, I'm just glad they didn't venture into a side story of a romance between Helen and Klaatu. That would've been disastrous and at times, it seemed like they were flirting with it.

RATING: 7/10 Maybe that's just me being generous, but it seems fair at the moment. I'll revisit this one at RECAP time and we'll see what happens to the rating then. "Wise Week" will conclude with "The Sound of Music", but don't expect that one until at least Monday night. Expect randomness till then, if anything at all.

MOVIES WATCHED: 363
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 638

December 9, 2011 6:03pm