It Came from Outer Space! 1950's Sci- Fi Films

What transformed science fiction from niche fantasy serials into a dominant cultural force? The answer lies in the atomic anxieties of post-World War II America. The mushroom cloud hanging over our collective consciousness created fertile ground for stories about invasion, destruction, and otherworldly threats.

Diving into four quintessential films—The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, and The Blob—we uncover how each reflected different facets of Cold War paranoia while establishing visual language and narrative conventions that would define the genre for decades. From authoritarian space messengers to monsters from the id, these films weren't just entertainment; they were processing cultural trauma through fantastical allegory.

The conversation reveals surprising insights about these classics. Did you know The Day the Earth Stood Still's seemingly progressive message masks a surprisingly fascistic ultimatum? Or that Forbidden Planet's groundbreaking visuals and electronic score directly shaped Star Trek's entire aesthetic universe? We explore how War of the Worlds brought H.G. Wells' Victorian invasion tale into contemporary America with spectacular effect, while The Blob captured teenage alienation by literally making adults the last to understand the threat.

What makes these films endure isn't just nostalgia—it's their perfect crystallization of human fears dressed in alien packaging. Whether reflecting right-wing anxieties about outside invasion or left-wing concerns about internal destruction, they created a template for using science fiction as cultural commentary that continues today.

Ready to rediscover these influential classics or experience them for the first time? Subscribe to our podcast for more deep dives into cinema's most fascinating genres and eras. Leave a review to help other film enthusiasts find our discussions!

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:10

let's go ahead and kick it off and let's talk about 1950s science fiction and the four films we chose well, I think a good way to what part of the research that I did for this, uh, for this discussion, is there's a great reference book, and actually it's two books. It's like the encyclopedia or the bible of 1950s sci-fi and it's this keep watching the skies and it is the american science fiction movies of the 50s. It's written by a guy named bill warren. This is a through k and the other volume has the rest of it, so this literally has every movie that is science fiction from the 50s and including the early 60s as well. I believe it goes to 62.

Speaker 2 0:50

And this book has every piece of information that you would want to or not want to know about every sci-fi movie or sci-fi adjacent movie in the 50s. So I think it's very interesting to look back and see what was science fiction like in the 30s and 40s and before the, you know, before the 50s, because we often attribute the 50s as being like the golden age of sci fi. And were there really even science fiction movies before that? Well, yes, but not in the way that we think about it in terms of modern day genre and certainly not in terms of the movies that we're going to be talking about today. So I mean, for instance, if I asked you to think about a science, science fiction movie from the thirties or forties, what would? What would you even think of?

Speaker 1 1:35

I mean, I just actually got to go see Fritz Lang's Metropolis in the theater with a live synth orchestra and band. It was amazing.

Speaker 2 1:44

That's definitely a science fiction film, but I mean the list is not exactly plentiful exactly, or you would think about maybe something that was definitely more fantasy oriented, like flash gordon, for instance. That would be a good example of sci-fi from from the 30s. Metropolis is a great example as well. But I think obviously the introduction of atomic weapons, atomic nuclear power in World War II and then all of the social anxiety and political tensions that arose from that gave birth to the modern day science fiction genre and film that we're still mining to this day. And I think this book also gives a really interesting and, I think, precise definition of what makes a sci-fi movie, as opposed to kind of these adjacent films or something that kind of cross-pollinates between it. The way it defines a sci-fi movie is essentially this a fantasy movie in which the fantastic element is rationalized as being explicable in scientific terms. I think that that really hits the nail on the head, would you agree?

Speaker 1 2:53

I absolutely agree, because I think everybody knows, when you say 1950s, science fiction, images are conjured in your head that correspond with all four of these films that we're going to be talking about today, and not necessarily something like metropolis, which is more along the lines of like a um it's interesting the way you phrase that metropolis.

The Day the Earth Stood Still Analysis

Speaker 2 3:11

It's definitely sci-fi, it's I'd say it's. It has speculative fiction some fantasy aspects to it, but it's a lot of futurism. Would that be maybe the right word? Looking at what earth and humans would be. What? What is our ecosystem in the future on planet earth without with with technology? But not really. These movies are more about our, our interaction with other worldly life forms and or, uh, technology that goes wrong. That's.

Speaker 1 3:43

That's really the the best way of approaching this, and invasion of the other, some sort of like meeting with the other?

Speaker 2 3:51

Exactly exactly. Several things gave rise to the genre. In particular, they were making movies that were targeted at a younger demographic. At this time. We were not, because of the rise of independent productions. There was also this move of the drive drive in. The drive in phenomenon gave birth to more lower budget movies that were targeted at a younger audience. The younger audience was more open to some of the more fantastical elements that these films represented or put forth, presented or put forth Also politically. There's also this the fear of communism that pervades a lot of these science fiction movies Not so well in the ones we're going to be talking about not so much. But Invasion of the Body Snatchers becomes a big one later on, where it's kind of like coded for communism and Marxism. And then the novelty 3D boom also becomes a huge part of the rise of the genre too, because that plays into it as well.

Speaker 1 4:50

There's a sort of idea it's especially part of the discourse in horror films about there being a right-wing horror movie and a left-wing horror movie. Right, the left. It's always sort of the horror comes from within. The call is from inside the house. Right, something like Rosemary's Baby, where the real terror is the domestic marital partnership.

Speaker 1 5:06

Right, or you're losing your pregnancy itself right or pregnancy, whereas in you know sort of right-wing horror the fear comes from the other. That's breaking into your camp, right, you're circling the wagons around the other, and I think that that applies to all four of these films. It's sort of half and half. If, if I had to guess, the Blob is much more of a right-wing vision, so is War of the Worlds, forbidden Planet kind of a mixed bag, and then Daily Roast is definitely sort of a left-wing science fiction film.

Speaker 2 5:34

Oh, agree, 100%. I would disagree a little bit about the Blob because I feel like it has no message and we'll get into that. I feel like it's meant purely as kind of schlock, but I mean, if you certainly extrapolate anything- you want to onto that movie, you could.

Speaker 1 5:50

You could read it, because also, I mean, I I think that it's fairly obvious that someone like don siegel, who directed um invasion of the body snatchers, has at least some right-wing sympathies if he'd never, even if he wouldn't um cop to that. But I think i've've heard Invasion of the Body Snatchers read both ways. I think the reading of communism being the body snatcher is more salient. But I don't think it's totally out of line to read it, as the body snatchers are the McCarthyists or capitalism consuming you and becoming a pod person too, you're being consumed by capitalism and being a pod person Exactly, or that you are pod person to capital.

Speaker 1 6:25

You're being consumed by capitalism, being a pod person, exactly or that, like you are, the pod people are the people that are seeing the uh communists everywhere.

Speaker 2 6:32

Right, the pod people is the hysteria you know around it, but um there's some pretty good comments here, uh, that we I think we should address go ahead.

Speaker 2 6:40

does something like like Godzilla count? Yes, 100% it does, as the birth of Godzilla itself comes out of the post-World War II atomic bomb blast. You know paranoia not paranoia, but like anxiety that they suffered from after the end of the war. That was their kind of fantastical creative output to create something like Godzilla, the giant dinosaur lizard that's birthed by atomic radiation. Let's see. And then it's crazy that we didn't get a John Carter of Mars movie until the 2010s. Yes, I can't believe that happened either. I think that movie is actually quite good and I haven't watched it in a while, but I really did enjoy the disney john carter movie.

Speaker 1 7:25

I've read the first john carter book, which I really enjoyed. I've never seen the movie, actually. I think I'll probably remedy that soon. But uh, I would just make a note on godzilla and I'd ask you the expert when did godzilla stop being a 1950s atom bomb, um sort of uh analogy, and become something different? I mean, I remember, like even ushiro honda, the director of the original. He came back and did a few of the sequels and in invasion of the astro monster, which is one that's my favorite, there's a scene where godzilla does sort of an end zone celebration dance after he destroys um king gadora, and ushiro honda did not like that and he said this is not what I got into making these films to do. It became something, something different. It became a big monster go-go fest. It became a genre unto itself, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 2 8:08

I agree. It becomes almost like a superhero kind of monster movie hybrid. I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly which movie it starts or stops at, but I'd say probably the first two or three are in that classical sci-fi, horror combination tradition. And then as we started getting more and more of the monsters being thrown in and it becomes like a versus movie. Every movie it's more just rock them, sock them, action brawl, you know, got it.

Speaker 1 8:39

Got it. Well, you want to hop into some of the films we decided to pick. I think I guess we could probably go with what would be first the.

Speaker 2 8:48

Day the Earth Stood Still. Day the Earth Stood Still 1951, yeah.

Speaker 3 9:00

Yeah.

Speaker 1 9:02

I'm sure you have fond feelings for this film. Would you like to extrapolate?

Speaker 2 9:06

I do. I was introduced to this film at a very young age and I used to watch it maybe like once a year, and it really spoke to me. It was really captivating, even as a young child. As I rewatched it again for the first time in quite a while, some of the kind of more idealistic or noble sentiments that I thought the movie was putting forth when I was a child seem rather ominous and fascistic in a way.

Speaker 1 9:35

Yeah, I was shocked when I watched this. I think you're referring mostly to his ending speech.

Speaker 4 9:42

I am leaving soon and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated.

Speaker 2 9:57

So the Day the Earth Stood Still is set in Washington DC. We are witness to the arrival of a flying saucer from outer space, and from it emerged two figures. One is a man, ostensibly a person, who looks like a man. His name is Klaatu and he comes in the name of peace. Of course, as all humans do, we misinterpret this as a violent threat and he gets shot. This as a violent threat, and he gets shot. And in the wake of him being shot emerges his companion, an android robot named Gort, who is more prone to violence.

Speaker 2 10:37

So, basically, klaatu has come with a singular purpose. He represents a conglomerate, a federation, if you will, of planets who are peaceful and coexist together in space, and they've noticed that Earth is developing and we are becoming more. We are very warlike, we're very violent and soon as we develop atomic space powered vehicles, we will be exporting our violence to the cosmos. And so he comes with a warning it's basically you need to settle down or we're going to destroy cosmos. And so he comes with a warning it's basically, you need to settle down or we're going to destroy you. And there's no option. There's no in between Either submit or be destroyed.

Speaker 4 11:14

We do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this earth of yours will be reduced to a burned out cinder.

Speaker 1 11:38

This is not at all how I remembered the film or expected it to play out, and I've not seen the remake, but I have to imagine they curbed that somewhat. I'm sure it out, and I've not seen the remake, but I have to imagine they curb that somewhat. I'm sure it's bad, I've not seen it.

Speaker 2 11:49

It's awful.

Speaker 1 11:50

And even.

Speaker 2 11:51

it makes it even worse, because he's not interested in us becoming a peaceful planet to prevent other planets from engaging in war with us, or whatever it's about, it's literally about global warming and climate change right, I remember that at the time.

Speaker 1 12:08

And then what he just kind of is just this nice guy that doesn't want us to, like you know well, he's not, he's nice, he's nice, but he's also awkward and strange, because it's keanu reeves.

Speaker 1 12:18

So got it. Well, that was the thing that was really shocking to me about this film, and for the first half it played out more or less kind of the way I thought, and it was shocking how much it reminded me of a movie like the Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant, where an angel comes down and like he makes friends with a wife and child and he experiences sort of humanity.

Speaker 1 12:37

But our guy here, who I've not seen in any other films you know his name, the actor, oh, Michael Reddy Yeahael yeah, yeah, I thought that it was going to be more like a very like well-meaning left-wing movie about oh, I'm the alien, I bring peace. You know, I've studied all about your planet but somehow I've studied not enough to realize that my demands would be somewhat like unreasonable. Right, he gets there and he's talking to the doctor well, why can't I meet with everybody? Oh, that's just, that's wrong. It's like well, didn't you study enough to realize that we're all at a giant, you know, cold war with each other right now. You know, couldn't you maybe treat this with a little more tact? But again, it's sort of this preachy left-wing movie where the peace is so obvious and it's right in front of your face and you should just reach out and grab it. Unfortunately, this guy clout too. He's got no real solution for how anyone could work towards peace, which was the shocking part to me, right?

Speaker 2 13:27

He has a definitive solution.

Speaker 1 13:29

We're going to threat the world with destruction. We're going to literally just be a fascistic means of achieving peace. I was shocked. We're going to put a bunch of gourds here and we're going to force you to behave, because that's how it's going to be. Join the United Nations of Space or die.

Speaker 2 13:47

Yes, well, they're not even going to put a bunch of gourds and enslave us, they're literally going to blow up the planet, it sounds like, if we don't comply, which is even worse, the end.

Speaker 1 13:58

Yeah, the end. Maybe I'm wrong, but the sort of metadata around this movie that I always had running through my mind was that it was sort of this like goodwill liberal movie about like um, don't be in the cold war, but actually it's about like you need to have an authoritarian ruler to force people to behave. That's the.

Speaker 2 14:16

That's the premise yeah, I was shocked I'm not going to say I wasn't entertained.

Speaker 1 14:23

I thought that it was a well-made movie. I was somewhat interested.

Speaker 2 14:27

It's very off-putting in that regard, because the sentiment behind it, the underlying message, is good we should work towards a peaceful coexistence of the world, but this is not the means by which we should achieve it.

Speaker 1 14:45

No. I think we were right to shoot at this bastard when he landed.

Speaker 2 14:48

But you know what it's actually interesting. I was thinking about and we'll get into how much Star Trek is relevant to one of the other movies we're going to be talking about but I couldn't help but think about how Klaatu acts almost in the same vein that a Captain Kirk would have had he landed, had the Enterprise been in orbit around Earth. And Kirk beams down with the crew and they see this planet acting like this and he'd be basically slapping us silly saying you've got to stop it, you've got to get along, otherwise you're going to get destroyed, blah, blah, blah and interfere with all our stuff like that. So it's not that far off in that vein, but we're on the receiving end this time.

Speaker 1 15:29

It's not that far off of Cortez going to the Aztecs and being like no more you know, sacrificing people on the top of the altar, or we're going to bring back more ships and you're all going to die.

Speaker 2 15:39

I mean, that's pretty much what the movie is A Middle Eastern country or something like that. You know.

Speaker 1 15:45

Yeah, girls will be going to school tomorrow, otherwise, you know, the beatings will continue until morale improves, right? I mean, that's kind of what this movie was.

Speaker 2 15:54

It is exactly that. It's just that we're not used to being on that side, and so it makes you think about it in that regard.

Speaker 1 16:03

It does. It's sort of it's interesting A thousand one thousand one, johnny. Another great comment, I think something that older sci-fi had was the sentiment that man was not inherently good. There was always a tragedy in trying to progress. Man was inherently sinful. Yeah, I think that's right, but I don't think that's sort of a religious message. I, because you know a God you know, supposedly would want us to have our free will and to have a bunch of standing around forcing us to behave. That's not really. You know, I'm getting into clockwork orange territory here, right? So this, this is sort of a plea. If the writers were on the side of klatu. The plea is that, like you know, there are some smart people who have, who have progressed, and we need to force all the chuds to stay in line, right?

Speaker 2 16:47

and, and the movie also has that very kind of, um, elitist viewpoint too. You just mentioned it who, who does Klaatu appeal to? He appeals to the elites, the um learned scientists who, um, he sees, will, will be the ones who will understand and accept this, this um, this bar, not bargain, but like this ultimatum, it's like oh yes, we must comply, because that is, that is the most rational thing.

Speaker 2 17:12

It doesn't matter about your free will or our propensity to to make our own decisions. It's just about oh yes, I see your point, I see you know, to the, to the higher mind here and you?

Speaker 1 17:22

who's the bad guy? The normal white guy dude?

Speaker 2 17:27

the army man, you know, because he's yeah and the and the boyfriend. He's bad, which, oh yeah, the boyfriend um shoot from all about eve um yeah, ironically he's bad because he turns Klaatu into into the law right well, I mean, isn't that what Klaatu would prefer?

Speaker 1 17:50

that everyone be a law-following guy? I mean, you're supposed to hate this guy because he doesn't have the vision to see Klaatu's real you know plan and cowardly he, he, he, you know, succumbs to the you know pressures of society and turns him into the law. Well, that's unjust of him.

Speaker 2 18:05

But that's what Klaatu would want Reading, and materialistic and capitalistic, george, come on.

Speaker 1 18:11

He's doing what any good Klaatu citizen would do, which is comply with the authorities, just on a smaller scale. It's got to be on a big scale, Then it's good right.

Speaker 2 18:21

I don't want people to think that we're hating on this movie by any means.

Speaker 1 18:24

It's an excellent movie it's an excellent movie.

Speaker 2 18:27

I love it so much. But you can't help but notice and comment on these very strange worldview of the movie, because the kid.

Speaker 1 18:40

You're supposed to think badly of the kid because he has sort of like anti-commy sentiment, right, which you know is groupthink and is dumb and he needs to get beyond that, right. But like cloutu doesn't have like a solution for like healing the, the, you know, the scars of humanity. His only solution is like we're just going to force you to be good, right. So why would he be surprised? Or you know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 19:05

You mentioned also. I think another point that bears discussion is you mentioned religion. So the movie takes on this very weird religious turn near the end, and there's been a lot of allusions to Klaatu becoming this kind of Jesus Christ-like figure as well.

Speaker 4 19:24

Which some of it works and some of it doesn't, becoming this kind of Jesus Christ like figure as well, which some some of it works and some of it doesn't, and I don't know exactly what to make of it.

Speaker 2 19:30

So the reason people say this is that when he journeys into, when he escapes from Walter Reed, he assumes the identity of a man whose name is Carpenter. Okay, and then oh, yeah, yeah. So he becomes like Jesus was a carpenter and he, of course, famously, at the end of the movie, is killed, he's shot dead and he is resurrected later and returns from the heavens to earth, you know, from a spaceship more or less, to deliver this message of peace and you know, brotherhood of man and all that.

Speaker 1 20:05

Yeah. But it's like I don't know that it really holds very well. That struck me as like a censorship decision when he throws in that extra line of like oh, we have not really defeated death, because that's only the creator can do that.

Speaker 1 20:20

Right so you know what I mean. That seemed like a little bit of a censorship addition, but you know, this guy's much more of an old testament god than he is a jesus figure. Do you know what I mean? He's bringing fire and brimstone. You know, um, if anything, what he should have done to make it more jesus christ like is like oh hey, by the way, um, I have this amazing invention that you guys can use, and since all your wars are about poverty and want, or about, you know, like, lack of resources or whatever, this is the, the multiplier machine that'll make you know everything you ever need, and so I'm giving you this gift and now, through this, you can achieve peace. Right, goodbye, but that's not what we get.

Speaker 2 21:00

It should have been. That's what the the cannabis in to serve, and do you know? And then of course have to be distrustful Because they were taking Twilight Zone to serve man. But I mean I can't help but argue with. I mean I can't help but agree with the general anti-war, you know, anti-nuclear sentiment of the movie. It's, it has good intentions, it just goes about it in the wrong way. So it's very kind of Orwellian anti-nuclear sentiment of the movie it's.

Speaker 1 21:29

It has good intentions, it just goes about it in the wrong way. So it's very kind of Orwellian message.

Speaker 2 21:31

The only, the only reason I'm hammering the movie on it's like themes is because it's a classic of that. That. That message, that message has been like put up as pinnacle of, you know, what our society should aspire to.

Forbidden Planet: A Sci-Fi Breakthrough

Speaker 1 21:44

Oh, the day of the year, pinnacle of, you know what our society should aspire to. Oh, the Day the Earth Stood Still. What a great movie about, you know, cold War cooperation and about how you know, if you were against the Russians, you were, you know, a pod person, right? This movie is all about that, right? But it's such a bizarre message at the end I was shocked. I was like, is that it? That's the end, like that's, oh my god. Because I saw this when I was a child and I remember really enjoying it. I like the robot who's cool. The spaceship design Incredible, you know, it's great. I was just, I mean, curious. Do you know anything about the contemporary reaction to this? I'm sure it was somewhat of a hit. People remember it very fondly, the robot is very, very successful.

Speaker 2 22:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:23

Do people walk out of this feeling enlightened, I mean?

Speaker 2 22:26

I don't know about that, I don't know about that. But it was a huge hit for for 20th century Fox. So it was a big. It was a big deal. And this was Michael Rennie's first movie in America. He was discovered in England by Daryl Zanuck, brought over, and he does have this kind of alien, foreign quality to him. His facial structure has got that very, very gaunt face. He was unknown to American audience at the time. He's in a lot of other stuff. You'll see him around in a lot of other stuff at the time and we were talking about kind of the message and all that. Do you notice? Also, a lot of the side characters will say kind of weird politically charged comments here and there.

Speaker 2 23:08

And then it's like the breakfast table scene is especially like a really, really good example of that. If you remember, remember that they all live in this boarding house together and there's, you know, obviously that's the main place where Klaatu meets Patricia Neal and her son and fosters that relationship. But there's other tenants there and they're at this breakfast table scene and they're reading the paper and the one guy's like oh, why doesn't the government do something about this? And it's like, well, what can they do? They're men. No, they're not men, they're Democrats.

Speaker 1 23:36

Oh you poor benighted soul, who could think in such bipartisan terms at this time of the aliens coming, you know, and that's the kind of thing that, like turns me off of movies like this. I mean, it's very Stanley, it's very silver surfer. You know how could I be perceived as someone being bad when all I am is different and from space and trying to help humanity? Boring, boring. It's just sorry.

Speaker 2 24:02

Those, those people really bothered me in the movie. Those people sorry, just one more scene. Where they're, klaatu is, I believe Patricia Neal is trying to rationalize. They don't know that Klaatu is the alien, so he's sitting amongst them and they're trying to say like, well, maybe he's exploring, he's trying to learn about this as a strange place for him. Oh, there's nothing strange about Washington, mr Carpenter.

Speaker 3 24:25

It's like what Like just bizarre.

Speaker 1 24:32

It's all their straw man hit characters who don't understand that we need to be forcibly, you know, like shackled to the super smart alien people, and that'd be the best thing.

Speaker 2 24:44

Yeah, appeal to authority and please trust our new alien overlords. We've hammered, I think we we've made our point. But with that, yeah, and so wild eye archive makes a great point here. The bernard herman score is is excellent in the movie and I think that that bears mentioning because it effectively sets the tone and the tenor of what is to come for the entire genre, moving forward in terms of what we think about as a sci-fi theme, excessive use of the theremin becoming like a mainstay of otherworldly outer space.

Speaker 2 25:23

Sound effect part of music becomes, becomes a huge part of the score. So I think that bears mentioning. Um, what else I also thought the scenes where klatu and robbie or bobby, excuse me are spending time together are some of the movie's best. As he sees the world through the child's eyes, as a more naive, innocent person, they kind of teach each other things, and especially like when they go to the lincoln memorial and he's, you know, reading oh, this, these are the words of a great man and such you know. So it it does have a positive aspect to american history and what we, what we should be striving for and achieving to.

Speaker 1 26:08

It does bear to be reminded every once in a while. You know how many people we have killed in giant wars. You know, of the past Many are forgotten. I mean it is sort of senseless and and you know I'm not totally, I'm not totally immune to such, to such things. But you know, at the end of the day, I've seen it, you know. I liked it I liked the movie.

Speaker 1 26:30

I liked the movie. It's, you know, but it does lead with the message, and so that's how I'm going to approach it, it is, it is.

Speaker 2 26:39

It is a thinking movie. It is a cerebral movie. We don't have to agree with the message to like and appreciate it. I think it. I think it still has merit and it has standing. Despite all that, I I would still watch this many times over again. It's still thoroughly enjoyable, um, and thought-provoking, and we you know you can have a discussion about that we don't agree with anything that the movie has to say necessarily, and still find it a great classic.

Speaker 1 27:08

Maybe it's secretly based, because it's about how colonialism is good. I don't know. Maybe that's what they were trying to.

Speaker 2 27:14

You took the words sort of out of my mouth there. Are we not being colonized by this federation here?

Speaker 1 27:21

Yeah, I guess they don't like it with the shoes on the other foot. You know, maybe that's the whole. Thing who knows, yeah, who knows, but I feel like we are supposed to be sympathetic towards klaatu, so he's not well, that's the whole.

Speaker 2 27:35

That's to sum up what we, what we already kind of went over, is like he's not wrong, it's just the the ends. Do the ends justify the means? Is that? Is that not what his, what, his, uh, entire mission is here? His, his mission is to achieve an ends, whether he can do that by convincing us to do the right thing or by threatening us with annihilation. We didn't really talk about the whole, what the title is. The title title means the Day the Earth Stood Still.

Speaker 2 28:03

Literally there is a day where, in order to demonstrate how serious Klaatu is in terms of his mission, he cuts off power to the entire world in order to show how powerful he actually is, or his alien race is, in order to get people to listen, and so that's what that's all about.

Speaker 1 28:31

Yeah, it kind of made me think a little bit too about our own modern times.

Speaker 1 28:35

I was reading an article about whether or not Donald Trump is a time lord, because all the things he does just accelerates time, and you know you know what I'm saying it's really difficult to react to the guy. This is, you know, sort of a bipartisan statement. But if we did have an alien come down and turn off all the lights I mean, we've lived through a lot of disruptions that would have been, you know, I think, more pronounced, and I'm thinking of COVID especially in like an older time. But our memory is so short now culturally, because things move at such an accelerated pace that you know something like this, where the earth stands still and I turned off all the lights except for hospitals and airplanes, you know, right, I don't know if that would have much of an effect on us nowadays. I do think that we're a culture that needs something drastic and powerful to just beat our, you know, beat something into our heads because things are so quick. That's not the movie's fault, but that's just kind of something I was thinking about in our own current time.

Speaker 2 29:31

Well, do you notice, though, he did mention much more drastic examples before he settled on this nonviolent way he said shall I level New York City?

Speaker 1 29:44

Shall I send frogs and toads? Should I kill the firstborn child of the Egyptians? Right, I mean, he's very Old Testament.

Speaker 2 29:50

Very much. We also didn't mention this movie was directed by Robert Wise, who was very prolific and had very much longevity to his career.

Speaker 1 30:02

Director of Curse of the Cat People.

Speaker 2 30:04

Director of Curse of the Cat People. Director of Curse of the Cat People Also directed West Side Story and directed Star Trek, the Motion Picture, among many other movies.

Speaker 1 30:13

Yeah, he was a good guy, just an old, reliable tradesman.

Speaker 3 30:17

Yep.

Speaker 2 30:18

He could get her done so, uh, shall we read some of the comments here? Yeah, go ahead. Um, I think my thing with the messaging is simply that the film is incredibly of its era. It takes a pre-world war ii short story and imbues it with the then recent preoccupations of the cold war. Yeah, I think you're.

Speaker 1 30:44

I think you're exactly right, but the idea that the ending was such made me sort of reevaluate my opinion of the era right A little bit. Yeah, that was something that was, which is I'm glad I rewatched it. So I'm not particularly peeved with what's being said. I'm more interested in the reaction of the times. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 31:01

Yeah, I did watch a lot of the supplements on the Blu-ray and the commentary and all that. I don't remember hearing much about what was the contemporary response all too much. I'd have to go back and see if I missed that or not.

Speaker 1 31:13

Harder to track back then. Harder to track, yeah, other than just box office, which is unfortunate. But what would be next, chronologically, ryan Forbidden Planet 56.

Speaker 2 31:23

So Forbidden Planet 56. So Forbidden Planet actually is next 56. Let's go. This movie rocks. This is excellent. Nope, my absolute favorite of the bunch 100%, I'd never seen it.

Speaker 1 31:46

I'd never seen it. Wow, I knew that it was something out there that I had to see, and that was actually, I think, part of the reason why we decided to do this. Oh, this guy got us World of Worlds 53. This is where I decided to.

Speaker 2 31:58

Am I incorrect?

Speaker 1 32:01

But why I decided to. I think one of the factors is that I just saw it on amazon prime and I was like you know, I have to watch this at some point and um, sorry, I made a mistake, guys.

Speaker 2 32:11

It was 53. You are, you are 53.

Speaker 1 32:13

I wrote down 59 in my notes, so that was my mistake people are logging off in mass, in mass, at our, at our clerical errors, um, but no, this movie, firmament Planet, is spectacular. I was blown away by the visuals. The music is incredible, the special effects and the props and design, and I loved Leslie Nielsen and I was just swept up in it. I thought it was terrific. I know that it played at one of the first science fiction conventions or at a science fiction convention. It was one of the first studio films to employ that kind of route to market strategy where they really wanted to appeal to science fiction fans, and it laid the groundwork for star trek and probably just about everything else in franchise science fiction action filmmaking since. Uh, chad, leslie nielsen. Indeed, it was great, so I thought I could keep going. If you want to interject, I could keep going. If you want to interject, I can keep going.

Speaker 2 33:06

The movie is groundbreaking in so many different ways and thank God this movie exists because it fundamentally changes the trajectory of science fiction and paves the way for stuff like star Trek, because this is so unlike every other movie that had come out before. I mean, this is like people talk about movies that change the genre, you know, fundamentally on their head. This is one of them, and I think not until maybe 2001, space Odyssey does the genre become upended again to the same extent? We'll explore the other movies later. But there's a big delineation between these type, these sci-fi movies. There's the, there's the terror comes to us and we go to the terror. Right, and that's that goes for.

Speaker 2 33:53

That goes for horror as well. This is the only one and not many other movies of the era were like this where we we go to the terror, we go into space and explore a strange new world. It's always about us on Earth meeting up with something from afar. So that's a big delineation there and that's part of the charm of this movie, because we get to explore a completely new planet with some of the most beautifully illustrated landscapes and vistas that have been seen on film ever. So there's that. I know Robbie the Robot to modern audiences will probably look silly, but it works in this movie. When you see him interact with the characters and the landscape, both in far shots and close-ups, it fits perfectly well and the tone is what makes it work, because he's kind of got an ironic you know, kind of dry sense of humor to him, but it's very subtle and it works.

Speaker 3 34:59

This is no offense, but you are a robot, aren't you? No offense, but you are a robot, aren't you? That is correct, sir. For your convenience, I am monitored to respond to the name Robbie. Nice climate. You have here High oxygen content. I rarely use it myself, sir.

Speaker 2 35:21

It promotes rust Because he's kind of making fun of the crew people when they talk to him, Especially like the cook you know. For instance, when the cook is asking Robbie to replicate all the alcohol. Like he's kind of playing with him and making fun of him, and it's not done in the way that we would see a movie nowadays where the robot would be making like very blunt jokes.

Speaker 1 35:44

It's a very we just in the in the extended superman clip we saw the other day. We saw it from our favorite scribbler, james gunn and his robots precisely, precisely.

Speaker 2 35:55

So. There's that we talked about how day the air stood still is considered cerebral. Well, this blows it out of the water in an iq match. I mean, this movie is the definition of cerebral. In fact, it's so cerebral, it's so, it's so intricately like, designed. It took me a couple times back years ago to like you would watch it and be like what, what exactly were they? What was the monster again, or how was it connected? You know the monsters we did it's um, it's very um, it's very cutting edge at the time too, in terms of using the freudian uh terminology and ideas there it's got it all it's, it's, it's.

Speaker 1 36:33

I think it's more like an adaption of a very, you know uh, ambitious sci-fi novel of the kind that we would get from philip k dick or michael moorcock, like later into the 60s, which were probably around in the 50s but my level of knowledge there is not, as it's not. It's sort of like an isaac asimov or like you know, something that is is actually very interested in, in thinking about space and aliens and human intelligence and what it might be like to travel outside of the earth. It's not using the science fiction element as a way to explore some sort of like contemporary political or sociological, um, problem. Right, it's. It's very much a movie that, like is is interested in expanding your mind with science fiction ideas and, like with incredible detail and and this uh wild eye archive says it has an intoxicating level of atmosphere. Yeah, think about, to me, I was blown away when they go down into the basement catacombs of the Krell aliens.

Speaker 1 37:29

And oh, yes, you can see the Krell's head must have been a lot larger than ours because they, you know, put this around their head and they must have been triangle-shaped or somewhat, because that's the way all their doors were made. I mean, that's incredible stuff that you were not seeing in any other film of the time. Everything was very humanoid. This kind of imagination was not something you would see in like a science fiction film of its time. Correct, but it also, at the same time, does not get bogged down with any of this stuff. It's a very exciting action pack. There's beautiful women, there's handsome men, there's action, there's horror. It's got everything.

Speaker 2 38:05

It's spectacular and hands down the I agree, 100% agree, 100% it is. And what I find most most ironic and um fascinating about is this is this is the most sophisticated movie of the bunch we talk about. Davey Urso still would be a quote a movie made for adults, right, an adult audience, and at the time this movie was looked down upon as being too childish and too superficial. Because, because it involves so many fantastical elements, that's precisely what makes it so great is that it is much, even much more sophisticated in that regard, in terms of what? What are the themes that are being explored, what are the relationships between the characters and what is it trying to say about humanity as a whole? There's so much, so much deeper than the surface level Cold War anxiety that was that was explored in the other film. So there's so much deeper than the surface level Cold War anxiety that was explored in the other film. So there's that.

Speaker 1 38:58

Well, I would say too. And also it's unsophisticated in all the ways that I appreciate that I think could be deceptive to a critic who thinks it's dumb. For instance, why does Walter Pigeon's daughter walk around in little skimpy outfits all the time? And oh, I'm going swimming but I'll be naked? It's like I can see how someone would watch that and say, please give me my black and white day of the year. Stood still with a lot of grave intoning about how bad humanity is. That's what intelligent people watch. But this movie has so many fun, interesting concepts that make you rethink, like what it means to be human and you know how we could be different from alien life forms. And yes, someone mentions it's also Shakespeare's Tempest. I've not read the Tempest. I understand it's about some guy that was on an island and a crew finds him and he has some sort of like evil devices, sort of like Walter Pigeon's character. But no, it's a perfect crowd pleaser, it's got something for everybody.

Speaker 2 39:48

It's a terrific film, a good science fiction movie that's meant for a broad audience is that you have all of these high concept ideas and all of the wonderful scenery, the outlandish special effects and all that, but at the core is this message and this idea about exploring the, you know, the boundaries of the human mind and what does it mean to be human? How are we expanding, how are we progressing as a culture and a society? And that's, you know, the heart of what then becomes Star Trek, with you know adding in the exploration aspect too. I mean, how much of that is just interplanetary or interpersonal relationships? You know exploring that and you know pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human. As opposed to by seeing all of these other alien races that are represented in, you know, more stereotypical, cartoonish fashion, it exemplifies what it means to be human.

Speaker 1 40:42

And it also has the classic science fiction theme cemented in what people consider to be one of the first science fiction stories of all time, frankenstein, which is I've discovered some new technology, I've messed with something I don't understand, and now the extension of my mind, my creation, has inadvertently wrecked my world. We can analogize that with the atom bomb, whatever you want it fits. The Cold War, hyperfixation with nuclear destruction, as well as themes that have been relevant for science fiction readers since the 19th century, and wild eye archive says yes, it's got the aesthetics of pulp, but the intelligence of the forthcoming new wave of speculative sci-fi. I couldn't have said it better perfect yes, um, what was I gonna say?

Speaker 2 41:25

the? The entire idea of the, the monster from the id, though, is one of the best things about it is it shows, no matter how far humanity, you know, progresses we we've colonized space, we have advanced rockets and all that we still regress to the most primitive being inside. When, when faced with adversity or faced with, um you know something, we're being threatened we regress to these kind of primitive animal instincts. It happened to the krell, which were more advanced than us, and it's happening to humans as well. So we can't we can't escape our, you know, evolutionary history. That's also part of the part of the interesting aspect to it in my, in my opinion, or our true human nature.

Speaker 1 42:08

Yes, you know, which is why I think there's so much like sort of sexual imagery and content in the movie too. I mean it's oh yes. It's played for laughs.

Speaker 2 42:19

Your basest instincts? Yeah.

Speaker 1 42:21

Yeah, it's played for laughs, but it's also, you know. That's why I was kind of confused thematically by Robbie the Robot and what he is supposed to represent necessarily other than a cool effect or an interesting character to sort of present, necessarily other than a cool effect or an interesting character to sort of, because he never proved to be bad, necessarily, right, I mean he's right. I mean he should be either the ultimate good or the ultimate bad, right, you know, if he is he, because he stands in pure dichotomy with both the scientist and the horny crew members, and that you know he can't make a mistake, right, he's like the perfect intelligent machine. What are your, what are your thoughts on him?

Speaker 2 42:58

I never. I never actually thought about that. That's. That's a great angle that the movie did not explore. Should, should Robbie have been the villain all along, as this, you know, creation of Walter Pigeon did build him? Yes, that is correct. I don't know. I think it's just more there as a, as a, a prop, as a phenomenon, it's a fun thing. Yeah, it's just, it's just a doodad.

Speaker 2 43:26

It's just a, a you know, thingamabob. That's there as a cool gadget. I don't think it really seeks to comment much on Robbie beyond that. Maybe that he's. He's just above all of them, all of the other human characters, because of the way he sarcastically kind of ridicules them. That that might be the only thing that I could see to that he would be like a playing for the cheap seats shakespeare character.

Speaker 1 43:48

If we're going to stick with. He's like the uh, you know he comments because he is sort of a fourth wall breaker, I mean in the way that he comments on the behaviors and I don't think anyone really gets what he's doing, or, like you know, like talks to him. You know what I mean. He's much more of like a. What do they call that? The chorus, you know, in the Greek.

Speaker 2 44:04

Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's a great way of explaining his role here. I mean the, the comments are great from him. Uh, nice atmosphere you have here. Thank you, sir. I don't use it much myself, it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 44:21

But I just the horror elements of it are great too. I mean the sneaking of the uh, scary, uh, you know id monster up the steps of the spaceship at night and pass the crew, um, incredible. And the music is just like I. I downloaded the album and just was listening to it because I thought it was so haunting and interesting, you know, especially early, you know. I mean the work they had to go through to make this early computer sound was so fascinating. They were robbed of an Academy of Works. It wasn't technically played with instruments, but really incredible stuff.

Speaker 2 44:49

Yeah, you mentioned the scene where the monster ascends the stairs and you can see the footprints in the dirt being created by an invisible monster that's great Going up the stairs as it bends the steps to murder one of the crew members Also, then culminating later with the scene where the monster goes through the electron beam fence and is materialized the first time.

Speaker 1 45:13

That's so cool.

Speaker 2 45:15

So beautiful. Done know animation techniques, I believe they they got somebody from walt disney studios to help animate that, so looks fantastic. Um, we should touch about the star trek thing just a little bit more. Um, there are certain episodes that were then kind of used the model specific. So if it's not bad enough that Star Trek is based on Forbidden Planet, you know, like in the general context, there are episodes that like seem almost directly lifted from the movie. So there's the episode Requiem from Methuselah, which involves the Enterprise visiting a planet where it is inhabited solely by an older man and his young, beautiful daughter, and they are the main inhabitants?

Speaker 2 46:00

Yes, and of course, Kirk falls in love with the girl and he is revealed to be a person who lived on Earth.

Speaker 2 46:06

He's like Methuselah from the Bible, essentially, you know, and he lived under many different names, like Da Vinci, and I forgot who else. But that, that's that, the man trap. It's also sort of in that vein to the book listed the shore leave in the apple. I'd have to go back and see what cage kind of reminiscent of this myself. Um, in the way that jeffrey hunter's captain pike resembles the leslie nielsen commander a little bit more than kirk does, in my opinion yeah, leslie nielsen, he's got no, he's got no riz really in this movie.

Speaker 1 46:49

Right, he's a competent commander, he's very, you know he's, he's reliable, he's a good guy. But yeah, he's not, he doesn't have any, he doesn't have much swagger, which you know was too bad. Leslie nelson was great in the movie. He's a great presence. You like to see him? I was happy he was there, right, but he's very stoic. Part of that I really did, like I appreciated when we get to see you know him commanding the crew and the hierarchy of the crew, etc. And how and how they they really acted like a real military force. There was a little too much gee, whiz, joking, especially when they're talking to Walter Pigeon, when they see the daughter, and they're like good, good, golly, gee, I'd sure like to take her out on a date or whatever.

Speaker 2 47:25

And a little too much explicit um, I command a ship of, uh, you know, 25 young men in uh excellent physical condition who have not seen a woman in four months and it's like okay, we got the idea, like we don't. You don't need to spell it out for us even more, you know.

Speaker 1 47:42

Exactly, Exactly. This guy my new favorite commenter, Wild Eye Archives, says Leslie Nielsen has no riz quoting me Viewership drops. Yeah, true, it did Just. We're like like the debate when we this is what our viewership is. Like the debate when they tell people to press a button. Do you like what they're saying? Up down, up down.

Speaker 2 48:00

you know that's us, that's fine, whatever we didn't talk about ann francis at all, and I think that that's uh. She's an integral part of the movie. What do you think of her?

Speaker 4 48:08

my daughter. How do you do we so terribly wanted to meet a young man and now three of them at once I thought she was good, I thought she was cute, I thought she had a.

Speaker 1 48:16

She had a pet tiger that leslie nelson had to shoot with a laser. Uh, you know, that's the kind of thing that, like a critic season is like this is stupid. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 48:24

But it's not, it's cool, it's it's I agree with the tiger thing, but then, when I re-watched it, it's interesting, because the tiger attacks them. Why does the tiger attack all of a sudden? Is it because she's lost some of her virginity, in not so much the literal sense, but she's been tainted now by men? So now, the tiger senses her in a different way, it's no longer her friend. And so the tiger attacks her, and so he has to kill the tiger.

Speaker 1 48:54

Hold on, I need to refresh me on the plot a different way. It's no longer her friend, and so the tiger attacks her, and so he has to kill the tiger. Hold on, I need to refresh me on the plot a little bit. The tiger is real.

Speaker 2 49:08

Or is it a? Okay, it's real. Why is it real? I don't know. Well, how did they make tigers? I? We don't know how those?

Speaker 1 49:13

animals got to the. Why is the deer on that planet? We have no idea, okay, because maybe hear me out maybe the tiger is also a projection, a manifestation of walter pigeon's psyche, like the investor.

Speaker 2 49:22

It would not be destroyed by the blaster.

Speaker 1 49:24

If that was the case, oh, because then it could be his like subconscious father id striking out against, like the guy dating his daughter.

Speaker 2 49:30

I didn't see that people have. People have, um, criticized the movie because of why are there earth animals on the planet? I mean, I think that that's, you know, not even worth um nitpicking, but like either you could say it's some kind of convergent evolution, that that's not really a tiger, it's a space tiger. It just happens to look the same. But whatever I I always looked at it as that is, that she is this kind of virginally serene, you know, garden of Eden, kind of Eve, and she's friends with all the animals. And then she is kind of corrupted by these, these men coming and sniffing after her, and now the tiger sees her, as you know, not her friend, not his friend anymore.

Speaker 2 50:09

Or the tiger's jealous of of Leslie Nielsen you know, and it's not, not her.

Speaker 1 50:17

It's like by having sex. It's like a you know who told you you were naked, kind of thing, and the garden disappears right in the garden, the eating from the apple yeah, interesting and in wild eye archive. Actually I got a jet. But before I do confession time, this is jake calta, okay that makes sense.

Speaker 1 50:33

Jake was a former guest of ours on our giallo horror live stream. He's revamping his channel. Cool things coming. Go follow him. He's great. Go follow his new channel I know I will. He's great guy, great guys. We'll have him on again for sure. Any other thoughts on forbidden planet other than it was awesome? And then I was shocked that nothing like of its like was made again for years well, it was not.

Speaker 2 50:54

I don't believe it was financially successful. It costs a lot to make. Mgm was not very dedicated to the movie because they thought it was dumb and they thought it was childish. And what happened is we're talking about the big movies of the decade. Right, Like these big lavish most aside from the blob.

Speaker 2 51:15

These are all studio films. What happened is these movies besides this one it was like okay, I think successfully, but like studios realized that independent movies that were being made at a fraction of the cost were making just as much or even more money than their movies. So there's no incentive for M mgm or paramount or warner brothers to make these kind of big budget, lavish sci-fi films if they're only going to make just as much as roger corman's latest drive-in movie. So there's that. The only other thing I would say is anne francis, very early use of the miniskirt that is this is we're still in the 1950s here. The miniskirt became much more popular in the 60s, so that was cutting edge. Her, her outfits are extremely revealing for for the decade.

Speaker 2 52:01

So I'm surprised that those were allowed yeah um, and then one of the other things that caught my eye is is the walter pigeon character. Was that idea used again in the secret wars with dr doom? Is that not the same concept that dr doom, the same arc that dr doom goes through in the end of the secret wars?

Speaker 1 52:20

have you, you've read secret wars rest no, I didn't realize I'd have to do research on secret wars to come ready to play for this, for this uh thing. No, I should read secret wars.

Speaker 2 52:30

I never have, you should, so yeah, so, dr doom at the end of the Secret Wars assumes the powers of the Beyonder into him. His hubris gets the best of him and the subconscious monsters of his mind come and start kind of destroying. You know what he's built. So there's some of that too. So it's you know it lives on.

Speaker 1 52:51

Maybe we can expect that in the next Avengers movie.

War of the Worlds: Spectacular Alien Invasion

Speaker 3 52:53

Unlikely. This could be the beginning of the end for the human race, for what men first thought were meteors or the often ridiculed flying saucers are in reality the flaming vanguard of the invasion from Mars. Looks like they're going to come out of that gully pretty soon. We'll have to rush our defenses to be ready when they do. Guy can eat plenty of reinforcements. We'll get them, lieutenant. Look, yes. So let's go back to 1953.

Speaker 4 53:23

It's a war of the world.

Speaker 2 53:24

Sorry, everybody, Sorry. So classic HG Wells. This is the big George Powell extravaganza of the time. What'd you think?

Speaker 1 53:39

I really enjoyed it. I thought it was spectacular, I thought there were lots of great things about it. I mean, are there other issues? Sure, but like um, it's uh, it's a great big spectacle. And I actually went back and listened to the orson wells one again, which I actually have on. I have on vinyl like, oh you do, okay, I think it's abridged, but it's uh, it's great. And I mean, you know, that's such an. I always tell people to listen to that because people always you hear people repeat the.

Speaker 1 54:06

You know the anecdote about wow, people were so non-media literate back then that they uh, they uh thought that was real. And I'm like, okay, well, if you listen to it, orson welles was clearly trying to freak people out because it's astounding the verisimilitude of reality that they create there. Um, especially when you have like reporters I'm on the beat and the meteor is here and they have sir, what did you see? What did you see? And then they will cut the guy off and go okay, hold on, hold on, we got no more news coming in. That is like so astoundingly unbelievable for the time.

Speaker 1 54:42

I think orson welles even had to testify in front of some sort of like board or, you know congress to explain himself, but he was clearly trying to pull one over on people and get people talking, which he he absolutely did, and they have been talking for nearly 100 years about that spectacular broadcast. But besides that, the movie is fantastic. I love the visuals. I think that it sort of falters in a character world, but I'd be curious to hear what you think about it, ryan.

Speaker 2 55:11

I like the movie a lot. I think it's probably if I had the movie a lot. I think it's it's probably if I, if I had to. What? If we were ranking these movies, this would probably I don't know if I'd put this below or or a little bit above the blob. It's good, it's really good in terms of its achievement in special effects and spectacle.

Speaker 2 55:29

Story wise, it leaves me a little cold. It's just the whole nature of War of the Worlds in and of itself is just we're meant to, we're meant to experience it as an action blockbuster, and for that it's, it's fantastic. But when we're dealing with the story elements or the character interaction elements, I think it does fall flat. Yeah, so what? So I think we should focus, then, on the visual effects aspect of it. So are you familiar with George Powell, right? The producer of the movie, who made science fiction producer gurus, who was like all in on um making? You know, before, uh, before michael bay, before stephen spielberg, before all these you know modern day people that we think about? This was this, was the og kind of special effects wizard was george powell and um, I think he was really much into HG Wells and his work and then later made what I think is a much better film the Time Machine.

Speaker 1 56:38

Time Machine is awesome.

Speaker 2 56:39

Yeah, time Machine, much more, even great movie. So, even though Byron Haskin is listed as the director of the movie, from a more auteur perspective I think you would classify this more as a George Powell movie as a producer auteur. The commentary track for the movie is excellent.

Speaker 1 57:03

It's with Joe Dante, oh really.

Speaker 2 57:04

Yes, it's with the author of this book. Is that the?

Speaker 4 57:07

Criterion version.

Speaker 2 57:08

I have both the Criterion version and the Paramount 4K version. If I watched both, I would recommend the Crount 4k version. If I I watched both, I would recommend the criterion blu-ray. To be honest with you, the paramount 4k version looks a little too slick and a little too like they put it through a machine to restore it and there's something looks off. But um, I would recommend that commentary track. I think what think what's really in terms of the war machines that are present in the movie? Those are iconic and distinctive for this movie as compared to kind of all other versions of War of the Worlds out there Traditionally. If you thought of the Martian war machines from War of the Worlds, what would you think of, I guess, more stereotypically?

Speaker 1 57:53

They were tripod, tripod, yeah, in the original story. Yep.

Speaker 2 57:58

And used in the Joe Dante talks about this in the commentary and on some of the supplements is the Classics Illustrated comic books. If you're familiar with those from the time, sure, they did a War of the worlds edition which kind of exemplified what the walking machine tripods would look like. This movie came out slightly before that comic. But this movie changes, uh exchanges, the tripods for the flying machine instead of the walking machines, and part of that was due to technical limitations that didn't allow them to make tripods that would walk. So you understand it from that. But these are beautifully constructed, intricately looking special effects machines, super impressive. They hold up today. I mean I was mesmerized by watching these.

Speaker 1 58:50

I agree they're sleek and they're scary. Scary and I like how the technology of the aliens mimics the form of the aliens themselves. Right, they sort of made these machines that looked almost like them, which is kind of a new and interesting idea. Um, I particularly enjoy the scene where, uh, the army's basically stationed around this is the most powerful scene in the movie right where the priest takes it upon himself to to speak and visit with the aliens and try to you know, I don't even know what, just you know make a connection with them or something.

Speaker 4 59:20

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Speaker 1 59:29

And they explode him off the face of the map and then immediately we get this great cut where the army just goes fire and they shoot and you're very moved. It's a very, it's a terrific sequence. I was. I was really struck by how effective it was. However, there's other scenes like that, I think, when the scientist guy is trying to get onto a truck because he has the, he has the clue that's going to save the day, and, uh, or the scientific evidence or whatever they were doing at their little manhattan project where they were trying to analyze the, the alien, and he's pushed away and thrown off violently from all the caravans of people exiting the city, which I thought was uh, realistic and scary, um, you know what I mean where there's just sort of hordes of humanity that are becoming barbarians trying to escape from the city and he's, he's stomped on and crushed right. I thought that was um powerful.

Speaker 2 1:00:22

The panic at the end of the yeah, you're talking about near the, near the end of the movie, where the, the city block is being evacuated and everyone's rushing for their lives. Yeah, no, that's a great scene. The other, the to to comment, to piggyback off the priest, the death of the priest. That's a very powerful scene because it's meant to show the Martians have no mercy, they are not to be reasoned with, they are not to be negotiated with. These are. They look at us as insects, as ants would you negotiate with a cockroach?

Speaker 2 1:00:55

would you negotiate with a ant that you saw? No, you would step on them. So that's how we are viewed in this movie, which is a very, again, very different um landscape than we've seen in any of the other movies. So Klaatu treats us as children. Klaatu is treating us as an adult would treat a child or a parent would treat a child. The Martians treat us like we're bugs and that we are to be exterminated and that's a very different and a very scary way to approach this movie.

Speaker 2 1:01:31

The other scene that's like that is when the three guys near the beginning I don't remember exactly how to describe them, but they're waving the white flag as they're approaching the asteroid, that's the meteorite that's landed. They're like well everyone knows that the white flag is a symbol of peace and retreat or whatever. And they just get obliterated, they get vaporized and it's again. There's no mercy here.

Speaker 1 1:01:55

Surely they share our values and customs right.

Speaker 2 1:01:58

Precisely, this is not ET, you know.

Speaker 1 1:02:01

Right right, right, right right.

Speaker 2 1:02:03

Surely they can understand. The other great scene in the movie is when the scientist and the girl are trapped in the house where the Martians are all around them and the house is collapsing and they have to try and get out. I think that's also an extremely effective and tense scene where the I don't know what extension of the Martian the little periscope that comes out of the ship.

Speaker 2 1:02:29

Yeah, it's coming in and they have great use of the three primary colors on the, the ice, the eyes for the eyes for the, the periscope. It's hard to describe because it's it's so obtuse and kind of weird.

Speaker 1 1:02:43

That's how great the designs for these are that you have trouble kind of even describing them oh, when they show the alien and you're kind of like, oh, oh, you know, like at first you're shocked. He's like a, a strange looking, weird, you know globular, three eyed thing. Right, and the thing I was looking for in this film was to kind of see how they would treat the speculative fiction idea of humanity invaded World War to end all world wars. Right Is basically what it is and for the most part I thought they did a nice job. I thought that they, perhaps I thought that, you know, if aliens were attacking almost every major city, I think that the world would fall into chaos and ruin a lot faster than it did. Right, I mean they say, okay, everyone get out of Los Angeles, and like there's some kid like at an ice cream truck and I go, wouldn't everybody be like headed for the hills, basically, like you know, a month ago.

Speaker 1 1:03:33

But the idea too of like, okay, I'm going to hit the periscope with a hatchet, a scientist, and we're going to take it back and study it in the lab, that's sort of our first step in like uncovering any weakness that this alien might have. I thought that was really realistic, I thought it was cool. It was a great way for them to advance the plot where, a plot in which humanity has little to no ability to affect, right, because we're just ants in the wave of this crushing alien invasion. Better, I think, than Steven Spielberg, which his idea was just to, you know, follow three people throughout this crisis and then it just kind of is over, right? Yes, at least scientist guy, as boring as he is, right, at least he has a little bit of agency in the plot and he's someone that can affect change against the aliens, right?

Speaker 2 1:04:21

yes, I always do appreciate disaster kind of survivalist armageddon movies when we are focusing on someone who can actually actually has the power or the ability to maybe do something.

Speaker 2 1:04:35

So this guy is a scientist who is, I believe, a physicist as well. So he has expertise as much as anyone else is going to have in this setting. So he does have connections and the ability to be involved in formulating some kind of strategy. When you're following Tom Cruise and Da daughter and they get trapped in the basement with creepy pervert Tim Robbins, I don't know what we're doing.

Speaker 1 1:05:00

You have to be really interested in those characters, which I don't. Hate that movie. I think the first act is pretty effective but it really goes off the rails and becomes sort of tired by that.

Speaker 2 1:05:08

That movie is effective because it does realize the vision of HG Wells walking machines to the extent that we had never seen them actually realized in film before.

Speaker 1 1:05:20

It's effective because it smartly updates it from the Cold War theme to a post-9-11 anxiety movie which, for that reason it's relevant.

Speaker 2 1:05:31

In that regard, this movie updates the setting of the novel. The novel is set in Victorian times.

Speaker 1 1:05:38

Right.

Speaker 2 1:05:38

And is then updated for a Cold War kind of mentality too. I mean, we didn't talk really much about HG Wells, but HG Wells was, you know, almost you could consider him like the father of sci-fi If he wrote the Time Machine, he wrote War of the Worlds, he wrote, he wrote the invisible man, all of which became kind of like the mainstays of you know early science fiction. So, um, there's that. Um, trembling colors makes a great point about the tripods would have had to be nearly all stop motion, and indeed that's what they were toying with at the time. But it was much too expensive and in fact ray harryhausen also did some tests, animation for, you know, an early version of war of the worlds, and it was. It was just didn't, it didn't work. So, um, but it would have been interesting to see what, what that would have looked like with the stop motion monsters.

Speaker 1 1:06:26

Yeah, it would have been. I think it's more effective with this, even though the spaceships are a little slow at times to do things that you know what I mean Like they kind of the movement is restricted.

Speaker 2 1:06:37

It's very cool. Yeah, it's incredibly iconic, stylistic. The bright neon colors Also. This movie would not have worked, in my opinion, in black and white. This is a movie that the color adds a a whole new world, a whole nother level to making it work. I mean those bright neon colors of the alien spaceships, the blasts, the atomic, you know the atomic blasts, the ray guns and all that, the, the from the alien, uh war machines and that's all.

Speaker 1 1:07:10

That's all from the color there yeah, so I think we outlined this. But you're absolutely right, of course. Um, that's, that's one of the reasons why it's so iconic. You know that weird green, that off green of the aliens? You know the cockpit of their ship?

Speaker 1 1:07:25

Um, the movie we talked about at the beginning, the sort of dichotomy between right and left visions of science fiction, which I think are incredibly salient when you're talking about Cold War times. But this would definitely be sort of a right-leaning film, like you said. The aliens, they have nothing in common with you. They're a totally alien culture, right? Could we perceive them as communists? Right? You know what I mean? Is that the intention? But at the same time, the movie does have, I think, an uplifting message about all of humanity working together. Every country on Earth has rallied together and marshaled their forces to defeat this enemy that threatens us all, right. So it's sort of hopeful in that we can put aside our differences to do something larger. But it's also a very religious movie, you know, as much as it's interested in science, ultimately it's led to believe that it's God that delivered us from this destruction.

Speaker 2 1:08:14

Right, yeah, I, I mean that's implied. Yes, um, you mentioned the thing, the aspect of all humanity and all countries on earth uniting together, so they had to be very careful in that regard, without mentioning, you know, working with soviet union and stuff like that, to uh, to fight the aliens but, you do see on the board that spaceships and um uh martians have landed behind the iron curtain. So you do know that it's not. It's not an earthly based thing.

Speaker 1 1:08:41

That's, it's an entire war, a world war um yeah, the soviets were the first to go. Their lack of supply lines and lack of capitalist know-how led to their early demise.

Speaker 2 1:08:51

Next, yeah, the religious part of it doesn't bother me. I think it's. I think it's actually rather nice at the end of the movie it's implied, but the entire way the the plot is then ended.

Speaker 2 1:09:05

The movie is ended by just the martians die because of bacteria in the earth's atmosphere. It's just, I guess it might have worked in the book's atmosphere. It's just, I guess it might have worked in the book, but it's just kind of an easy way out that humanity itself doesn't actually stop the threat. We would have been destroyed had not for an accident.

Speaker 1 1:09:29

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you there on that, because I think that we're very savvy now, but I think at the time that might have been considered almost like a twist ending, because it's not something that most people would have been thinking about. They got killed by germs, I'm sure, maybe. No, I hate to impugn audiences as being less sophisticated back then, but I'm sure there are a lot of people in the theater that were like, oh dude, oh yeah, for sure, whoa, they got killed by germs. Holy, you know. I mean, that's sort of an interesting science fiction concept in and of itself, right?

Speaker 2 1:10:07

But wouldn't the Martians be more sophisticated and have realized that they were more sophisticated and have realized that they were hubristic? What would be an interesting twist, I think, if they were ever to redo it again, if they were willing to change things up. Wouldn't it be more interesting if humanity developed some kind of germ warfare against the Martians?

Speaker 1 1:10:28

Yeah, that would have been. That would have been interesting. Had like had you know, in the moment in which they're in the cabin and they chop the, you know they take the periscope. Ultimately, they don't really learn anything from that, so it doesn't really help.

Speaker 2 1:10:39

This is a cool special effect thing when they do the camera. This is what it looks like from a Martian's point of view.

Speaker 1 1:10:44

You needed to see a moment where, like you know, something falls or gets, something drips on him, or you know what I mean. I'm just shooting from the hip here, a butterfly lands on him and he dies, or you know whatever. And they could say when the aliens get out of the ship.

Speaker 2 1:11:02

That's when they're most, you know, uh, yeah, vulnerable, you know. Or they find the corpse. I mean, this is, this is not something that would have worked for for that era, because it's it's was way beyond the thought. Probably, you know, they weren't thinking about this stuff. But, um, imagine they find the corpse of an alien that has died for some reason and they bring it back and they do an autopsy and they find that it's, you know, filled with, you know, pus and bacterial overgrowth and all that, and it's like, oh, interesting, um, it seems to be susceptible to this type of bacteria, which is relatively harm, harmless, you know, the uh, the normal gut bi biome of of a human has killed this martian because in that way you could make the aliens kind of like um, because, like you said, big to begin with, the aliens are a destructive force.

Speaker 1 1:11:43

they're nameless, faceless, evil thing, but they're not the blob, right, they have agency, they're a sophisticated future society, they're like the krell and but for that, in that way, they are sort of like an analogy for us into the future and you sort of like hubristic future scientific society where they can make a mistake, right, yeah, um, and I guess the other part is that the Martians succumbing to bacteria is not unlike the well, I guess it's in reverse.

Speaker 2 1:12:13

When the Spanish colonized Latin America, I guess it was in reverse, though, that the native population died from the diseases that were brought over from Europe.

Speaker 1 1:12:26

But it's sort of that thought process. They're like I just read this book about andrew jackson, and so now I know how to defeat the aliens. You know I get what you're saying. That's uh, yeah, okay, awesome, no, but overall though, uh, great movie one last thing the over the um, the narration that over um.

Speaker 2 1:12:46

That begins and ends the movie too great. Well, the beginning of the movie is much more interesting. In my, in my opinion, it's voiced by a man named paul freeze, who is a legendary voice actor from cartoons of the time. Are you familiar with him?

Speaker 1 1:12:59

it sounds so familiar. Right, it sounds so familiar.

Speaker 2 1:13:02

He's pretty much every he's pretty much every cartoon from the 50s and 60s. Um most importantly, he voiced in rocky and bullwinkle. He played a boris badenoff, and you'll see him in pretty much every rank and bass cartoon of the day too. So okay the haunted mansion at disney world the human film database.

Speaker 1 1:13:22

People and this guy is, he gets it right. So a big fan of paul freeze.

Speaker 2 1:13:27

He narrates the beginning of the movie. He talks about, you know, the uh. First there was the first world war, then the second world war, now comes the war of the worlds that was cool.

The Blob: Teenage Heroes vs Formless Terror

Speaker 1 1:13:37

that was interesting how they tied it in with like real history, as if to say, you know, not that aliens are going to destroy us, but that there might be some like global conflict, that's global, on a scale of destruction and mayhem that we can't even foresee, and you know, it might be on the scale of something like this, with aliens or, if it's not aliens, some of their technological terror that we have yet to even conceptualize. So it was great. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a really well done, exciting movie. Didn't have the flair, panache of Forbidden Planet, but I mean, you know, should we really be comparing the? I mean it's sort of sort of obtuse to be comparing all four of these films together, right?

Speaker 2 1:14:15

You can compare War of the Worlds and the Blob fit more together and Dead Ears is still Forbidden.

Speaker 1 1:14:20

Planet are much more in sync with each other. A Blob is a film I've watched. I watched probably three years ago last time I watched it and for the most part I enjoyed the cinematography and just how beautiful it looks. But you know it's. If you're going to say, hey, watch an old B horror movie, this is the one to watch. Right, it's the most expensive, lavish, well done film, but the material is not. It doesn't exactly elevate the film, right.

Speaker 2 1:15:00

Exactly, it's great. It's a good movie, great, perhaps a great movie, I think it's. It's lasted a lot longer because of a few key things. Number one, because of steve mcqueen, who's in the movie and it's his big breakout. It's his big breakout thing um, I believe, wanted dead or alive premiered maybe shortly after this, so it was right around the same time that he was becoming a huge star. So it survives because of that. It survives also because the idea of the blob as a monster was so unique and so original and became kind of this catch-all kind of monster that was used for many different copied and reused many, many times over. So those are the two key things. Also this is the only one of the four that we're talking about that changes the trajectory, the trend of appealing to the teenage audience, as opposed to. The first two movies were well, actually that's kind of unfair Forbidden Planet. Do you think that would have been marketed more towards kids at the time?

Speaker 2 1:16:09

yeah absolutely kids, more kids, movie and um day of the year, so still for adults or the world will be for everyone.

Speaker 1 1:16:18

This one is like teenage drive-in um yeah, because everything is oriented around the teen story, right, the classic boy and girl duo who get swept up in this thing and you know they're the only ones that really have any idea what's going on and they have to go around and solicit the help of initially reticent authority figures.

Speaker 3 1:16:37

Alan what happened? It's over at his place. You got to come now. Wait a minute, steve, tell us what happened. Well, I'm trying to tell you Now this. I'm trying to tell you now this thing had killed the doc. What was it? Stop with it, kid. But it's kind of like. It's kind of like a mess.

Speaker 1 1:16:51

It keeps getting bigger and bigger until it's too late, and then, at the end, they're the final survivors and they locked the blob. You're going to talk about the ending of war. The world's being kind of lame. We locked the blob in a freezer. Come on, like a freezer come on like.

Speaker 2 1:17:04

I don't think it's, I don't think it's as lame, and I'll defend it in this regard. This is a movie on a much smaller scale, not budgetary or whatever, even though it is but in terms of location, it is a small town with regular people, including mostly teenagers, trying to stop the threat, and they do actually so. So, to give them credit, they actually figured it out. It is they are the ones who who come up with a solution about how to stop this. Not, it's not nature, it's not happenstance or luck. So there's that it's regular people who have no, virtually no resources to do it or no education. These are, you know, high school kids.

Speaker 3 1:17:44

So I'll I'll defend it on that ground.

Speaker 2 1:17:46

Yes, you find a, you found a weakness and you're susceptible to it. You know what is it? Much Would it be, would it have been much better if they had said, oh, fire stops it, which is like fire stops everything.

Speaker 1 1:17:58

Yeah, I don't know. I'll think of an alternate one I haven't done that yet for the blob of what they could have done to de-blobify the world. But I think that the blob it's a very sort of and I can't exactly figure out why very sort of primordial force, you know, and um, it's this thing that the more it eats, the bigger it gets and nothing can stand in its way and it continues to absorb things into its blob mass. I remember the the idea of this blob being such a salient thing. It's sort of infected culture.

Speaker 1 1:18:29

I used to play blob with my brothers when we were kids. One of us would put a blanket over ourselves and crawl around the ground and be the blob. Then we would grab pillows and more blankets and it would become a bigger blob. Then my middle brother would play along and I would suck him into the blob and then we'd both go after my youngest brother who was scared right. Um, that's sort of my blob childhood story. What is that weird? Is that? Is that a sort of a therapist couch thing or is that? I thought it was fun I've never heard of that.

Speaker 2 1:18:58

It's really interesting.

Speaker 1 1:18:59

Um when I go over to when I go over my buddy my best buddy has three kids I'll do the same thing. I'll play blob. Kids love it. They can't get enough. They love the blob absorbing things and getting bigger. It's just like playing with play-doh. What do kids want to do? They want to roll play-doh around, they want to add play-doh to it. They want to put play-doh over their legos. They want to just like attack and destroy things with like this mass. You know, because the blob is kind of like what? Like fungus, something that grows and assimilates, you know? Um, yeah, okay, trembling color says this sounds like a fun game. Wish I'd thought of it. Okay, now that I explained this, I feel like that episode of always sunny where where charlie talks about how him and frank play, uh, night crawlers or whatever. But, uh, if anyone understands that, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 1:19:38

I've talked too much about blob blob, interesting salient point I think, to touch back on the teenager aspect of it, part of it is that teenage isolation and alienation that always comes up in a lot of these movies. The teenagers are the only ones who saw what happened. They're telling the truth. They're, they are the upstanding teenagers in the community. They're not bad. But of course adults, being adults, dismiss what they have to say. They think they're playing it right.

Speaker 2 1:20:15

And, of course, in terms of the police, there's the good police officer who is willing to take a chance on what they have to say if they show them the evidence.

Speaker 2 1:20:25

And then there's the disgruntled police officer who hates teenagers because his wife was hit by a teenager who was driving recklessly or something like that. So we also get references to drag racing, juvenile delinquency. There's the generation gap, which I mentioned In terms of the assimilation aspect of it. I can't help but think that if you wanted to extrapolate what the movie's about, could that be also some political thing, or are we making too much of that? Is that communism consuming everything and and inter making everyone been one big blob, or is it, you know, the capitalist society as well, becoming, uh, you know, a one big homogenized machine?

Speaker 1 1:21:17

I think that you know, and I know that that's a boring way to go and look at it because it's you know.

Speaker 1 1:21:22

But you know what you just said about the teenager thing and the cop who hates teenagers right, this is 100% a movie about teens, for teens, because it's sort of this is maybe like a really great bridge movie from like the 50s to the 60s, because teenager is a new category, right, very new in the history of time, but they're treated and presented as almost like a minority group. Do you know what I mean? Where the police officer has bad feelings about teenagers and then by the end of the film, through their heroic deeds, the idea of the teenager as a concept or as a class of people is rehabilitated in his mind, right, sort of like in the 60s, we'd say. You know the racist cop in the Heat of the Night. Well, after he's had this experience with Sidney Poitier, now he's no longer as bigoted as he once was, right, so, yes, this is a movie about teens, dude, standing up for teens against the system and proving that they have value.

Speaker 2 1:22:20

Marginalized group ostracized from the community. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 1:22:25

I think that's a valid point.

Speaker 2 1:22:26

I think that that is the the biggest takeaway you can probably get from this movie, because I think, like I, like you were saying, extrapolating the motivation for a motivationless monster is not.

Speaker 1 1:22:38

There's nothing there no, and almost as boring as talking about the is the blob communism or whatever is also to critique the movie for steve mcqueen being old. Right, yeah, I, I hate to do that. Yes, steve mcqueen is distractingly old in the film.

Speaker 2 1:22:54

What it had been all the teenagers are, though. They all look yeah, true, and but that's something that's persisted in all in media up until, I think, the modern day, where we we started rectifying that. I mean, you go back and watch beverly hills, 90210 or Buffy the Vampire Slayer those people look way too old to be in high school as well.

Speaker 1 1:23:12

I agree with you. But Steve McQueen stands out, especially because he's so obviously a man. Right, he's a man's man, he's a guy, he's a man. You know what I mean. Steve McQueen is a tough, grizzled, chiseled guy and he looks he's always looked older. You know Steve McQueen died when he was like 48. You know what I mean. But he hit, you know, of asbestos, actually of asbestos poisoning from his time in World War II on a submarine. Yeah, sometimes a blob is just a blob. But you know, I think the movie would have been served better had Steve McQueen been like he graduated high school and he worked at the local auto body shop or whatever. And maybe the girl was his best friend's little sister or something. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 1:23:49

But then it wouldn't be about teenagers and the alienation that they feel from not being listened to.

Speaker 1 1:23:55

You're right and that's very important because teens need a voice. Representation matters Sure, you know.

Speaker 2 1:24:03

Probably one of the few movies, or one of the first movies at the time, where a movie theater was featured and it's attacked by a monster in the movie theater.

Speaker 1 1:24:13

It's interesting which is why this is such a perfect movie, movie and be movie. Because you're in the audience, you're getting attacked by the blob, so are the kids in the movie. You know it's, it's, it's beautifully picturesque and it looks terrific. You know what? What I mean? It's just beautiful.

Speaker 2 1:24:28

And made extremely low budget independently, and the movie was then picked up by Paramount for distribution. It was made by I believe by like local Christian people in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 1:24:38

Is that true?

Speaker 1 1:24:39

That's from what I read, if I recall correctly, I didn't write it down, but yeah, it was a weird production, okay I didn't okay, I didn't know yeah and the blob was made of dupont liquid silicone dyed red with food coloring so the blob looks great when it's the size of a chair you know what I mean. Or it's like the size of a car. You can give it a little pass, though. When we have the fake movie theater, it's like cardboard and the blob is coming out of it. You know what I mean. That's cute and quaint. It's nice, right.

Speaker 2 1:25:13

It was very novel. It was very different than anything that had come before. In terms of the monster, it's also scary because of the slow-moving monster that always seems to catch up with people, no matter what. That has persisted in horror movies. Beyond that, in terms of our slasher movies that became very popular in the 70s and 80s the slow-moving killer who always manages to catch its prey. And then I think just also, like we said, the color aspect of this movie adds another level. If the movie had not been in color, would it have been as effective? No, but I think seeing that kind of purplish red blob just consuming everything makes it so memorable and so just fascinating.

Speaker 1 1:26:03

Well, you know, it's a very intimate movie movie, which is why sometimes I like have put it on in the background and just have it going. Because first of all, it's great to go back to the 50s, but also it's intimate in this way that of any sort of cheap horror film, especially from the late, from the late 70s slasher film, where you're out you're filming at night, so just let's shine a big light on whoever's the focus of the shot, and then you know we're not going to do any accent lighting on the trees or anything in the background, it's just black and dark behind everything, right, which I think also adds, you know, sort of to a feeling of claustrophobia in the town, makes everything feel kind of smaller and more connected and intimate, right, am I off base?

Speaker 2 1:26:41

For sure, because if that town falls to the blob, would anyone maybe realize it for a while? And how? How much farther could it escalate and and go before it's too late, you know?

Speaker 1 1:26:55

exactly before it's a blob planet. Someone asked if we'd seen the blob remake.

Speaker 2 1:27:00

I have not I have not actually, I'm sorry to say it's been on my radar for a while and I have not. I have not gotten to it.

Speaker 1 1:27:06

Had we had more time to put this show together? I've had. I have more time I was. I've been fairly busy lately I would have. I would have made the commitment to to watch blob two or blob the.

Speaker 2 1:27:15

You know the rebirth but we could really do an entire show of the remakes of these movies. I mean official Forbidden Planet remake, but all the other three do.

Speaker 1 1:27:27

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 1:27:29

I think it's also I can't remember another movie that had used kind of. I wrote down a quote it's a parasite assimilating flesh at a fantastic speed. I mean, that's a rather frightening explanation for a 1950s movie, would it?

Speaker 1 1:27:44

not. Yeah, yeah it is, and it leaves up to your imagination what happens to you when you go inside the blob.

Speaker 2 1:27:51

Yeah, you're effectively assimilated but you're effectively metabolized, You're effectively eaten by the blob which is actually quite disturbing that everything about you is just broken down into a molecular level to use as fuel to create a bigger mass form. Just really gross.

Speaker 1 1:28:12

It is gross to think about. The deaths of the people in the movie are kind of shocking the doctor and his nurse and the garage mechanic guy, the nurse especially.

Speaker 2 1:28:20

Yeah, that's a gruesome one there.

Speaker 1 1:28:25

It is gruesome. It's a really interesting fun movie movie. I had no idea it was like an independent production from Pennsylvania. That's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 1:28:33

Valley Forge Studios apparently. Valley Forge Studios as the movie lives on in popular culture. Beyond that, we saw there's a Johnny Quest episode made later on in the 60s called the Invisible Monster, which is very much the same thing as the Blob, if you've seen that one. It's about a scientist, though, that creates a monster made of living energy that consumes everything in its wake.

Speaker 1 1:28:59

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 1:29:00

But it's invisible, and then they paint it to create it visually, and it's basically just a giant blob. So there's that. And then I couldn't help but think about spider-man 3 in the scene where the meteor lands on earth in this movie.

Speaker 1 1:29:17

Just like it yeah you know, I've I've always had a problem with that in the spider-man movie. Because the spider-Man movie? Because the Spider-Man three, because it it was just too, too convenient. Oh, this meteor lands on earth conveniently, right next to the only guy with spider powers. When, especially, you've already established that you have a character in your series who's an astronaut, who could go down to space and then bring it back. But maybe they were trying to do a blob thing, okay.

Speaker 2 1:29:44

Homage perhaps, trying to do a blob thing? Okay, homage perhaps by god cool, glad we had to blob homage in spider-man three so you, you take umbrage with the, the way the blob is stopped in the movie. You think that's anticlimactic, or?

Speaker 1 1:29:56

oh, it's okay, it's okay. No, it doesn't bother me, it doesn't bother me, but you know, it's just it's.

Speaker 2 1:30:02

I think it's a great. I think it's actually a clever way because it shows that there's ingenuity, even though it was by luck that they were just trying everything. They were throwing everything at the block. They even tried to electrocute it with live wires from the electric poles and it didn't do anything. The CO2 from the fire extinguisher repelled it. So you know, you're allowed to have your way out and they freeze it and then they drop it off in the arctic where perhaps it may live again and it gets a hold of the penguins right next to the thing they dropped it, right next to the thing in the spirit, yeah, but uh, no, I, I, um, I.

Speaker 1 1:30:40

I guess the only thing about me having an issue with it being frozen is that I'm too modern brained and in that way it's a lot like the terminator, terminator 2, the t-1000 that gets. Uh, they hit him with stuff he won't die. They freeze him. You know, had they hit him with, like the super freeze, freeze gas or whatever that nitrogen, yeah, liquid nitrogen 1958, I don't know yeah, but like you know, I've been into a freezer before. It ain't that cold, I mean, you know Well, it didn't.

Speaker 2 1:31:09

Going into the freezer didn't kill the blob, it just repelled it and bought them time. But when they brought all of the fire extinguishers and other means to jump on it all at once, it did stop it and and you know enough that they could contain it it's not that it killed it. They effectively. Even dropping it in the Arctic is not saying that it killed it. It just keeps it dormant.

Speaker 1 1:31:37

Right, right, well, man, hey I'm. I have to apologize. I have to have a hard out here at five um somewhat, but I think we had a good conversation today. I hope we did these movies justice. I had a good time talking to you.

Speaker 2 1:31:50

Yeah, always I hope. I hope the audience enjoyed it. We had nine people watching, which is pretty good. Discussion in the in the comments. This was a really fun one. I I mean there. There are so many other movies that we could have, we could have explored, but I think this was like a good curation of some of the biggest, the biggest, most iconic movies of the genre from that decade.

Speaker 1 1:32:12

And I think we should return to it too at some point and pick four more, because there's plenty.

Speaker 2 1:32:17

I mean there's two volumes of movies here okay.

Speaker 1 1:32:21

There's Destination Moon. There's all sorts of other movies that I want to see, plan 9 for Outer Space we could maybe watch. I mean, there's all sorts of stuff from different avenues.

Speaker 2 1:32:31

Yeah, Curse of the Faceless man, you know.

Speaker 1 1:32:33

Curse of the Faceless man.

Speaker 2 1:32:35

Creature from the Haunted Sea, the Crawling Eye, the Cosmic man. And he even has a great article about our favorite movie. Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorillas in here. Oh, our favorite movie.

Speaker 1 1:32:44

Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn Gorillas in here. Oh right, which we might do, we might do soon. I think we're pretty, um, we have two shows, two potential shows we're going to be looking at here soon, and I think the next one is going to be, um, hollywood pulp, uh, adaptions of the nineties, um, and we're going to talk about, uh, the Shadow, the Phantom, dick Tracy and the Rocketeer, which I think is sort of an old hat and tired point of identification. People lampoon these films as being the wrong direction or the wrong idea for Hollywood to take after the success of Batman. But I think, especially with Ryan, your extensive knowledge on some of these old pulp characters, I think people will find that very appealing.

Future Plans and Closing Thoughts

Speaker 1 1:33:26

And then we're going to do a new show that we haven't decided for a title on, but we're going to pick one movie from an actor or director's filmography that is exceptional and terrific and one that is bad. And so I think our first episode we're going to focus on Tony Curtis and the excellent film Some Like it Hot, and then the somewhat excreble film the Manitow. William.

Speaker 1 1:33:47

Girdler's the Manitow from 1978. So that could be a fun concept. But from now on all the shows will be posted in audio form to iTunes and Spotify as well, in podcast form, and you can enjoy them there. So if you like the show, leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. I'm trying to gain some traction on the audio podcast form. Give people another avenue to watch the show. Anything to gain some traction on the audio podcast forum. Give people another avenue to watch the show. Anything to say, as we part Ryan.

Speaker 2 1:34:11

No, stay tuned. We got some good stuff coming up. We do have some other stuff in the pipeline that we're trying to get, including some authors perhaps to join the show to talk about some books. We'll see how that goes and then I'm working on. My next video is top 10 episodes of the Flintstones. Hopefully soon We'll be out Terrific, terrific, terrific.

Speaker 1 1:34:32

Well, everyone subscribe to Ryan and my channel and we'll see y'all next time.

Speaker 5 1:34:37

Two little men and a flying saucer flew down to earth One day. Look to left and right of it. Couldn't stand the sight of it and said let's fly away. They took a look at a western movie. Somebody heard them say if a horse can be a star, think how dumb the people are. We'd better fly away.