I recently revisited Byron Haskin's 1953 War of the Worlds film adaptation, widely considered one of the best science fiction movies ever and a good contender for my favorite 50s movie. While the movie is somewhat short and doesn't spend a lot of time on most of its scenes, it's still a masterpiece in my opinion. This documentary, made at a time when many people who knew the ins and outs of the film's production were still alive, goes over how this reimagining of HG Wells' classic story of invaders from Mars came to be a Cold War icon. One thing that is talked about is how Paramount actually tried to make a war of the worlds movie all the way back in the 20s when they bought the rights to Wells' book. Legendary director Cecil B DeMille was chosen to make it, but this never went anywhere. Even Hitchcock showed interest at one point, but it's probably a good thing he didn't end up making it since it would probably contain too many comedic moments. Finally, in 1951, Hungarian American producer George Pal proved up to the job, and would go on to do the special effects for the movie as well. The filmmakers wanted to omit the stereotypical look of an alien ship, that of a flying saucer or disc. Art director Albert Nozaki designed one of the most memorable and creepy alien vehicles ever shown in fiction. The Martian war machines consist of a manta ray shaped fuselage with a long, movable metallic "neck" sticking up from the middle, which contains the vehicle's primary weapon: an immensely powerful heat ray that incinerates everything in its path. The machines have a glowing, green-tinted opaque frontal section through which the martians observe the environment, and each wingtip is capable of firing a directed energy weapon the movie calls a skeleton beam, due to its ability to disintegrate any human target or vehicle by breaking apart the molecules that hold matter together on a subatomic level. This film won an Oscar for its effects for a reason, and over 7 decades later, the martian ships are pretty damn scary. The documentary also mentions things that will interest those who were already fans of the original book, and how Pal was unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view) unable to implement some of his ideas. By this, I mean that he originally wanted the martian vehicles to be tripods and walk on 3 legs, like they did in the book. When he tried to adapt this for the film, paramount told him it would be way too expensive to animate that, so he made a compromise: the martian vehicles are supported by some kind of invisible magnetic flux that supports them as they glide forward, meaning they are not actually hovering. Pal also highlights this in the movie, as when we first see one of the machines rise up out of the gulley, it has green rays of electricity shooting out of the bottom. Pal chose to keep the legs invisible for the rest of the movie, as the amount of electricity needed to generate this effect onscreen was extremely dangerous. Surprisingly, dialogue in the movie's script that alludes to the machines being held up by magnetism is actually missing from a late version of the script, which would suggest Pal's decision to make the effect invisible came very late. Probably my favorite anecdote from the documentary is when they talk about George's past, and how he was responsible for making a series of stop motion films called Puppetoons. This is important because in one of them, Pal depicts the Dutch countryside being invaded by a hostile army called the Screwballs. Due to the time period this was made in, they're obviously supposed to represent Nazis. At the end of the film, the hapless protagonist is praying in a bombed out church for a miracle to stop the invasion, after which it begins to rain. The screwballs, being made of metal, all rust, and the country is saved. After seeing this short, it's really hard to not draw comparisons between its ending and the conclusion of war of the worlds; the martians are destroyed and humanity is saved by a tiny thing like germs. Aside from interviews with Gene Barry and Ann Robinson (who played the two leads in the movie), there is a wealth of other things to see in this documentary, including cut footage, and how animation legend Ray Harryhausen was disappointed to be denied permission to work on the movie, but also glad: George was his friend, and he knew he would make a great movie. I would definitely say that he did. Overall, I liked this documentary, as it explores the challenges and successes that were inherent parts of putting together one of the all time greats of sci fi.
