Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

Directed by: Fred F. Sears

Starring: Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor, Donald Curtis

For Halloween, we had planned a Ray Harryhausen movie marathon, with this being the first. It makes sense, it was one of his first big movies (though we were originally going to do The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, but I couldn’t find it). Other than Harryhausen’s involvement, though, this movie’s a pretty unremarkable cookie-cutter War of the Worlds ripoff.

A bunch of aliens come to Earth (in flying saucers, of course), intent on conquering the planet. Thanks to the fact that they decide to abduct one of the country’s leading scientists and release him a month before they actually attack, he’s able to create a weapon that defeats the aliens. Then you have to sit through about a half hour of guys driving around in cars and flying saucers flying around, crashing into things.

Really, even the stop-motion Harryhausen UFO’s are kinda lame in this movie. All they really do is spin around and fly, and occasionally run into the Washington Monument or something. That’s fine and all, but it can’t hold a candle to some of the other awesome stuff that he did later.