Michael Rennie is the visitor from space in “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is an American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, and Hugh Marlowe. The supporting cast includes Sam Jaffe, Frances Bavier, and Billy Gray. Lock Martin portrayed Gort, the robot.

A flying saucer lands in Washington, D.C. and is quickly surrounded by the United States Army. The alien says he comes “in peace and with good will.” But when he displays an object that looks like it a weapon, a nervous soldier shoots and injures the spaceman. Gort, a tall and imposing robot destroys the soldiers’ weapons causing the amassed crowd to run in fear.

Klaatu, the alien, is taken to Walter Reed Hospital and recovers quickly. He escapes from the hospital and finds himself at a boarding house where Helen Benson (Neal) and her son, Bobby (Gray) live. “Mr. Carpenter” befriends the Bensons and tries to learn more about the people on the planet he has come to warn.

Slowly, it becomes obvious that Mr. Carpenter is the man from space. Helen’s boyfriend Tom Stevens (Marlowe) discovers this and is willing to turn him in for the “prestige” he think it will bring.

Klaatu’s message for the world: stop fighting with one another and be careful in your development of nuclear weapons or we will destroy your planet!

 

Robert Wise (1914 - 2000) was an American director, producer, and editor. Wise began his movie career at RKO as a sound and music editor. For several years, he worked with senior editor William Hamilton. Wise’s first solo film editing credits were on Bachelor Mother (1939) and My Favorite Wife (1940). He was the film editor on Citizen Kane and was nominated for an Academy Award for Film Editing. Wise got his chance to direct at RKO from Val Lewton, the producer of horror classics like Cat People (1942). The Curse of the Cat People (1944) was the first film that Wise received director credit for. He eventually directed films noir, westerns, melodramas, and science fiction. Some popular films directed by Wise include The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Executive Suite (1954), I Want to Live! (1958), which earned Wise his first Oscar nomination for Best Director. He went on to win Best Director Oscars for West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965).

Michael Rennie (1909 – 1971) was British stage, film, and television actor. Rennie was a popular leading man and character actor in Hollywood during the 1950s. Perhaps his most famous role is as space visitor Klaatu in the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Rennie played St. Peter in The Robe (1953), the first movie filmed in Cinemascope. That same year he starred opposite Jeanne Crain in the mystery Dangerous Crossing. He continued to play lead and supporting roles throughout the 1950s and also acted in live television.

Patricia Neal (1926 - 2010) was an American film and stage actress. Neal gained fame on Broadway, winning the 1947 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role in Another Part of the Forrest. Coincidentally, 1947 was the first year the Tony Awards were presented. Hollywood came calling and Neal signed a contract with Warner Bros. In 1949, she made three films including The Fountainhead co-starring Gary Cooper. In 1951 she starred in the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the early 1950s, she left Hollywood to go back on the stage. She returned to the screen in 1957's A Face in the Crowd co-starring Andy Griffith. She co-starred with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1963 for Hud. Neal continued to act in film, stage, and television until 2009.

Hugh Marlowe (1911 – 1982) Was an American stage, radio, film, and television actor. He is probably most famous for portraying playwright Lloyd Richards in All About Eve (1950). Other famous roles include The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956). Some of his other films include Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Twelve O’Clock High (1949),  Night and the City (1950), Rawhide (1951), and Monkey Business (1952). Later in his career, he played family patriarch Jim Matthews on the NBC soap opera Another World from 1969 until his death in 1982.

 

The Day the Earth Stood Still trivia

• Lock Martin who played Gort the robot was nearly seven-feet tall.
• Patricia Neal had no idea the film would become a classic. Supposedly, she had a tough time keeping a straight face when she said, “Gort, Klaatu barado nikto.”
• Broadcast journalists from the 1950s were used in the film to make it seem more realistic.
• Spencer Tracy was interest in playing Klaatu, but the producer, Julian Blaustein thought the audience would have many expectations about the character with Tracy in the lead. Blaustein held out for Rennie, then unknown to most Americans.
• Frank Lloyd Wright influenced the design of the flying saucer.
• Sam Jaffe had an engineering degree which was a perfect background for his characterization in the film as Professor Jacob Barnhardt.

 

Click HERE to watch the film on YouTube.

 

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Discussion questions

1. Did you find this film was realistic?
2. This film was made in the early years of the Cold War. Do you think that influenced the plot?
3. This was one of the first science fiction films with an A budget and cast. Did the production impress you?
4. What did you think of the casting of Michael Rennie as Klaatu? Do you think the producer was right to cast him rather than a well-known actor like Spencer Tracy?
5. Did anything about the film surprise you?
6. Given the fact that it was made in the early ‘50s, does the film hold up in the 21^st century?
7. What did you make of Klaatu taking the name of Carpenter?