by Mike Gray

The first film version (Paramount, 1953, 85 mins.) of H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel is still a favorite, and goes well with Halloween. What’s noteworthy is how it falls more into the category of “horror film” rather than pure science fiction, which is how most people regard it. Of course, it’s not one of those “gross out” movies that depend too much on blood and gore; along with The Thing (From Another World) from a couple of years previous, War of the Worlds manages to terrify viewers without making them want to regurgitate. What’s even more charming (no doubt some would use the word “disgusting”) is how producer George Pal subverts Wells’s Social Darwinism by introducing overtly positive religious undertones; the author of Things to Come would probably have been appalled.

The nearly hysterical voice of the narrator (the superb Paul Frees) sets the scene and the tone of the film from the outset, and the movie maintains that breathless pace all the way up until the finale:

In the First World War, and for the first time in the history of man, nations combined to fight against nations using the crude weapons of those days. The Second World War involved every continent on the globe, and men turned to science for new devices of warfare, which reached an unparalleled peak in their capacity for destruction. And now, fought with the terrible weapons of super-science, menacing all mankind and every creature on the Earth comes … the War of the Worlds!

Compare that with this from Wells’s book:

. . . . across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The special effects “sell” this film. The visuals were state of the art at the time; of course, if you look closely (especially at those egregious 70 mm prints), the control wires stand out and one’s willing suspension of disbelief is destroyed—but remember, this was long before CGI, so Pal’s technicians still deserve praise. The sound track is equally brilliant, with multiple overlaps in dialogue and audio effects being expertly handled.

George Pal’s War of the Worlds is a classic, and you can watch it with your children age 7 and up without worrying about traumatizing them for life.