Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Info About This SciFi B Movie With Ray Harryhausen Special Effects:

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) is an American science fiction film, directed by Fred F. Sears and released by Columbia Pictures. The film is also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers.^{[citation needed]} It was suggested by the non-fiction work Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald Keyhoe. The flying saucer effects were created by Ray Harryhausen.

Plot

Scientist Russell Marvin and his new bride Carol are driving to work when a flying saucer appears overhead then zooms away. Without proof of the encounter other than a tape recording of the ship's sound, Dr. Marvin is hesitant to notify his bosses. He is in charge of Project Skyhook, an American space program that has already launched 10 research satellites into orbit. General Hanley, Carol's father, returns from an investigation and informs Marvin that many of the satellites have crashed. Marvin admits that he has lost contact with all of them and privately suspects alien involvement. The Marvins themselves witness the eleventh falling from the sky.
When a saucer lands at the lab the next day, the security guards weapons have no effect on the saucer's force field. The aliens kill everyone but the Marvins, who are trapped underground. The general is kidnapped and taken away in the saucer. Russell records a broadcast from the aliens and plays it on a tape recorder, which just happened to be running low on its batteries. The message is slowed down enough that ther aliens' message can be understood: they wanted to meet with Dr. Marvin. Once rescued from the sub-basement, Marvin plays the message for his superiors, but they have to wait for authorization.
Impatient, Marvin contacts the aliens and steals away to meet them, but Carol and Major Huglin follow him. They and a motorcycle cop are taken aboard a spaceship resting on Malibu Beach. They discover that the aliens have extracted knowledge from Gen. Hanley's brain, and now have him under their control, although they reassure Carol that they can restore him. They also claim to be the last of their species and that they shot down the satellites because they thought they were weapons. As proof of their power, the aliens give Marvin the coordinates of where they sank a destroyer that had fired on them. the humans are released with the message that the aliens want to meet the world's leaders in 56 days in Washington, D.C. to negotiate an occupation.
The flying saucers are invulnerable to conventional weapons, but from his observations Marvin develops an ultra-sonic weapon, which is later upgraded to an effective anti-magnetic weapon. He feverishly starts building a prototype, and just as he finishes, a saucer arrives. Marvin tests his weapon and the saucer is disabled enough to send it wobbling away. As they leave, the aliens jettison Gen. Hanley and another captive, who fall to their deaths.
Groups of alien ships then show up in the skies over Washington, Paris, London, and Moscow, and begin destroying everything. But there are enough of Dr. Marvins' new truck-mounted weapons deployed in Washington, D.C. to slowly shoot them down. One saucer clips and topples the Washington Monument, while another crashes into the Capitol Building and a third into Union Station. The defenders also discover that the aliens are vulnerable to small arms fire once they leave the immediate force fields of their saucers.

Cast

• Hugh Marlowe as Dr. Russell A. Marvin
• Joan Taylor as Carol Marvin
• Donald Curtis as Major Huglin, the liaison officer
• Morris Ankrum as Brig. Gen. John Hanley
• John Zaremba as Prof. Kanter
• Thomas Browne Henry as Vice-Admiral Enright
• Grandon Rhodes as General Edmunds
• Larry J. Blake as a motorcycle policeman

Visual effects

Special effects expert Ray Harryhausen animated the flying saucers in this movie. Harryhausen also animated the falling stones when saucers crashed into buildings,^{[citation needed]} in order to make the action appear more realistic. Some figure animation was used to show the aliens emerging from the saucers. A considerable amount of stock footage was also used,^{[citation needed]} notably scenes during the invasion that showed batteries of U.S. 90 mm M3 guns and an early rocket launch, presumably standing in for the recently introduced Nike Ajax missile. Stock footage of the explosion of the warship HMS Barham during World War II was used to fill in for a U.S. Navy destroyer that is destroyed by a flying saucer.
The voice of the aliens was produced from a recording of Paul Frees reading the lines by jiggling the speed control of an analog reel-to-reel tape recorder, so that it continually wavered from a slow bass voice to one high and fast.^{[citation needed]}
During a question-and-answer period at a tribute to Harryhausen and a screening of Jason and the Argonauts held in Sydney, Australia,^{[citation needed]} Harryhausen said he sought advice from noted 1950s UFO "contactee" George Adamski on the depiction of the flying saucers in the film, but he thought that Adamski grew increasingly paranoid as time went by. The iconic saucer design, a static central cabin with an outer rotating ring with slotted vanes, matches descriptions given to Donald Keyhoe of flying disc sightings.^{[citation needed]}

Depiction of science and technology

The film has shots of several 1950s technologies in action, including paper tape communications, a telautograph and a differential analyzer.^{[citation needed]} The Project Skyhook in the film (released 1 July 1956) reflects the public interest in announcements about the earth satellite projects of the International Geophysical Year (1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958; first satellites in orbit included Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957 and Explorer 1 on 31 January 1958.)
The invaders' flying saucers use magnetic drives capable of near light speed velocities, resulting in a distortion of time: while time seems like minutes to the passengers, events on board occur in split seconds of real time. They use spy drones that look like ball lightning or Foo fighters. Their language translator device resembles a glowing crystal rose which also serves as the input device for their "Infinitely Indexed Memory Bank". Humans captured by the invaders are subjected to scanning for the "Infinitely Indexed Memory Bank" which strips the victims' mind of all knowledge, leaving them mindless zombies. At one point, the invaders seize control of all communications to broadcast their ultimatum: "People of Earth, Attention!"
The invaders induce solar flares that disrupt earth's weather and mankind's communications. The invaders' main weapons are disintegrator rays housed in the arms of their space suits (which are unarmored and vulnerable to gunfire) and in a parabolic device that extends and retracts from the base of their saucers. The ray reduces humans and trucks to ashes and causes aircraft, ships and buildings to explode or fall apart.


Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_vs._the_Flying_Saucers

More Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049169/ - http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/16718/Earth-vs-the-Flying-Saucers/