Fresh
As the perfect crystallization of 50s ideology the film would be fascinating enough, but the special effects in this 1953 George Pal production also achieve a kind of dark, burnished apocalyptic beauty.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
The War of the Worlds
Mighty panorama of Earth-shaking fury as an army from Mars invades!
1953 · 1h 25m · G
Action, Science Fiction
Directed by
Byron Haskin
Overview
The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb.
Director and cast
- Byron Haskin Director
- Gene Barry as Dr. Clayton Forrester
- Ann Robinson as Sylvia Van Buren
- Les Tremayne as General Mann
- Robert Cornthwaite as Dr. Pryor
- Sandro Giglio as Dr. Bilderbeck
- Lewis Martin as Pastor Dr. Matthew Collins
- Houseley Stevenson Jr. as Gen. Mann's aide
- Paul Frees as Second Radio Reporter / Opening Announcer
- William Phipps as Wash Perry
- Vernon Rich Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Fresh
War of the Worlds is a socko science-fiction feature, as fearsome as a film as was the Orson Welles 1938 radio interpretation of the H.G. Wells novel.
Variety Staff, Variety
Fresh
Mind those heat rays!
A.H. Weiler, New York Times
Fresh
A half-century after its creation, the film's best moments are still so enjoyably unnerving that they easily carry a viewer through the necessary but inevitably dated exposition.
Douglas Pratt, Hollywood Reporter
Rotten
Too bad about the wooden cast, the tackily conventional romance, and a draggy religious message; but at least, given the time it was made, it isn't imbued with Cold War hysteria.
Time Out
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