Subject: Retrospective: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

From: [email-masked] (Louis Proyect)
Date: 3 Mar 2000 06:17:40 GMT

Last night I watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" on video. It was
the first time I had seen it since its original theater appearance in
1951. It is one of the first films of the period to question the cold
war even if on an allegorical basis, just as another science fiction
flick "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was designed to increase
anti-Communist hysteria.

A flying saucer lands in Washington, DC and discharges its two
passengers, the humanoid Klaatu, played to a tee by Yorkshireman
Michael Dennie who bears a striking resemblance to David Bowie, and
his assistant Gort, an 8 foot robot with super-powers.

Klaatu has come to the planet Earth to deliver a message to the
assembled leaders of all governments. He belongs to an interplanetary
confederation that has outlawed warfare and become aware of the
earthlings' recent experiments with guided missiles carrying nuclear
warheads. They fear that eventually these types of weapons might be
introduced into outer space. So an ultimatum is to be delivered.
Unless these experiments are called to a halt, the confederation will
send a fleet of robots to destroy the planet Earth.

Klaatu can not even get to first base with the truculent and
irrational earthlings. The Russian government will only attend a
conference if it is based in Moscow, while the British are opposed to
setting foot in Communist territory. Meanwhile, many Washingtonians
believe that Klaatu is a Communist spy, while others simply want to
eliminate him as a threat to the status quo.

In order to find out more about the mores of the planet, Klaatu
disappears into the streets of Washington and finds a furnished room
in a house where Patricia Neal and her young son live. Klaatu takes
the two into his confidence and they find themselves in solidarity
with his mission. In the climax of the film, Neal rescues the planet
from immanent destruction by giving "Don't shoot" instructions to the
robot: "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!"

Klaatu also makes an effort to set up a meeting with the world's
greatest scientist, Dr. Berhardt, who is played by Sam Jaffe, and
other leading scientists. Bernhardt. Bernhardt is an obvious stand-in
for Albert Einstein, who had come out repeatedly against atomic
testing and for socialism during those insane years.

Although director Robert Wise is better known for his "West Side
Story" and other mainstream Hollywood flicks, there is some strong
circumstantial evidence of leftist sympathies. He was chosen by Harry
Belafonte to direct "Odds Against Tomorrow", a noir masterpiece that
was written by blacklistee Abraham Polonsky and which challenged some
of the major racial stereotypes of the 1950s.

In the climactic scene Klaatu is killed by a fear-mongering government
agency, then resurrected by his robot charge Gort. Astonished by the
power of this foreign technology, Patricia Neal asks him whether
control over life and death is possible. Klaatu assures her that such
powers belong only to the "Almighty Spirit" and that his life
extension is good only "for a limited period," the duration of which
"no one can tell." In Edmund North's original script, Gort resurrects
Klaatu without limitation. But the movie industry's censors told the
producers: "Only God can do that."

North's other best-known writing credit was the screenplay for Francis
Ford Coppola's "Patton," about which he stated, ''I hope those who've
seen the picture will agree with me that it is not only a war picture,
but a peace picture as well.''

The film's producer Julian Blaustein also produced "Broken Arrow,"
based on the Elliott Arnold novel "Blood Brother," Blaustein
demonstrated great enlightenment for that time in Hollywood by working
hard to portray Native Americans fairly. He employed 375 Apaches to
perform in the film, build authentic wickiups and other props, play
native instruments and teach the movie-makers traditional dances. 

"We have treated them as people, not savages," Blaustein told The
Times in 1950. "We have tried to show that the only real 'heavies' are
ignorance, misunderstanding and intolerance."

It is very likely that Robert Wise, Edmund North and Julian Blaustein
were all touched to one degree or another by the great outpouring of
radical politics and culture of the 1930s and 40s. Their story is
being told by Paul Buhle and others. It is worth emulating as we move
toward a new radicalization provoked by the capitalist contradictions
of the new millenium.

--Louis Proyect
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