LITERAL REMAINS

Today I thought I would suggest something the whole family can enjoy:  The War of the Worlds.

I was in middle school when I first saw The War of the Worlds (1953).  I can remember sitting in my seventh grade English class watching the sequence at the dance hall when the power fails.  It disturbed me.  For some reason it really bothered me that people’s watches all stopped.  Along with the phones and one man’s hearing aid.  There’s a tension there, knowing the aliens are among us and the people of Pine Summit are none the wiser.  Communication breakdown, baby–we bein’ invaded!  Back in the seventh grade, I really didn’t know much about metaphors or Communism, I just knew it freaked me out a little bit.  The rest of the day I kept checking my watch to make sure it was still ticking.  Looking back, I think a couple of my teachers may have been Communists.  A few, for sure, were Sadists.

In case anyone doesn’t know the story of The War of the Worlds (it should be vocalized in a big booming voice), it is based on the H. G. Wells novel concerning a Martian invasion.  The 1953 film (better than the 2005 interpretation) moves Wells’ story from good old Victorian England to, you know, 1953  southern California.

A meteorite lands in Pine Summit.  Before you can say ZAP! the big rock from the sky opens up and the Martian machines come forth firing off their death rays.  People are fried, women scream, men look tough and shoot back, and it’s all done in that wonderful Fifties fashion.  The military arrives, they drop atomic bombs on the darn things and that doesn’t kill them.  It’s a mad free-for-all as people take flight from the roving killer space invaders.

The War of the Worlds (big booming voice) was filmed in beautiful Technicolor, and although you can see the wires on the hovering Martian machines (thank you DVD clarity), it doesn’t diminish what a great movie this is.  This movie zips along, never missing a beat, and still has time for romance, comedy, thrills, chills, spills, battles, looting, and a race against time.

Switch off the lights and pile the family on the couch.  The movie is about to begin….

the_novacula