Monday, December 5, 2011

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS / Paramount Pictures - 1953

Welcome to Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Tonite, we have a real monster classic from 1953, the movie with a phenomenal budget of $2,000,000!! This calibur of production would usually get a write up in LIFE Magazine, about the only place you could find any information for a horror or sci-fi film. Thank God for Forry Ackerman and FAMOUS MONSTERS!!

**A little reminder, if you haven't lately, check out our Movie TV Radio 13 there to the right, for some monsterously swingin' tunes from some of our monster movie posts!

The music is by the great, Leith (OUTER LIMITS) Stevens. Our soundclip concentrates on the music at the square dance, so, there's no telling who's responsible for that stuff...

Letz bring in our little fuzzy Dungeon helper and button pusher, what else, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Howdy there, Ralphie! He's here to start the show, sooo, wif'out further adieu, push the big red 'GO' button located directly behind you, now, Ralphie! Here's some sounds from... THE WAR OF THE WORLDS!

It all started with a meteor...

Squares at the square dance... Having real square fun!

Gene (THE 27th DAY) Barry plays Dr. Clayton Forrester and Ann Robinson plays Sylvia Van Buren. Ann also played in the TV series and the 2005 film version, WAR OF THE WORLDS!

Well, so much for that white flag angle!..

Great futuristic looking Martian war machine design, with it's death ray and all. In the original story giant machines walked around, and, one of their devistating maneuvers was simply to stomp on the ground when people were present!

Portrait of Les Tremayne as the guy in charge, Major General Mann.

Sylvia's uncle is about to find out that quoting lines from the Bible has little or no meaning to invading Martians!

After crashing in their plane, Clayton and Sylvia make their way to the safety of an abandoned country home.

A war machine sends down a device to view inside the house.

...YUCK!!!

Hey, boss!.. Look whut I stole for you'se, Queen Hoity Toity's crown!

They play around with the Martian monitoring eye device after getting it hooked up to their lab equipment.

A YB-49, aka Flying Wing, drops an A-Bomb on a flock of Martian war machines, but, they come out unscathed because of their impenetrable dome shields.

Had to show this cool 1950 Dodge Panel Wagon!

It looks like all is lost, there's just no place to escape to!

This is a pic added by a request from Scrubjay - LA City Hall getting blasted!

Then, suddenly, the attack comes to a screeching halt!

Around the world, war machine after war machine crashes to the ground as all Martians succumb to our mighty, mini Earth germs!

10 comments:

Douglas McEwan said...

What a shame that your screencaps for this George Pal classic are all from an interference-plagued broadcast.

Gene Barry was also in the Spielberg War of the Worlds with Ann Francis. The two of them play Tom Cruise's parents-in-law, playing the parents of Miranda Otto, who had played Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings, which I guess makes Gene Barry into the brother of King Theoden of the Riddermark. Pretty cool.

TABONGA! said...

Sorry about quality of the stills on this one...

TABONGA! said...

Fixed!

Unknown said...

One of the Best Science Fiction-Film who ever made!!!!

Prof. Grewbeard said...

the prime-time television premiere of WOTW was my first viewing of it, right after the priest gets it my mom decided it was too intense for me and sent me to my room!...

Ivan said...

An all-time fave!
Thanks!
--Ivan

Douglas McEwan said...

Glad I checked back. The stills now are spectactular, as this picture deserves.

I attended a screening of WOTW at Cal State Long Beach once many years ago, where George Pal and Byron Haskin spoke and took questions after the picture ran. Haskin said: "Unfortunately, we had Gene Barry just before he learned to act."

I also attended a screening of it once at UCLA, where the blowing up of LA City Hall got cheers that had nothing to do with the virtuosity of the shot, and a lot to do with how hated then-Mayor Sam Yorty was at the time.

Rocky Lane said...

Isn't there anyway to go through the Paramount records to see who the band was they hired to do the square dance music? I'm sure it must be a local California group. Does anyone recognize any of the musicians?

Thanks.

scrubjay said...

Please add the photo of Los Angeles City Hall getting blasted.

Anonymous said...

I was 8 years old when I saw this picture in theater and it scared the hell out of me. It's still one of my favorite pictures. The color is beautiful, but then, all of the technicolor pictures were beautiful, particularly the westerns.

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??