Movies - The Day the Earth Stood Still

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	Movies - The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 science fiction film which tells the story of a humanoid spaceman who comes to Earth to convince its leaders to learn how to live in peace.

It stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Frances Bavier, and Lock Martin. The movie was adapted by Edmund H. North from the story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates, and directed by Robert Wise. The score was written by Bernard Herrmann and is notable for its use of a theremin.

Synopsis

Klaatu (Rennie) arrives in a flying saucer on The Ellipse in Washington, DC, wearing a silver spacesuit and helmet and accompanied by a large humanoid robot called Gort (Martin). As Klaatu exits the saucer, he is welcomed not by politicians but by soldiers. Klaatu says he comes in peace, with a mission of goodwill; he holds and activates a small device which opens with a snap: before he can explain, he is shot by a soldier who assumes the device is a weapon. In response to the shooting, the robot Gort activates and makes all weapons evaporate, from sidearms to artillery and tanks, without obvious harm to the soldiers present.

In this short opening scene we see developed one of the film's central themes, the human tendency to rush to violence when confronted by the unknown. The mysterious device proves to be benign: as it lies broken on the ground, Klaatu describes it to another soldier as a "gift for your President...with it he could have studied life on the other planets."

First Contact

After being shot by a trigger-happy soldier, Klaatu is taken to Walter Reed Hospital, where he quickly recovers. The Army surgeons discuss Klaatu's physiology, his rapid recovery, and speculate on the superiority of extraterrestrial medicine.

The secretary to the President of the United States, Mr. Harley, played by Frank Conroy, visits Klaatu in his hospital room in the first of two meetings. Although we know Klaatu is roughly humanoid in appearance, we have not seen his face, and Mr. Harley's first lines to Klaatu are spoken with Klaatu either seen from behind or in deep shadow. Soon it is revealed that Klaatu presents the appearance of a handsome (if gaunt) and well-spoken man.

Using Mr. Harley as his liaison, Klaatu fails to convince the humans to organize a meeting of world leaders, where he wants to present to them an important message that "all humans" have to hear. The United Nations is cited as a largely defunct and irrelevant organization, whose members cannot agree even on a meeting place for the historic occasion of the first contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence. "I'm impatient when I encounter stupidity. My people have learned to live without it," Klaatu says to the Secretary, upon hearing of the world leaders' infighting. "My people haven't," says Mr. Harley. "I'm very sorry. I wish it were otherwise."

Gazing down from the third-floor hospital window at people walking in the military hospital's courtyard, Klaatu muses aloud to Mr. Harley that perhaps he (Klaatu) would profit if he were to move among ordinary people and get to know them better. Mr. Harley rebuffs Klaatu, informing him that he is essentially a prisoner in his hospital room. Upon Mr. Harley's leaving, Klaatu hears the rattle of the door being locked. Klaatu smiles bemusedly.

The Boarding House

Klaatu escapes from the hospital and decides to meet a typical human family. He applies at a boarding house on Harvard Street, and meets a family and other guests there, who are riveted to a television news special on the escape of the space man. He tells them that his name is "Carpenter," taking the name from a laundry label on a suit he has presumably taken from Walter Reed Hospital. Two of the residents of the house are an employee of the United States Department of Commerce, Helen Benson (Neal), and her son Bobby (Gray). Helen is a widow of World War II, whose husband (Bobby's father) was killed at Anzio.

The next morning, Klaatu, as "Carpenter", listens to the paranoid breakfast-table banter among the boarding house residents, who are convinced that the space ship is the work of the Soviets, or Democrats, or some other real or imagined enemy of the Cold War. When asked by one resident what he thinks about the desires of the "spaceman," Klaatu (who is the spaceman) replies, "I must admit, I'm a little confused."

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Movies - The Day the Earth Stood Still

Synopsis

First Contact

The Boarding House

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