Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

Frustratingly, my connection on satellite cut out at the end while revisiting this Katzman production of director Fred Sears' Harryhausen effects showcase sci-fi cult classic from the great 50s era. On Sony Movie Channel, I did notice this coming on and wanted to watch it again. I have always considered this decade of sci-fi perfect popcorn summer fun, but I can actually watch them anytime of the year. It wasn't too long ago that I watched "It Came From Outer Space", but this one paints the visitors from a dying solar system as colonizers in dangerous saucers, equipped with substantial laser power that disintegrate humans to ash and explode buildings and vehicles on impact. So a lot of shit goes KABOOM! Harryhausen's saucers, with the little satellite that protrudes and fires a targeting death ray, are spinning stop motion dynamos. Clearly this film, despite its budget limits, is highly influential. 3/5

After his rockets (meant for exploration in space) are shot down ("Operation Sky Hook") and a flying saucer flies over his car while on the way to the factory/facility launching them, scientist, Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) is actually "contacted" by an alien race escaping a solar system that disintegrated. While recording data regarding his rocket program onto audio tapes, the saucer actually communicates to Marvin about a meeting between their race and his own at Sky Hook, but their dialogue is little more than gibberish until the tapes are slowed down (due to slow battery death). Because of not being able to understand the dialogue, Sky Hook security fires upon the flying saucer that appears, with return retaliation resulting in a laser that obliterates them. Sky Hook also is lasered into incapacitation. Later, Marvin is able to communicate with the race (his father-in-law, General John Hanley (Morris Ankrum) is taken prisoner, with his brain "raped" of all knowledge it entailed), and a meeting arranged (which will include his secretary/wife (Joan Taylor), a military colleague (Donald Curtis), and a cop who follow behind him, hoping to stop him) who want him to get with all the world's leaders in order to let them understand why they are hovering all over the planet earth. With a timetable, Marvin prepares an "interference device", hoping that if they need to use a weapon, it will be one that can incapacitate the race's saucers. When "spying machines" are noticed in the building, studying Marvin and his team's work, this sets off a chain of events that could be irreparable, as a flying saucer overhead attacks them. A stern warning to all races that the aliens would cause atmospheric disturbances through the disruption of the sun, and in doing so, weather misbehaviors wreak havoc on the planet. Can Marvin and his scientific/military team design devices that can stop them before total takeover or annihilation?

Simply plotted (but not dumb which is always nice) sci-fi "watch the skies" B-movie is one of the best of its kind thanks to superior Ray Harryhausen special effects. The saucers are iconically designed, and the movements of them are a thing of beauty, as are the little satellite-formed lasers that emit a powerful charge that explode or disintegrate. The descent upon Washington, and the destruction caused by the alien saucers and the interference devices created by Marvin and his team which down them, is pure razzle-dazzle movie magic. This is often mentioned in the same breath at War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still…and should be. Although this eventually takes the familiar route of "stop them before they destroy us", there were signs in the beginning that the aliens might want peaceful co-existence (even if they use violence and drain brain knowledge without much thought of what these acts mean in terms of their inhumanity (although us shooting at them as soon as they land on Sky Hook could be viewed the same)) but once a destroyer is wiped out, planes are destroyed, and the wilderness and secret interference machine facility are leveled, the repercussions lead to all out war. While the plotting looks at the finale as a means to an end, the Harryhausen work sufficiently closes the film with quite the wow. There's the typical earnestness in the performances (these guys were professionals who realized how Hollywood generally snarled in snobbish fashion at these movies but all the same they were serious in their acting), and the characters are mostly suits and military, with scientists, no surprise, turning out to be the ultimate heroes.