Review of The War of the Worlds (1953) by Stefan G — 29 Nov 2014

A classic "Invaders from Space" 1950s movie, The War of the Worlds is a updated version of the fantastic HG Wells novel that kind of set the scene for this kind of tale. The film does suffer from many of the clichés and prejudices of the era when it was made.

Poor Ann Robinson really suffers most from this as she has little to do other than scream, become hysterical make coffee and hand round unfeasibly large platters of doughnuts to the US Marine Corps as they plot to blow things up.

She does, however, get one stand out scene where she and the square jawed but sadly wooden Gene Barry are trapped in a building when a Martian canister crashes down onto it. As the couple cower in the basement, one of the Martian crew decides to explore and catches Robinson unaware.

This is still a very effective and creepy scene with the alien being well realised. Generally the effects in this film are above parr for similar films of this age. The Martian ships are well done and aided by some very effective and memorable sound effects.

Les Tremayne is suitably earthy as Major General Mann but it has to be said, that the cast is not strong and the direction does little to weave a sense of atmosphere. This is a really fairly simplistic tale and I think it will come as no surprise to anyone these days that it is the germs that win the battle for us and see off the invaders.

Again, the final few scenes are effective and, for the time, brought to the screen well. This movie is widely recognised as an influential and important film in the science fiction genre and actually, despite its flaws, is still highly watchable today.