By Mike Gray

(4) The Day the Earth Stood Still — U.S. release: September 1951 — 20th Century-Fox Studios — Runtime: 92 minutes — Cast: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Frances Bavier, Lock Martin (as Gort), Elmer Davis (uncredited), Gabriel Heatter (uncredited), Drew Pearson (uncredited), Lawrence Dobkin (uncredited), James Dean (uncredited), Roy Engel (uncredited), Harry Lauter (uncredited), Olan Soule (uncredited), Stuart Whitman (uncredited).

I am leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is, we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more … profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.

There isn’t much I can add to the voluminous commentary that already exists about The Day the Earth Stood Still. Even now, sixty years later, it still holds up remarkably well. Because this film was made before Hollywood decided to dumb down the sci-fi genre, it actually dared to make intelligent statements about life, the universe, and everything. And it challenged the audience to think, which seems to be a cardinal sin in Tinsel Town nowadays. Sure, The Thing (From Another World) was a lot of fun, but it was never likely to induce brain strain. Day is loosely based on a 1940 short story (“Farewell to the Master”) by Harry Bates but doesn’t have its surprise ending, and I’m not sure if early-’50s audiences would have accepted the implications of Bates’s finale. The decision to do a “remake” in 2008 with Keanu Reaves awash in Green eco-freakish sensibilities came as no surprise. The public stayed away in droves.

Buy The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) here. The “remake” is here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(5) No Highway in the Sky — U.K. release: June 1951; U.S. release: September 1951 — 20th Century-Fox Studios — Runtime: 98 minutes — Cast: James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins, Janette Scott, Elizabeth Allan, Ronald Squire, Jill Clifford, Kenneth More (uncredited), Wilfrid Hyde-White (uncredited), Maurice Denham (uncredited), Felix Aylmer (uncredited).

Theodore Honey [Stewart] is an aeronautical engineer being sent to Labrador from London to examine the wreckage of a new passenger plane designed by his company. His theory is that the planes are susceptible to metal fatigue after a specific amount of time in the air. The absent-minded Honey boards the Reindeer class plane and only realizes that this plane is due to fail in the next few hours after the plane is airborne. He decides to warn the crew and creates an incident regardless of whether he is right or wrong. — John Vogel, IMDb

This film is never classified as science fiction, I suppose because we’re all familiar with airplanes. They’re such an extensively-developed technology that we take them for granted. But what if there’s some defect in an aircraft that no one has anticipated — not in how the plane flies, but actually lurking inside it? That’s the science fictional idea upon which this movie is premised, and it’s a hoot. Watching Jimmy Stewart, the quintessential abstracted scientist struggling with a vexing problem as well as personal family perplexities, striving to get somebody — anybody — to believe him would be a lot like Elwood P. Dowd desperately trying to convince folks that he really does have a giant rabbit for a friend. The suspense gets continually ratcheted up until Stewart does something most people would regard as insane . . . . And don’t miss that line from five foot six inch Dietrich about “that funny little man,” six foot three inch Stewart. No Highway in the Sky is for sale here.