The War of the Worlds (1953)

The War of the Worlds (1953): Produced by George Pal; directed by Byron Haskin; based on the novel by H.G. Wells; [Cast and Crew]: For all its flaws, this adaptation of H.G. Wells' seminal novel of alien invasion is far superior to the Spielberg/Cruise film of a few years back. 

Producer George Pal was a great devotee of science fiction and fantasy, from the earlier Destination: Moon (1950) through The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) all the way to his final production, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975).

Visual effects technology circa 1953 pretty much ensured that the Martian ships would fly rather than walk as tripods, though they do have (mostly) invisible electromagnetic 'legs' that can be seen in a couple of scenes. The focus of action moved from turn-of-the-century England to the Western United States, with the invasion going on world-wide just as in the original.

The movie does an impressive job of ratcheting up the fear as the Martians shrug off all attempts to stop them and stomp all over humanity, and specifically the American war machine. The cast is solid. We even have Gene Barry as a scientist-hero and his love interest has an advanced degree in mathematics. Compare this to Tom Cruise as a lunkhead, deadbeat Dad and one weeps for humanity.

Scenes of a rioting Los Angeles, followed by a burning, depopulated LA, still work really well, as do most of the shots of those pesky Martians incinerating soldiers and weapons and even a trio of ordinary Americans waving a flag of peace. Burn, puny humans, burn!

The design of the aliens themselves is also superior to that in the Spielberg movie, though not faithful to Wells' octopus-like blancmanges. As in Spielberg's movie, the Martians' vampirism has been eliminated (yes, I know the Martians use people for fertilizer in the Cruise movie, but that's still not vampirism). This is a shame. Wells' novel was also an allegory of colonialism, with vampirism as a pretty transparent metaphor for what Europe was doing to all the non-European people of the Earth. Recommended.