Review of The War of the Worlds (1953) by Danny R — 16 Jan 2012

Prolific genre pioneer George Pal produced this vivid and compelling classic film adaptation of H.G. Wells's novel about an Martian invasion of the Earth. It begins with a meteorite coming down just outside a small Southern California town, out of the meteor a gigantic menacing manta-ray like Martian war machine rises hovering in mid-air and begins its deadly attack by vaporizing three men at the meteor crash site.

Dr.Clayton Forrester, played superbly by Gene Barry from the Pacific Tech institute who was camping near by has been called upon to investigate the down meteor; when he arrives at the site with the police, the Martian war machine attacks the police patrol car after Dr.

Clayton and the Police Captain duck for cover, the driver and the car are destroyed, Dr. Clayton tells the Police captain to contact the military at once. When the Marines arrive they completely surround the three Martian war machines that has come out of the meteor: they try an offense strike against them with artillery, mortal fire and missiles but nothing works; it seems the each of the machines have a force field, a protective blister that makes them invincible to any weapon including the atomic bomb which they try using on them to stop the machines from destroying Los Angeles to no success; it looks like only a miracle can now save humankind! Astute direction by Byron Haskin with solid performances from Ann Robinson, Les Tremyne, Lewis Martin, Robert Comthwaite and Sandro Giglio.

but the real star of this film are its dazzling groundbreaking Oscar-winning visual effects, rarely does a motion picture from another era still hold up today; but this film was a technological achievement in effects for its day, before blue screen or CGI it raised the bar and not until Douglas Trumbull's legendary work on 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 did that bar take another great step forward.

A landmark in science fiction, a must see! Highly Recommended.