"The Day The Earth Stood Still" was released in 1951. It was based on a 1940 novelette by Harry Bates titled "Farewell To The Master". While the novelette and the movie share several common elements, they are really two different stories. The movie has a clear message of peace during a time period after World War II, and during the U.S. involvement in Korea. The next paragraph discusses the plot of the movie, so if you want to avoid spoilers please skip it.



In the movie an alien called Klaatu (Michael Rennie) comes to Earth to deliver a warning to all the nations. He is accompanied by an indestructible robot called Gort (Lock Martin), who takes action whenever violence is directed at Klaatu. Klaatu tries political channels to deliver his message, but when that doesn't work he escapes into the general population to learn about Earth's people. He then decides that the scientific community is the best way to deliver his message, and arranges for such a meeting. The Army manages to track him down before the meeting though, and he provides Helen (Patricia Neal) with the famous command "Klaatu Barada Nikto" to use on Gort if he (Klaatu) should be harmed. There is an underlying Christ story which goes through the film, and which becomes a bit more apparent at the end where Gort recovers Klaatu's body and resurrects him.



Unlike the science fiction movies of today, this is not an action movie. The special effects in this film clearly reflect the time in which it was made, and today's audiences will probably not be impressed by them. The strength of this movie is the story, which is still mesmerizing today. While the 50's is certainly known as a decade when many low-budget science fiction movies were made, it really is not a fair categorization of this particular movie.



The restoration of this film is wonderful, it looks much better than when I first saw it in the late 70's. There are also several special features, some on the other side of the DVD. On the film side, there is an audio commentary by the Robert Wise (the director) and Nicolas Meyer; it is dry in spots, but for the most part is pretty interesting. On the humorous side, it is clear from the commentary that Nicolas Meyer does not care for Hugh Marlowe as an actor, either in this movie or any other. The other features on this side are a Movietone Newsreel from 1951, and the theatrical trailer for the film.



On the other side of the DVD, there is an interesting documentary called "Making the Earth Stand Still" which has many interviews with people involved in the making of the movie and it also has a section with fans that have collected memorabilia from the movie. There is a restoration comparison showing the before and after, but this has been done with so many of the older films, I don't think it is of much interest. The next special feature is the `Still Galleries' which includes production photos, scene and set photos, the shooting script, construction blue prints for the ship, the American and British pressbooks, and posters, lobby cards, the spaceship model and Gort. Lastly, there are a couple of trailers for two other movies: "One Million Years B.C.", and "Journey To The Center Of The Earth".