Movies - #1605 - The Day The Earth Stood Still

Good lord, I do enjoy 1950s sci-fi and monster movies. This is an outstanding example of the genre. It's immensely entertaining, and a lot smarter than some others (IE. Them). It's actually unusual in some ways.

Actually, the poster above makes it look like a different movie than it is. There are no half nude screaming blondes (much as we would like there to be.) Sure, that big robot is pretty intimidating, but it doesn't really do any rampaging, and it's under the control of the alien, who is actually the hero of the piece. The bad guys are the military and government bureaucrats.

Michel Rennie is excellent as the alien. He doesn't over-act it as you might expect from the cast of a 50s sci-fi movie. There are even a few very impressive, very subtle choices. There is one particularly good scene where he comes across a music box in another character's home. Him looking and the music box is incidental to what is taking place in the scene, but his momentary reaction to the discovery of this cute device, a thing of beauty in a world that has thus far seemed mostly ignorant and warlike, is the sort of moment I love to see an actor put into a performance.

I thought Leslie Nielsen was in this movie. I don't know why I thought Leslie Nielsen was in this movie. Leslie Nielsen is not in this movie. The whole movie happened and no Leslie Nielsen. Leslie Nielsen is in Forbidden Planet, though. That's probably what I was thinking of. You know, because they're both mentioned in that song in Rocky Horror. Yeah. That's probably it. Yup.

And then there's the monologue at the end. This was back in that period where, if a movie had an important political message, a character had to give a big monologue at the end. It's a pretty damn good monologue. It sure made me want to stop having a cold war. And nuclear weapons.

Also, as somebody who's into some fairly nerdy things (video games and Army of Darkness) it's nice to see the movie from whence originally came the phrase "Klaatu Barada Nikto". If you've seen Army of Darkness, you totally get where I'm coming from on this.