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Earth
vs. the Flying Saucers
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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6
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7 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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This
early Ray Harryhausen pic, which certainly served
as direct inspiration for Independence
Day and Mars Attacks!,
was no doubt pretty spectacular for its time.
Terribly dated now, it falls prey to all the faux
pas common to sci-fi cinema of the '50s, yet remains
an essential —
and thoroughly entertaining —
representative of genre flicks of that bygone
era. Anyone pushing 40 (or older) who saw this
on TV as a kid will never forget the film's slam-bang
climax, which features alien spacecraft reducing
Washington D.C.'s most famous landmarks to rubble.
Mankind needn't have worried, though... An Earth
victory was pretty much a given. After all, how
could humanity be defeated by a race of beings
without elbows? Just like the knee-less mechanical
monster in Robot vs. the
Aztec Mummy, the bad guys here ultimately
don't stand a chance. They do manage to thoroughly
trash the place, however.
The bland and wooden Hugh Marlowe stars as
Dr. Russell Marvin, a top scientist in America's
space program. (I'd have loved to have seen Peter
Graves in this role.) He's in charge of Project
Skyhook, an operation launching a series of satellites
into Earth orbit. He and his new bride Carol (20
Million Miles To Earth's Joan Taylor) are
still basking in the afterglow of their honeymoon
as they drive back to the Skyhook base in the
California desert, when their car is buzzed by
a huge, low-flying UFO. Only later does Marvin
realize that the aliens were trying to give him
a message, warning of an imminent attack on our
world unless global leaders meet to parley with
the E.T.s. By then it's too late —
the Skyhook base is destroyed by a death ray-equipped
saucer; Carol's dad, an important Army general
(Beginning of the End's
Morris Ankrum), is captured by aliens dressed
in some kind of weird armor. Marvin and his wife
are the only survivors of the catastrophe.
The government assembles a crack team of scientists
under Marvin to find some kind of countermeasure
to the invaders' superior technology. They're
close to an answer when the aliens (unforgettably
voiced by Paul Frees) announce to the world that
they're here and mean business. Soon a full-scale
saucer assault is underway... Conventional military
forces are virtually helpless against them. Can
Marvin's team develop a weapon powerful enough
to save humanity from extraterrestrial enslavement?
Earth vs. the Flying
Saucers is enjoyable, old-fashioned hokum
in the best sense of the word. You definitely
know you're in for a fun time - whether or not
the movie's actually any good —
if it's a black and white sci-fi pic with both
Morris Ankrum and Thomas B. Henry (also in Beginning
of
the End) playing
military types. Harryhausen's saucers provide
plenty of action, particularly in the third act,
via special effects that are still pretty cool
nearly 50 years on. The film's main problems are
its dull, boring leads and the occasionally poor
matching of stock footage, issues it shares with
a lot of genre pics of the era. (The movie
opens with air force footage of a fighter jet
in flight —
using the sound effect of a propeller-driven
plane; I was amused when a B-29 Superfortress
bomber magically morphed into a B-17 as it's shot
down by an enemy saucer.)
Quibbles aside, one can still enjoy the interesting
designs of the alien ships and technology, notably
the cavernous saucer interior set and the armored
suits worn by the E.T.s (even if they do lack
elbows). Harryhausen's stop-motion flying saucers
certainly exhibit more animation than the actors.
The devastating attack on Washington D.C. during
the climax is genuinely exciting. It's a significant
achievement, really, considering the film's extremely
low budget. Thanks to Harryhausen's optical wizardry,
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
holds up surprisingly well in comparison to that
all-time classic of '50s alien invasion, George
Pal's much more expensive War
of
the Worlds.
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As
far as A/V quality, Earth
vs.
the Flying Saucers doesn't fare as well as
the other recent additions to Columbia's Ray
Harryhausen Signature Collection, 20
Million Miles To Earth and First
Men in the Moon. The DVD still looks and sounds
markedly superior to previous VHS editions. Those
who've already purchased earlier Columbia-Harryhausen
DVDs will be disappointed with the extras provided.
The same documentary featured on a number of them,
The Harryhausen Chronicles, is offered here.
Narrated by Leonard Nimoy, it's a worthwhile retrospective
of the effects maestro's career, but I've already
seen it before — a bunch of times. Ditto for the
This Is Dynamation featurette, a short promo
reel for 7th
Voyage of Sinbad. Three theatrical trailers
are also included: one for the main feature, along
with First Men in the Moon
and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver.
Particular to this disc is a step-through photo
gallery of promotional stills/poster art and an
on-camera interview of Ray Harryhausen by director
Joe Dante (The Howling),
which looks like it took place sometime in the late
'80s or early '90s. The discussion's fairly interesting;
Dante is obviously a big fan of the
movie.
EC's DVD rating of '7' for the disc is conditional
on not owning any of the other Harryhausen
DVDs from Columbia-TriStar. Otherwise, it's a '6'.
It does shortchange collectors to keep recycling
the same old extras. 10/07/02 |
| UPDATE
On January 15, 2008 Columbia is releasing a 2-disc
special edition of EVTFS,
which features both B&W and colorized versions
of the film plus new bonus features (including an
audio commentary with Harryhausen, featurettes,
and more). |
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