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The War of the Worlds (1953)

Director(s) Byron Haskin
Producer(s) Cecil B. DeMille (uncredited), George Pal
Top Genres Action, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller/Suspense
Top Topics Aliens, Book-Based
More Films Directed by Byron Haskin More Films from 1953 More Films from the 1950s Top Classic Movies of the 1950s Top Aliens Films

The War of the Worlds Overview:

The War of the Worlds (1953) was a Action - Horror Film directed by Byron Haskin and produced by Cecil B. DeMille and George Pal.

The film was based on the novel War of the Worlds written by H. G. Wells published in 1898.

SYNOPSIS

H. G. Wells's 1898 novella of Martian invasion terrified radio audiences with Orson Welles's Mercury Theater production (1938) and this film adaptation continues to be a science-fiction favorite. Special-effects maestro Pal set the screen version in the U.S. (just as Welles did) as Martians looking for a new home land in the desert in what appear to be meteors and make a worldwide assault, easily defeating the human weapons, until they encounter a microscopic line of defense. Russian director Sergey Eisenstein was briefly considered for the project!

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

The War of the Worlds was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2011.

Academy Awards 1953 --- Ceremony Number 26 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Film EditingEverett DouglasNominated
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The War of the Worlds BlogHub Articles:

George Pal's Production of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

By Rick29 on Jun 26, 2016 From Classic Film & TV Cafe

The Martian machines and their force fields. H.G. Wells purists may quibble with George Pal's 1953 production of The War of the Worlds. True enough, little remains of the novel's original plot. However, Pal and director Byron Haskin successfully balance the large-scale scope of the Earth's desperat... Read full article

George Pal's Production of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

By Rick29 on Jun 26, 2016 From Classic Film & TV Cafe

The Martian machines and their force fields. H.G. Wells purists may quibble with George Pal's 1953 production of The War of the Worlds. True enough, little remains of the novel's original plot. However, Pal and director Byron Haskin successfully balance the large-scale scope of the Earth's desperat... Read full article

The War of the Worlds (1953) with Gene Barry

By Greg Orypeck on Jan 8, 2014 From Classic Film Freak

Share This! “If they’re mortal, they must have mortal weaknesses. They’ll be stopped, somehow.”——Gene Barry The original version of The War of the Worlds was a product of the horror/science fiction films of the 1950s following World War II and expressing latent fears of the hydrogen bo... Read full article

The War of the Worlds – part 7

By Tom on Jul 22, 2012 From The Old Movie House

The War of the Worlds was filmed on 3-strip Technicolor film. Fantastic attention was paid to every facet of the film with respect to color. However the process was not without its drawbacks. Two strips of 35 mm black and white film negative, one sensitive to blue light and the other to red light, r... Read full article

The War of the Worlds – part 6

By Tom on Jul 20, 2012 From The Old Movie House

In his relentless search for Sylvia and his friends Clayton wanders through the cities endless maze of streets. During his journey Clayton sees, and we see a number of scenes that somehow look familiar. Invaders from Mars and other worlds seem to take great offense at the existence of water towers,... Read full article

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The War of the Worlds Quotes:

Commentary: No one would have believed in the middle of the 20th Century that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than Man's. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsypathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely joined their plans against us. Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries has been in the last status of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. Inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences that which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate.
Commentary: [voiceover] The Martians had no resistance to the bacteria in our atmosphere to which we have long since become immune. Once they had breathed our air, germs, which no longer affect us, began to kill them. The end came swiftly. All over the world, their machines began to stop and fall. After all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved by the littlest things, which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this Earth.
Dr. James: If you're interested in Martian blood, you can get all you want right after the plane drops the bomb.
Commentary: Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries has been in the last status of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. Inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences that which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate. They could not go to Pluto, outermost of all planets. So cold, that even it's atmosphere lies frozen on it's surface. They couldn't go to Neptune, or Uranus. Twin worlds in eternal night and perpetual cold. Both surrounded by an unbreathable atmosphere of methane gas, and ammonia vapor. The Martians considered Saturn, and attractive world with it's many moons and beautiful rings of cosmic dust. But, it's temperature is close to 270 degrees below zero. And ice lies 15,000 miles deep on it's surface. Their nearest world was giant Jupiter, where there are titanic cliffs of lava and ice with hydrogen flaming at the tops, where the atmospheric pressure is terrible. Thousands of pounds to the square inch. Nor could they go to Mercury, nearest planet to the sun. It has no air, and the temperature at it's equator is that of molten lead.
Commentary: The Martians had calculated their descent with amazing perfection and subtlety. As more of their cylinders came from the mysterious depths of space, their war machines, awesome in their power and complexity, created a wave of fear throughout the world.
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The War of the Worlds Facts
Gene Barry and Ann Robinson appeared as the grandparents to the lead characters children at the end of the feature film remake "War of the Worlds" (2005). They were the lead characters in this version of War of the Worlds.
Two of the characters from Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast (portrayed in the film by different actors), Prof. Pearson (the main player in the radio broadcast), and the ill-fated journalist Carl Phillips make brief appearances at the site of the first Martian landing.
A figure of Walter Lantz's character Woody Woodpecker can be glimpsed in the branches of the tree the initial Martian cylinder/meteor flies over. Lantz and George Pal were close friends and Pal always worked a Woody Woodpecker into each of his films.
Cecil B. DeMille was due to direct the film when the rights were originally purchased in 1925, and Alfred Hitchcock was to direct a proposed version in the 1930s.
This is the first motion picture to film on the newly completed Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles known as The Stack. The producers got special permission to drive on it before it opened in 1953.
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