Films featuring
Patricia Neal

The Day the Earth Stood Still

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Day two of my own little Robert Wise Film Festival

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a film that has, in some ways, outlived its reputation. It is certainly a cut above other films from “flying saucer” sub-genre of science fiction. An intelligent script, Robert Wise‘s capable direction and a better than average cast all combine to make this a high-quality production. The film’s only real weakness is that its message of “mankind had better learn to get along or else”, which was definitely bold for a film made during the anti-Communist witch hunts of the early 1950s, now seems like rather juvenile wish-fulfillment. The idea of advanced aliens coming down to solve our problems for us was an early staple of science fiction but is now a best-forgotten cliché.

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