The Day the Earth Stood Still - 1951

<p>An alien envoy lands in Washington with a warning for the entire planet, is shot before he can deliver it, and goes to ground as an ordinary boarder named Mr. Carpenter while an eight-foot robot waits at the ship.</p><p><br></p><p>FILM INFORMATION</p><p>- Director: Robert Wise</p><p>- Screenplay: Edmund H. North, from Harry Bates&#39; 1940 story &quot;Farewell to the Master&quot; (Fox paid Bates $500 for the rights)</p><p>- Stars: Michael Rennie (Klaatu), Patricia Neal (Helen Benson), Hugh Marlowe (Tom Stevens), Sam Jaffe (Prof. Barnhardt), Billy Gray (Bobby), Lock Martin (Gort)</p><p>- Producer: Julian Blaustein | Cinematography: Leo Tover | Editor: William H. Reynolds</p><p>- Music: Bernard Herrmann, his first score after moving to Hollywood</p><p>- 20th Century-Fox | Released September 18, 1951 | 92 minutes | Black and white</p><p>- Budget about $995,000; principal photography April 9 to May 23, 1951</p><p>- Box office about $1.85 million in U.S. and Canadian rentals, 52nd biggest earner of 1951</p><p>- Special Golden Globe for promoting international understanding; Golden Globe nomination for Herrmann&#39;s score</p><p>- National Film Registry (1995); #5 on AFI&#39;s 10 Top 10 science fiction list; 92% on Rotten Tomatoes</p><p><br></p><p>TRIVIA</p><p>- Claude Rains was offered Klaatu but was tied up on Broadway. Zanuck pushed for Spencer Tracy; Wise argued a famous face would sink the illusion, and the little-known Michael Rennie got the only leading role Fox ever gave him.</p><p>- Rennie kept his arms dead at his sides unless walking in full stride, a deliberate choice meant to read as not quite human.</p><p>- Patricia Neal assumed she was making a trashy flying-saucer picture and had trouble getting through &quot;Klaatu barada nikto&quot; with a straight face. She later called it the best science fiction film ever made.</p><p>- Gort was Lock Martin, a seven-foot-seven usher from Grauman&#39;s Chinese Theatre. Too frail to lift anyone, he carried look-alike dummies, and three suits were built so the lacing stayed hidden from any angle.</p><p>- The spaceship was wood, wire and plaster of Paris. Putty packed the door seam so the opening appeared out of nowhere, and the ramp closing is that footage run in reverse.</p><p>- No principal cast member ever traveled to Washington. The Lincoln Memorial and Arlington scenes were played against second-unit background plates.</p><p>- The equations on Barnhardt&#39;s blackboard are real, worked out by UCLA astrophysicist Samuel Herrick from the three-body problem.</p><p>- The Defense Department read the script and declined to cooperate with a film showing the Army firing on a peaceful visitor.</p><p>- North wrote the Christ parallels in privately: the borrowed name Carpenter, the message for all mankind, the death at the hands of authority, the return, the ascent. Censor Joseph Breen forced in the line reserving such power to the Almighty Spirit, over the objections of both writer and director.</p><p>- Herrmann used two theremins, two Hammond organs, four tubas, overdubbing and tape reversal, and fixed the sound of science fiction for a generation. Danny Elfman credits it with making him want to compose.</p><p>- North said &quot;Klaatu barada nikto&quot; simply sounded good. Wise closed his 1997 AFI Lifetime Achievement speech with it.</p><p><br></p><p>CONTACTS</p><p>Fade to Chat: Golden Age Cinema, with Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz</p><p>YouTube: @FadetoChat - please subscribe</p><p>Email: ThePodTalkNetwork@gmail.com</p><p>Network: ThePodTalk.Net</p><p>Spread the word to other Golden Age cinema lovers.</p>