Of all the 1950s science fiction films, this one is arguably the most profound, the least typical, and the most liberal. It involves an alien arriving on Earth, but he is not hostile, despite the knee-jerk fears of the military who thinks he must be something dangerous and to be destroyed. Ultimately it’s about humanity, and whether we can mature, overcoming our tribal differences, sufficiently to be worthy of membership into some kind of interstellar community. (Still, for all its high-mindedness, it is not without a few points of naivete about how things work. But they are pretty minor.)
[Draft. I’ll do another pass and fill in/correct details.]
Gist
A peaceful alien with a powerful robot companion comes to Earth to delivery a message: Earth needs to clean up its act, and join the galactic union, or face destruction.
Take
Perhaps the best of the 1950s science fiction, it challenges the notion that aliens are hostile and must be destroyed, and turns its attention to humans and human nature, and what it would take for humanity to join an alliance of other peaceful alien races.
Summary
- The score is by Bernard Hermann, and begins immediately with the familiar theremin theme, a theme that’s been used many times in subsequent films and TV shows. We see credits over nebula starscapes. The film is based on a short story by Harry Bates, “Farewell to the Master,” published in a science fiction magazine in 1940. Here’s a YouTube clip of the opening credits and music: — which is followed by other clips from the film.
- Background shifts to high-altitude views of clouds over the Earth, impressive for 1951. Director is Robert Wise, who later did The Sound of Music and the first Star Trek film, among many others.
Act One (so to speak; I’m interpolating these act divisions)
- As some other movies of this ilk begin, this one begins with military guys in T-shirts spotting something on their radar. A bogey. Moving incredibly fast — 400 miles per hour! Streaking around the globe.
- The news gets quickly out, and we see a montage of scenes in India, Britain, and US, of people hearing the news. Then: crowds in Washington DC, as the bogey slows and people spot it in the sky, a big blob of light. It descends into a baseball diamond in the Mall, as people flee.
- Another montage: police cars and even tanks converge on the scene, and news reporters do as well. Already there are rumors that have to be disabused. Troops line up in a big cordon, to keep the crowds away from the ship — a saucer, almost featureless, with a dome in the center; perhaps 100 feet in diameter.
- As everyone watches, a ramp extends from the base of the saucer, then a slit opens into a door. A humanoid with a globular helmet emerges, and announces (in English) that he is visiting in peace. He reaches into his shirt, and pulls out an odd device, which springs open. An nervous army man shoots him. [[ So we do get a taste of the xenophoboc response of humans to anything new and unfamiliar; but unlike some other films, this one moves past that. ]]
- And then a robot emerges — a tall humanoid with smooth metal skin, and a helmet that opens slightly, through which a beam of light emerges to hit the rifles the soldiers are carrying, and makes them disappear, and then the tanks, and the artillary…
- The man speaks to the robot, using alien words, then turns to the human crowd. He tells them, the device was meant as a gift for your leader, for the study of life on the other planets.
Act Two
- The man, who calls himself Klaatu (not Mr. Klaatu), is taken to Walter Reed hospital, where the president’s secretary, a Mr. Harley, visits him. Klaatu explains that he’s spent 5 months on his trip, coming 250 million miles from another planet. [[ what other planet? There’s nothing 250 million miles away exactly… ]] He has a message for Earth, but must discuss it with representative from all Earth. Harley is skeptical such a meeting can be arranged. Klaatu insists. The future of Earth is at stake, he says.
- Meanwhile the robot hasn’t moved, still standing outside the spaceship. Soldiers are trying to drill into the hull, and can’t.
- Doctors do an x-ray on Klaatu, and are amazed. His people’s medicine is obviously highly advanced. His bullet wound is already healed! (And then the two doctors pull out cigarettes and light up.)
- Harley visits, and reads some replies from world leaders rejecting the notion of a meeting. As he leaves, he locks the door of Klaatu’s room.
- Later the room is found empty, and alarms go out, reporting that the alien is at loose. Bring the children inside!
Act Three
- Klaatu, now in a typical men’s suit and carrying a suitcase (somehow he snagged a dry cleaner’s receipt), walks along a DC street, at night. He spots a sign for a “room for rent” at a boarding house, and enters. The residents there are watching TV, hearing speculation about whether the creature is from Mars or Venus. Klaatu asks about the room, and says his name is Carpenter. [[ just one of many rather obvious allusions to the Jesus story. ]] One the residents, Helen Benson (played by Patricia Neal) welcomes him, and introduces her son Bobby.
- Sunday morning Klaatu joins the others as the radio reports salacious rumors. The news reports something about a Professor Barnhardt. K meets Helen’s boyfriend Tom Stevens. Since they seem to have plans, K offers to take care of Bobby for the day.
- Bobby takes Klaatu to Arlington National Cemetery, where Klaatu doesn’t understand why so many have died; in his world, there are no wars. They try to go to the movies, but they have no money. Klaatu produces a handful of diamonds. At the Lincoln Memorial, Klaatu is impressed by the great words on that monument. He wonders who the greatest living person is, and Bobby tells him, Professor Barnhart!
- They shortly arrive at Barnhardt’s house. He’s not at home, but through a window Klaatu sees his chalkboard, full of equations. They go inside, and K amends the blackboard, as a ‘calling card.’ When a housekeeper interrupts, he leaves his address and asks that Barnhardt get in touch with him.
- Soon enough a government official comes to take Klaatu to see Professor Barnhardt. Klaatu claims to speak from one planet to another. “It isn’t faith that makes good science, it’s curiosity.” Klaatu wants to explain his mission, about the threat to other planets. If that can’t be arranged, he can take some kind of drastic action to alert the people of the Earth of this threat. If he fails, Earth will be ‘eliminated.’ It will be a demonstration, not of force; he’ll think of something.
- Back at the boarding house, Helen (Patricia O’Neal) warns Bobby not to see so much of Mr. Carpenter. Bobby goes to his room to play with his train set. Klaatu, Mr. Carpenter, steps in to borrow a flashlight.
- Outside, Klaatu goes down the street (as Bobby follows, unseen by K). Near the spaceship, Klaatu uses the flashlight to send some kind of message to the robot, Gort. (Bobby, watching, his reactions, are part of the great effect…….) The robot responds, stepping forward to knock out two sentries. Klaatu gives him a message: “Gort: Berena!” then enters the ship up that ramp.
- We see inside the ship: Klaatu walking into a control room, speaking to someone via a screen.
- Bobby goes home, and when his mother and boyfriend get home, tries to tell them what happened. They dismiss it as a dream — until the boyfriends find a diamond, and sees that Bobby’s shoes are wet.
Act Four
- Klaatu shows up at Helen’s workplace, and asks if she believed Bobby. They leave the building down an elevator — but abruptly the elevator stops. It’s 12 p.m. exactly. This is the time all electricity in the world has been neutralized. This is his big demonstration.
- And so we see a montage of worldwide scenes, cities in which all traffic is at a standstill: Times Square, London, Paris, Moscow. A newsroom disabled, trains stopped, a laundromat disabled, a fishing boat stopped, a factory floor frozen.
- Barnhardt, watching, is impressed. There have been exceptions to the power outage: planes in flight; hospitals.
- M/w boyfriend tries to sell the diamond, and is told there’s nothing like it.
- In the elevator, Klaatu explains to Helen, until the power abruptly comes back on, at 12:30 p.m.
- Shortly there’s a defense department meeting, in which it is determined they must get that man.
- Tom shows up at Helen’s; she tries to explain that K is not a menace, but Tom is concerned only about himself; he calls the General and urges him to capture Klaatu.
- Helen takes a taxi to the spaceship… K advises her that Gort could destroy the Earth, and if anything happens to him, Klaatu, she should say to Gor: Klaatu boradu nikto.
- As they exit the taxi, Klaatu is shot in the back by the military. He urges Helen to get the message to Gort.
Act Five
- Gort, having been sealed in a block of plastic, dissolves it, and revives. It zaps two soldiers. Helen shows up, nervously approaching, as the robot approaches her, cornering her, opening its visor…. she screams, then manages to say the phrase: “Klaatu borada nikto.”
- Gort calms, picks her up, and carries her inside the spaceship.
- Gort finds the cell where the dead Klaatu lays, breaks through the wall, and carries Klaatu’s body away, back into the ship, and onto a table.
- Meanwhile, Professor Barnhardt has arranged a meeting outside the spaceship for all the people he can get to hear Klaatu’s message. But now he calls it off…
- While inside, a humming noise revives Klaatu, and he becomes alive again. Helen in aghast; does the robot have the power of life and death? No, Klaatu assures her, “that power is reserved for the Almighty Spirit.” (This line was inserted at the behest of the studio, careful not to offend those with religious scruples.) And, this restoration is for a limited period. (Of course, this ‘resurrection’ is another parallel between the Klaatu story and the Jesus story.)
- Outside, as Barnhardt speaks, the robot emerges, along with Klaatu and Helen. Klaatu speaks to the crowd, about aggression, “we of the other planets,” the elimination of aggression, and how they developed a police force — the robots, like Gort — to enforce acts of aggression. He warns Earth that if they continue its violence, the Earth will become a cinder. So: clean up your act, join us, or face obliteration.
- Klaatu waves farewell to Helen, goes back inside his ship. The ship takes off, becomes a blob in space, and the movie is over.
Here’s is Klaatu’s final speech, which can be easily found via Google.
I am leaving soon and you’ll forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure. Now this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. A t the first signs of violence they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is we live in peace without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war, free to pursue more profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.
And at this point the movie is over; we really have no clue which path humanity might choose. But we can note here over 60 years later the central issue remains the same.
Wikipedia’s entry for this film is here.
The Harry Bates story was well received at the time — it was reprinted in many anthologies — yet remains known today only for its inspiration for this film. I have never read it — but I have gathered that the movie compromised the story’s central point. In the story, the robots were the masters, not the servants.
