“When an armed and threatening power lands uninvited in our capitol, we don’t meet him with tea and cookies!”
It’s with this tersely delivered line that we plunge right to the meat of Fred F. Sears’ no nonsense Earth Vs. Flying Saucers, a 50s sci-fi epic that has a job to do and by god it’s going to do it as economically as possible.
Many other alien invasion films of the time positively savoured the build up to the inevitable unleashing of death rays with movies like War Of The Worlds and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers drawing out the tension to delicious degrees before the other, extraterrestrial shoes drops. However, in comparison, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers seems to be on a mission to justify the urgency of its awesomely pulpy title and as a result, dives right into the mix of spectacle and sci-fi lectures that was common in other movies of this ilk.
Swoop-haired scientist Dr. Russell Marvin is taking time out of his busy schedule of launching rockets into the great beyond to marry his secretary Carol, but as they drive to continue their work on the American Space Programme entitled Project Skyhook, they gave a close encounter that makes their attempts a space exploration look like paper airplanes. While dictating into a tape recorder while in the car, they are buzzed by an honest to god flying saucer that hovers behind them before launching off into the wide blue yonder at incredible speeds.
Understandably shaken, the newly weds manage to regain their composure as quickly as 50s sci-fi couples often do and discover that his tape recorder managed to pick up the sound of the UFO. However, when Russell bring the facts to his father-in-law General, he discovers a disturbing fact – it seems that the previous ten rockets he launched over the past few weeks have either all disappeared or crash landed back to earth after being mysteriously shot down by an unknown force with number eleven soon meeting the same fate.
The next day, the perpetrators make themselves known when the aliens display some brass balls by touching down at Project Skyhook in broad daylight. But when they’re fired upon by the military all hell breaks loose as the pissed off E.T.s vaporize everything except a hiding Russell and Carol and make off with the General with the intention to suck all the information out of his brain.
In the wake of all the devastation, Russell discovers that the weird sounds he recorded during his first encounter actually was an encoded message, plainly stating that the aliens were coming to peacefully visit Skyhook, but after trying to regain a line of communication with the Flying Saucers, Russell discovers that this aged, dying species wants to lay claim to our planet. As the scientist attempts to find a way past their otherworldly defences, it’s Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers in a winner take all grudge match for the ages.
Anyone watching Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers would probably announce it as the most basic alien invasion movie that’s ever existed. Now, before any sci-fi purists turn their own personal death rays upon me in enraged retribution, let me assure you that I use the term “basic” in an endearing way. Stripping away a lot of the overt social commentary about the Cold War or waxing lyrical about our place in the cosmos, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers simply rolls up its sleeves and get down to brass tacks when it comes down to the business of fending off UFOs.
Like many of its alien smiting brethren, the movie has had a very tangible effect on sci-fi invasion movies in general. The classic design of the titular spece vehicles, for example, had been pretty much reused wholesale by Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! (only with more jokes) and their habit of crashing into famous monuments harkens forward to Roland Emmerich’s similar lack of respect for architecture as seen in Independence Day.
However, taken on its own merits, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers is a nicely above-average sci-fi smackdown that manages to offset its more derivative aspects thanks to its relentless tone and kickass special effects. Resisting the urge to build up as sort of foreshadowing, the movie jumps straight in with both feet by not only having the aliens show up and start bothering our heroes almost right from the off. The film doesn’t even tease the UFOs either, shoving them to the fore in all their glory, which is pretty understandable when you consider that they were crafted by visual effects demigod, Ray Harryhausen. Unsurprisingly, the work of the stop-motion king proves to be the biggest draw, with his creations proving to be impressively nimble things as they bank, serve and zip across the screen in ways that make the death machines from War Of The Worlds look positively sluggish in comparison. As these things weave in and out of buildings while blowing up various buildings, there’s a true feeling of kinetic movement that visual effects couldn’t usually provide in movies made during this time.
They’re certainly more energetic than the cast who attack the science lecture dialogue with the usual clipped performances that were (*adopts Grandpa Simpson tone*) the style at the time – but even though stalwarts such as Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor and Morris Ankrum deliver their lines like their announcing newspaper headlines in the 1930s, they still project enough character to put them over the more pulpy, low budget offerings the genre often provided.
Sitting somewhere in the middle are the aliens themselves who shuffle around in suits and domed of life-extending armour that weirdly make them look like seven-foot, space-age dildos. Still, the back story of them being aged beings who have escaped their destroyed solar system is cool enough, even if their cold, calculated demeanor rubs up strangely with the fact that they politely ask for a pow-wow before launching their bid for occupation of our planet.
Still, it’s Harryhausen’s talents that defiantly stand out the most as the defeated aliens ram their compromised, hubcap-shaped ships into every national monument they can see like George Michael colliding with a Snappy Snaps. It proves to be a pretty impressive sight, especially when one ploughs through the Washington Monument causing it to tumble onto screaming onlookers.
Fast-paced, quick and surprisingly hard-edged (the aliens callously toss their mind-wiped prisoners of war out of their ship like they’re throwing out the trash), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers may not have the artful nature of War Of The Worlds, the paranoia of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers or the depth of The Day The World Stood Still, but it excels when it comes to doing exactly what it says on the tin.
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