(On our feet!)

The Day the Earth Stood Still - 1951

4/5 stars

Starring: Michael Rennie (Klaatu) Patricia Neale (Mrs. Benson/Mom) Hugh Marlowe (Tom Stevens/jerk boyfriend) Billy Gray (Bobby)

Recap

I was slightly drunk when I wrote this, but it holds up. Fair warning, though: there's a lot of profanity.

A flying saucer comes to Washington, DC, accompanied by theremin noises, and lands on a baseball field. Police and army respond. A news reporter wears his hat on the air even though he's inside. A spaceman comes out of the flying saucer. He has come in peace! The army shoots him anyway. That makes his guardian robot angry. The robot suit looks like it's made out of fondant. The robot evaporates the armies weapons with his laser vision. Maybe it would have been a good idea to do that first? They descirbe this robot as "giant" but he seems like a normal sized robot to me. Sure, he's taller than the humans, but that's just because of his helmet.

The man, Klaatu, speaks perfect English, and also speaks whatever his native language is called with what is unmistakably an American accent. Too bad the army shot him, because they destroyed the magic curling iron that would have allowed them to study life on the other planets. Klaatu comes from 250 million miles away--not all that far, in astronomical terms. It means his planet is somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. The behatted news anchor speculates that he must be from Mars or Venus (despite the fact that neither of those are 250 million miles away). Wherever he came from, his biology is entirely human, but better.

Klaatu wants to speak to representatives of all the nations. In that case, he really should have landed in New York and gone to the UN instead of landing in Washington DC. Klaatu even knows about the United Nations but instead of going there, he's asking some guy from the White House to bring together a bunch of other people from all over the world. The White House guy complains that this is unprecedented which a) it's not, because the UN exists, and b) the whole situation is pretty unprecedented anyway.

But there's a problem, because the Russian's will only meet in Moscow, but the Brits won't come if it is in Moscow. Klaatu, you really could have prevented this issue by just going directly to the UN yourself. The white house guy tells Klaatu not to leave the hospital, because it would upset the military, but Klaatu says fuck that and leaves anyway. No one seems to have bothered to take his picture while they had him captive so he walks around incognito in a stolen suit and he gets himself a room in a boarding house under the name "Mr. Carpenter." (For clarity's sake, I'm going to keep calling him Klaatu.)

Over breakfast, Klaatu listens to the other boarders speculate about the spaceman. Pretty -- and widowed -- Mrs. Benson expresses sympathy for the Spaceman's plight. Her son Bobby thinks the Spaceman is the bees knees. On the other hand, Mrs. Crockett, who runs the boarding house, thinks the Spaceman is just a communist.

Mrs. Benson has a boyfriend who wants to take her for a drive, and doesn't want her lame kid Bobby tagging along; fortunately Klaatu volunteers to watch Bobby. They take in the sights in DC so that Klaatu can reflect on American values. We learn that there are no wars where he comes from and also that he's above money. He carries a bunch of diamonds around with him to trade with because he knows they're valuable to other people.

Bobby assures Klaatu that Professor Barnhardt is the smartest man on earth and in my mind I'm picturing Elon Musk because that's the kind of person Bobby would think was really smart. They stroll right up to Barnhardt's house, but he's not home. They peer through his window and see a chalkboard with a lot of equations ("celestial mechanics," Klaatu calls it) that ends in a result of " 0! 0!! 0!!!?!!" Klaatu breaks in and corrects Barnhardt's work. The housekeeper catches them and kicks them out, but not before Klaatu leaves his address so that Barnhardt can track him down.

But Mr. Brady, a government agent, finds Klaatu first and takes him away. Somehow Professor Barnhardt has enough pull to send government agents to collect Klaatu for him. Klaatu reveals his true identity to Barnhardt. (Barnhardt definitely does not resemble Musk, in person or in personality.)

We finally learn Klaatu's mission: to tell Earth to stop fucking around with nuclear weapons. The "other planets" don't appreciate it. Klaatu has a solution, but will only tell it to everybody at the same time. If they need some incentive to gather, he's willing to flatten New York or sink the rock of Gibraltar. Those are totally unequal levels of violence, Klaatu. He's also willing to destroy the entire planet. Barnhardt asks him to arrange a "demonstration" that will effect the entire earth but not harm anybody. Sure, no problem. This demonstration will convince all the smartest people in the world to meet with Klaatu, in theory.

Mom's boyfriend is jealous of Klaatu. Mom takes umbrage at this, but she still tells Bobby to stop spending so much time with him. Bobby says fuck that and, while Mom's on a date with her jerk boyfriend, follows Klaatu into the night, right to the space ship. There are army guards stationed outside it. Klaatu uses a flashlight he borrowed from Bobby to communicate with his incarcerated robot. The robot uses some kind of telepathy to knock out the guards, and Klaatu climbs aboard his ship. The penny drops for Bobby. He runs away, which honestly seems a little out of character. Bobby loves Mr. Carpenter, and Bobby loves the Spaceman--what's the problem?

Bobby tells Mom and Jerk Boyfriend about Klaatu Mom doesn't believe him, but Jerk Boyfriend finds Klaatu's diamonds and decides he's "some kind of crook."

Klaatu goes to Mom's office to speak to her, and while they're in the elevator, at exactly noon, the electricity shuts off. That's Klaatu's demonstration. That definitely won't result in any harm to anybody! Oh, but apparently Klaatu spared hospitals and airplanes in flight. So I guess it's okay. He and Mom have an intense discussion in the darkened elevator in which he tells her everything, including his super important meeting this evening where he's going to convince the world to give up their nukes.

But there's a problem! Jerk Boyfriend has also figured out that Klaatu is the Spaceman, because he took the diamonds to be appraised and they're too perfect to have originated on earth(?). He orders his secretary to call the Pentagon and get whoever's in charge of the Spaceman hunt! That's a normal thing for a secretary to do. Mom tries to convince Boyfriend not to do anything, but Boyfriend is a jerk, so that's never going to work. When she realizes that Boyfriend only cares about getting his picture in the paper and being a hero, she storms out.

Boyfriend calls the feds anyway, and now the military is swarming the boarding house. But it's too late! Mom gets there first, and she and Klaatu escape in a taxi. Unfortunately, a neighbor kid narcs on them and the army pursues.

Klaatu is worried what his robot, Gort, might do if he's hurt. He could destroy the earth! Considering that's what Klaatu is planning to do if these earth representatives don't listen to him, I don't see how that's a problem. Nevertheless, he tells Mom what to say to Gort in order to prevent the apocalypse: Klaatu barada nikto! 

Sure enough, Klaatu is gunned down as soon as he exits the cab. HONESTLY ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IF YOU'D JUST LANDED AT THE UNITED NATIONS.

The army crowds around but pays absolutely no attention to Mom as she gets on the subway to go find Gort and deliver the message. Gort, meanwhile, has been encased in <strike>carbonite</strike> some kind of cutting edge plastic, which doesn't prevent him from evaporating a couple of nearby soldiers. By the time Mom gets there, he's melted his way out of the plastic and he's ready to throw down. Instead of giving him the shut off command, or whatever it is, she screams and falls down. Very useful, Mom, thanks.

She manages to get the words out just before Gort zaps her. Instead of killing her, he picks her up and carries her into the spaceship. There's kind of a creepy sexual tension between Mom and Gort. Maybe that's just me. Gort locks her in (why?? is this part of the klaatu barada nikto command? Does it translate to kidnap this woman?) and then goose-steps away. He melts his way into the jail where they're holding Klaatu's body, brings it back to the ship--and reanimates him! But only temporarily. He unlocks Mom and lets her go.

Meanwhile, all the smartest people in the world have gathered outside the spaceship. Klaatu comes out and tells them all to fuck themselves. (I would too, at this point.) Gort is part of an intergalactic robot police force that the other planets created in order to prevent themselves from annihilating each other, and if earth doesn't get its shit together, the Gorts are going to destroy it. Join us in peace or die! (He also says the Gorts are unstoppable but that's clearly untrue because Mom just stopped one with "klaatu barada nikto.")

Everyone responds to this speech with the blankest possible faces.

Gort and Klaatu get in the ship and fuck off into the sky. THE END

Trivia

• The costume designer for this movie, Travila, designed Marilyn Monroe's famous pleated dress for Some Like it Hot.

•  According to Wikipedia, "The film historian Steven Jay Rubin recalled an interview he had with North when he asked the question, "What is the direct translation of Klaatu Barada Nikto, and Edmund North said to me 'There's hope for Earth, if the scientists can be reached'." I fucking hate it when made-up languages have direct translations that contain two to three times the number of words that the original did. Are you trying to tell me that the word "nikto" means if the scientists can be reached? Fuck off.

• Gort is "almost seven feet tall" according to IMDB -- he was played by a very tall doorman who was cast for his height. I still think that's not tall enough for a robot to warrant the descriptor "giant." But these people hadn't met Transformers.