Gene Barry (TV’s Bat Masterson) and Ann Robinson (TV’s Fury) are among the humans intrigued when a meteor-like object crashes to Earth … but its occupants are definitely not friendly. The assault on Earth is underway, and the Martian machines — hovering “swan”-shaped vehicles of destruction — are both beautiful and terrifying as they cut a relentless path of annihilation.
Source: The War of the Worlds (1953)
About the Movie
A meteor crashes near a small California town — or so it seems. Squinting witnesses who approach the smoldering cylinder are vaporized by a ray, and the truth arrives quickly: the “meteors” falling all over the world are Martian war machines, tripods with heat-rays and impenetrable shields, and Earth’s armies are helpless against them.
Scientist Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) follows the invasion to its bleak endgame — evacuation, panic, the atomic bomb dropped on the machines to no effect — as city after city goes dark and humanity scatters to the hills and the churches. The story faithfully keeps H. G. Wells’ ending: the invaders are not defeated by any weapon. They are killed by the smallest things on Earth — the bacteria in the air they breathe, against which they have no immunity.
Why This Movie Matters to Sci-Fi
This is the definitive 1950s alien-invasion film, the one that defined the genre’s Cold War grammar: superior technology, useless armies, ordinary people watching civilization end on the radio. Produced by George Pal, it won the Academy Award for its effects — its Martian war machines, gliding on invisible legs of electricity with that eerie electronic wail, remain genuinely unsettling seventy years later. It updated Wells to the atomic age and, in doing so, became the reference point every invasion film since, from Independence Day onward, is measured against.
Where to Watch
Watch the full film FREE on YouTube (free with ads, from YouTube Movies): Watch the full film FREE on YouTube.
