Battle of the Worlds (1961)

Very Cool!!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Forgettable early 1960s Italian-made space opera -- except for one thing. That one thing is 70-year-old Claude Rains playing a mad scientist. An asteroid that looks remarkably like a real planet and not all like a hunk of rock begins orbiting the Earth and sends out flying saucers that attack our space fleet. Before the military destroys it, a team of astronauts, including Rains, is sent to the asteroid to have a look at what's inside. Mostly, they find miles of suspended plastic tubing. Very talky, but anytime Rains is on-screen, the movie comes to life. His character is as daffy as the mad scientist he played in "The Invisible Man." Special effects are pathetic and the dubbing is typical for an Italian cheapie of the period.

On IMDb, a score of 4.0 is pretty poor, but STILL I think this is wild overrating this film. IL PIANETA DEGLI UOMINI SPENTI ("Battle of the Worlds") is a truly terrible sci-fi film with nothing to recommend it. A small part of the rottenness of this movie isn't the fault of the film makers. The DVD I just watched had one of the worst prints I have ever seen. The color was almost 100% drained out of the film. While there were some patches of the film that had very dull and muted color, other parts looked like the film was originally shot in black & white--it was that faded. However, the ravages of time cannot explain away most of the awfulness that was this film!For some inexplicable reason (it had to be money or they were holding a family member hostage), the well-respected British/American actor Claude Rains was featured in this film. This is pretty sad, as his part in the film was rather annoying and one-dimensional. He played a brilliant professor who seemed to have super-human knowledge and could use calculus to pretty much explain EVERYTHING. In addition, he had the social skills of a hyena and spent most of the film yelling at everyone and acting very, very superior. He didn't play a person, really, but more of a caricature. The plot involves some planet that just shows up in the solar system. Amazingly, no one seemed to spot it until it practically was ready to seemingly collide with the Earth. Now here's the stupid part. When the governments on Earth realize the collision is coming, they don't want to tell anyone because it will cause panic! What part of "giant planet colliding with the Earth" don't they understand?! If this IS inevitable, let the people panic--they're all going to die anyway in a few days! In the meantime, we are treated by lots of ground-breaking special effects such as the space station on Mars as well as the high tech rocket ships. I once saw similar effects--back when I had "Major Matt Mason" toys when I was a kid. I know this dates me, but for those in the 40-50 age range, you probably know what I am talking about here. In other words, these things all looked like very, very cheap toys...at best. Heck, in some cases, you can see the strings on the rockets and the explosions and lasers were so very obviously drawn in later. The folks at studios like American-International or Ed Wood would have laughed at the amateurness of the special effects.In addition to looking craptastic, the plot was amazingly dull and I had a hard time staying awake to see the movie to completion. The movie, in essence, consisted of toys flying about, Claude Rains overacting and embarrassing himself and a plot so amazingly uninteresting I just wanted to see everything collide and end the film...as soon as possible!Dull, dull, dull...and stupid. This one clearly has earned the lowest rating of 1.

Okay-- The Earth is threatened by an Outsider-- a dark world that comes out of the Intergalactic Depths to wreck havoc on the Earth. Attempts to investigate gives rise to a fleet of flying saucer ships that destroy all who approach!! DOOM!!!Yes-- this is 1961! This was not a movie of the Space Age-- but more precisely a Movie from the Age of Outer Space.And despite it being an Italian film, it is quite good, giving a strong nod to the basic lay science of Outer Space as it was known in that bygone era. So forget any descriptions such as 'Spagetti Space Opera'. They don't do justice to this film.For me as a kid in 1968 when I first saw it on TV-- in grainy Black & White -- it was merely an exciting film about space rockets and flying saucers. The dialogue outside of the spaceship scenes was gibberish and mainly ignored. And when I WAS paying attention, my mother kept calling to me from the kitchen to turn off the 'Idiot Box' and demanding if I had finished my homework like I was supposed to. Aaaaaagh!But Now as an adult, I hear the dialogue between "Dr. Benson" and his subordinates and the Council as rich in almost Shakespearean content as you listen to Dr. Benson excoriate his underlings and the Powers-that-Be about the power of calculation over the reliance on machines. "What's the purpose of Life, if you won't Know?" he demands in what seems to be a fit of madness. . . except he really isn't mad- just Misunderstood Genius.So when you watch this movie-- Pay Attention to Dr. Benson. He IS the center of this movie.And try to identify the classical string piece that always starts playing when Dr. Benson hits intellectual revelation!

I've just seen Battle of the Worlds for the first time and is very similar to When Worlds Collide, which was made ten years before this in 1951.A planet is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth and a way is devised to try and stop it. To makes things worse, Earth is attacked by flying saucers from this planet but they are eventually defeated. A party, including Professor Benson then lands on this planet and they manage to blow it up and successfully do so, but with Benson still on there as he refused orders to evacuate. Earth is saved yet again.Battle Of the Worlds tends to be a little talky and slow moving in parts but the flying saucer scenes are OK. Despite it being talky, it is fairly eerie in parts.This features a good performance from Claude Rains (The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, The Lost World) as Professor Benson but he is the only star I've heard of in the cast.To sum up, an average movie but not brilliant.Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5.