Movie  1956
 Earth vs. the Flying Saucers      Back      Home
Russell Marvin: [into tape recorder] July 16, to Internal Security Commission, re: Sky Hook. Summary and progress report, from project director, Dr. Russell A. Marvin.
Carol Marvin: And Mrs. Dr. Russell A. Marvin, without whose inspiration and untiring criticism this report could never have been written.
Russell Marvin: Married two hours and already she's claiming community property!
[directs his attentions to her neck]
Carol Marvin: Now that you're married, Dr. Marlowe, you don't have to sneak up on me.
Russell Marvin: You always did have eyes in the back of your head.
Carol Marvin: Besides, it's not safe when we're driving.
Russell Marvin: But pretty...
Carol Marvin: I thought intellectual giants were supposed to be backwards and shy.
Russell Marvin: My third-grade teacher, Miss Hickey, said I was a quick study.
Carol Marvin: You're starting something you're not going to be able to finish.
Russell Marvin: [sighs] Yeah. Yeah, today I've got a hot date with a three-stage rocket.
Gen. Edmunds: When an armed and threatening power lands uninvited in our capitol, we don't meet him with tea and cookies!
Brig. Gen. John Hanley: As you were, Sergeant.
Sgt. Nash: Unidentified Flying Object reported flying due West, sir. Probably a buzzard.
Dr. Russell Marvin: Both Carol and I are subject to the same atmospheric disturbances that may have affected other observers, but there is a qualitative difference, when you're a scientist.
Alien: People of Earth, attention. This is a voice speaking to you from thousands of miles beyond your planet. Look to your sun for a warning.
Amazon.com
A textbook example of '50s-era science fiction, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers boasts not only a solid script and competent performances, but some genuinely impressive stop-motion effects courtesy of one of the industry's uncontested masters, Ray Harryhausen. Scientist Hugh Marlowe (who faced a more benevolent invader from space five years earlier in The Day the Earth Stood Still) discovers that UFOs are responsible for the destruction of a series of exploratory space rockets launched by his space exploration project. The saucers' helmeted pilots land on Earth and deliver an ultimatum to humanity via Marlowe: fealty or complete annihilation.

Harryhausen's painstakingly intricate saucers and the destruction they wreak (particularly during an assault on Washington, D.C.) are the film's unquestionable highlights, but Marlowe and Joan Taylor (as his wife/partner) are capable leads, and veteran B director Fred F. Sears doesn't let the dialogue and expositional scenes fall apart in between the barrage of effects. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is a fun and effective slice of sci-fi that should please younger audiences as well as nostalgic return viewers. Sears later reused some of the effects footage for his jaw-droppingly awful 1957 effort, The Giant Claw. --Paul Gaita