The great British actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke provided the opening narration, as well as a voiceover at the end. In the 2005 remake, Gene Barry and Ann Robinson had a cameo at the film’s end, playing the grandparents of the two children. As a longtime fan of the 1953 film, I thought their inclusion was wonderful. Barry died in 2009. Ann Robinson is still living at 94 years old.
I was 8 years old in 53 and beg and beg my mom to let me go see this movie. She refused because she said it would be to scary and cause me nightmares. But she tired of me constantly asking to see it and reluctantly took me to the Osage Theater in Bartlesville OK to see War of the Worlds. The scene where Barry and Robinson were in the partially damaged house and the Martian’s hand came reaching out towards them so terrified me I hid my face in my mother’s lap and plugged up both ears with my fingers. A woman behind us scream in horror and tossed her bag of popcorn in the air with some of it landing on my mother and me. Yeah, mom was right as I did have a couple of bad dreams the week following but all was good after that. Great movie and special effects were off the charts for that time of Hollywood movies.
This had me LAUGHING OUT LOUD, especially about the woman tossing the popcorn in the air! 🤣 Glad to see you ahem, ENJOYED the movie the way you did... The Blob creeped me out way more than this one having a similar experience watching that. I miss those times watching these shows on TV - I might even miss the old TV sets that I associate with all of these classic movies... Great times back then!
@ Yep, The Blob was also a great SF movie. However, I was 14 when that movie came out and so much more mature and manly that I did not need mom to accompany me to watch that thriller. 😆
I grew up with all of this. This "War of the Worlds" (in particular) and "Forbidden Planet" and then (later) "Star Trek" original, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" and "Lost in Space" stoked my sci fi fever. Thank you so very much for filling in some of the gaps. Well done. Don't even get me started on "Land of the Giants" and so many more.... just start with "The Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" (Originals.)
I grew up with the George Pal adaptation & it’s one of the reasons I got into film design. The whole look of the war machines is absolutely stunning. When I graduated, I actually got to meet Ray Harryhausen; he was receiving an honorary doctorate at the same ceremony. We got to talk about his work & the impact it had on me. I’ve always loved that Gene Barry & Ann Robinson have cameos in the Spielberg adaptation. They play the children’s grandparents who we see at the end of the film.
I lived about 15 minutes from Grover Mills. That is the town the aliens showed up at on Orson Wells' radio play. They at that time welcomed the War of the World's with open arms. There was at that time a statue plaque for it. The Grover Mills coffee shop had Ann Robison at their grand opening. Even the lawn mower store put martian stickers on their mowers. Mills is near Princeton.
One of my favorite old Science Fiction movies… When I was very young, and first saw the movie, the Martian war machines frightened me… There were street lamps on our street that resembled the energy weapon of the war machines that made me afraid to go out after dark, for about a week.. Still love seeing the movie when it gets replayed on tv… Thanks for this deep dive into War of the Worlds Dan! 👍🏻👍🏻
That is so interesting! Can you tell us what your reaction to the movie was then...was it actually scary to you? Even now I still think it's creepy when the eyeball camera is creeping around .😂
George Frees supplied the voice for.. A whole lot of stuff. From Boris Badenov to the guy who narrates Charlton Heston's destruction of Earth in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", to voice over work in movies and those classic Rankin Bass features.
@@winternow2242 He also voiced KARR in TV show Nightrider.He voiced the thing in Hanna-Barbera the Fanstic Four the 1967 cartoon.He had a good relationship with RanklinBass.A very talented man.And wished I meet him.
I first saw it in ny local video store when I was a youngling. I cheeky sat on the floor and watched it beginning to end. It is such a vibrantly beautiful telling of the classic story
The art of story telling has been lost in Hollywood. Modern movies assault the senses rather than engage the imagination. Old movies supported the story with visual effects, where modern movies are spectacular visual effects tied together by mediocre stories.
Still one of my all-time favorites! Right up there with Forbidden Planet! Can’t wait to see more of your great historical looks into the fantastic 50’s/60’s SiFi films. Thank you.
That would be great. WoW snd When Worlds Collide were actually rereleased to theatres after Star Wars. They would have been back in theatres around 1978. Most seem either not to know of this, or have forgotten it.
I grew up in Toledo ohio and lived across the street from Textile leather, the had an aluminum clad siding and if you rapped your knuckles on it it sounded exactly like the USS ENTERPRISE'S photon torpedoes
The ones that came down in Los Angeles were stripped bare of parts within an hour, and the ones in the Bay Area had their windows broken and the valuables inside stolen before they stopped sliding.
One of my favorite parts of this movie, was the use of the Northrop YB-49 stock test flight footage to have this aircraft drop the atomic bomb on the Martian hive outside of Los Angeles. I think we see an homage to that part of the movie in the 1996 film Independence Day, where a Northrop B-2 Spirit is deployed in much the same way.
one thing I like about the remake is that Gene Barry and Ann Robinson appear as the grandparents at the end, it's just a nice Easter Egg for fans of the original
In early 2023, I was in a stage production of WotW, the movie adaptation, I played Van Buran's father, getting zapped at the end of Act 1. Our sound effect woman had a long spring attached to two thin rods and put through a phase amp with echo, hitting the spring with a small hammer. It sound pretty close to the movie. The audience didn't want to talk to the cast, they wanted to hit the spring with the hammer.
My 15 year old son and I have seen this movie and we both loved it we finally just got to watch forbidden planet we’re on a mission to watch every classic sci-fi movie and monster movie
@@MoviesMusicMonsters we also also have seen angry red planet the day the earth stood still earth vs the flying saucer teenagers from outer space we also seen the Time Machine made in the 2000s my son loves lost in space ouuu
This is a great UA-cam site! 😎 BTW, Paul Frees was also the voice of Boris Badenov and Inspector Fenwick on Rocky and Bullwinkle, among about 10,000 other famous character voices! 🤣🤣🤣
Those War Of The Worlds flying machine scarred the crap out of me when I was 9... seeing the film for the first time. Every bit as scary as the saucers in Earth Vs The Flying Saucers. Now THERE'S a damn good movie, too!! As for Robinson Crusoe On Mars.... that is THE BEST damn adaptation of the classic EVER! Talk about bloody brilliant and then some! LOVED that film. And how about... ... yeah. Enough. I'm a Sci-Fi nerd. 😞
I saw that you can actually buy replicas of the 1953 War of the Word's war machines. They look just like the original ones. There were also other things from different old sci fi movies that you could buy. Too cool!
I went to the 25 Anniversary in Hollywood California and sat next to Ann Robertson and got her autograph. Gene Barry did not come, We heard he did not think it was going to be much of a celebration. I will never forget it. To this day its my favorite movie and I own it on DVD. Still have the commemorative buttons they gave out ❤ the Steven Spielberg version was not as good in my opinion. BTW my sister was an extra in the boat scene. She mentioned Spielberg suggested not to pay the extras because he thought it was a privilege for them to be in his movie. My sister was in the actors union so she got paid.
Fell in love with this movie in the 70's. I actually recorded the audio on cassette and would listen to it often with my eyes closed imagining the movie. Got it (and still have it) on DVD. Still have a Fangoria magazine showing how the movie was made. Thank you for this episode. Brings back great memories.
There's a Lux Radio Theater version from 1955 which adapts the 1953 film very faithfully. Stars Dana Andrews as Clayton Forrester, and Patricia Crowley as Sylvia. It's very evident Sylvia has fallen hard for Clayton here.
As a kid in the late eighties or early nineties I stumbled upon a way to perfectly recreate the heat ray sound effect. I had a Tomy voice changer and by adjusting the frequency modification to the right setting and holding the mic near the speaker it would produce a distorted feedback that sounded exactly right.
Great video on War of The Worlds, I saw this years later after seeing the remake with Tom Cruise and I gotta say that I was blown away by how amazing it was especially the alien war machines and the alien itself. It pains me to hear that they were melted down.
Hello! Recently discovered this channel, and I am home recovering from hip replacement surgery and have been watching these videos! They are so good! Thank you, Dan!
My Father was a member of the Arizona National Guard at the time they made this movie. I know he told me about that time, but I was too young and dumb to realize how interesting it would be to me in the future. I know he drove a truck in one of the sequences, but I don't know if it ever made it to the final cut. I wish he were still around for me to ask him about it.
Excellent stuff! Interesting fact, Paul Frees also played one of the arctic scientists in 1951s The Thing From Another World. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
I remember “Robinson Crusoe on Mars “and was completely blown away,the whole story line was fantastic,the orbiter,the escape pod,future Batman Adam West, the concept of aliens enslaving an entire population for mining (that in itself was intriguing,where did the aliens come from,why did they have slaves, why didn’t they arrive on earth and how did they travel through space)the aliens searching for and attempting to destroy a single escaped slave (who seem to resemble Native Americans) and the final rescue…
The special effects in this movie are unbelievable and those rich colours used for filming stand out so well, the alien ships used have such a great look to them, its a timeless design which in itself proves this film is in a league above, i agree that using something thats real rather than cgi graphics is better, some top films pull off cgi really well but many dont and look so fake almost cartoon looking.
Paul Frees did so much voice work. He voiced Borris in Bullwinkle, a lot of Rankin-Bass roles, I dream of genie, etc. If you are a gen-x kid like me, you have almost certainly heard him many times!
I absolutely loved (and was terrified by) this movie when I was little. My parents and I had a standing deal that if WOTW came on television - school night, midnight, didn't matter - I had permission to stay up and watch it or my father would wake me up to watch it. Very special to me. And now as a grown man I really appreciate the audacity of the entire production and how genuinely shocking this must have been to audiences at the time. Things like the helplessness of Dr. Forrester trying to get equipment and supplies through streets filled with panicked people who drag him out of the truck and loot it - that was pretty heavy stuff to put in a 1953 film.
It was a category X film in the Uk, adults only, I was circa 16 but snuck in because I was tall, having no one with me was a big mistake, it was the only film to genuinely scare me, it was so well made. That Martian eye searching the ruins did it for me, the sound as much as the visuals… ..I will never forget the scary experience…
Thank you Dan for another awesome video. War of the Worlds is one of my favorite SciFi movies. Finding out what became of the war machines, “Oh the pain the pain”
In the 70's I read a magazine article about the sound effects on War of the Worlds. It said the heat ray was a recording of a Chrysler Starter Motor sped up and the green ray was a pipe wrench hitting a radio tower support wire. Now if I could only remember what magazine.
Love your videos sir! I have loved this movie since i was a kid in the 70s (: I agree about real models looking real for years as a kid i thought they build a real full size Eagle for Space 1999.
I remember reading an article about the tripods a few years back, and they were going to use the light effect for the legs through the whole movie. The problem was the lights (I don't know what type they were) were so strong that they were a fire hazard. The sparkle effect is actually dust exploding in the light beam. It also set fire to the dust on the studio floor. So after the first few shots, they stopped using them.
Maybe that's what I remember reading in an article in the early 70s, rather than it being the weapon. If it is, they were using very high voltage electricity to create sparks.
When I was like 10 to 14 or so I always stayed up on Friday nights for the double feature on channel 10 in Columbus, OH. I saw this movie several times on there, and it was one of my all time favorites. I bet it's been 50 years since I last saw it, but I remember it so well. I was also a big Sci Fi reader, and read all of Wells' books multiple times. Good times growing up 😊
War of the Worlds, Forbidden Planet and the Original The Thing were my favorites growing up in the late 60s early 70s on the Sammy Terry show here in Indiana!!!
If you look at the ground when the machines are moving out towards the camera, you can see little fires lighting up when the "invisible tripod legs" each take a step. It's incredible attention to detail, and I'm shocked you "experts" haven't caught that!
Just like when a 10KV power line touches the ground. Maybe those invisible legs are a power circuit between the machine and the ground....high voltage equals high magnetism to lift the machine.
Paul Frees' most notable actor parts for me, besides the reporter and voiceover in War of the Worlds, was Boris Badenov in Rocky and Bullwinkle, and Santa Claus in Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.
Paul Freeze also voiced Boris of Boris and Natasha in Rocky and Bulwinkle. He made a move, the name I can't remember, about a master chef who practiced canabalism
Thanks for this. My brother and I loved this movie as kids. No idea what year we first saw it but it was a very long time ago. I enjoyed learning more about it. Subscribed.
What a great video, I loved this film as a kid and still do to this day! I remember seeing the scene where the Martian machine rises and you faintly see the tripod energy beams below but if you watch closely as the machines move and attack the ground below them crackles and burns where the legs make contact so they didn't forget the idea that they are tripods and if I remember correctly this is really apparent in the scene where the machine "lands" outside the farmhouse so technically you do see the legs a few times through the film though most of the time they're invisible because they didn't add the beam effect 😊
When I was a kid, I remember seeing the trailer for this amazing film on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies. A week later, that same network showed it on TV for the first time. My parents and siblings were truly amazed! Sometime later, NBC showed "The Time Machine" (1960) and "The Day the Earth Stood Still," as well. If memory serves, the booth announcer for NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was Don Reynolds. Many thanks, Dan Monroe/Media Master Design.
The reason there were no major stars in the film was because George Pal wanted fresh unknown talent that would make the film more genuine, no famous actors with bigger personas than the other worldly experience he wanted people to feel from the film.
Was going down a rabbit hole of old monster movies that led me to this video. I'm always fascinated by the process of designing the monsters and bringing them to life.
For the love of science fiction, Paramount's 1953 film "WAR OF THE WORLDS" to me is the best superlative syfy film ever made. However, every "scrap and chit" I had collected was damaged or destroyed intentionally by somebody. Lobby photos, magazine articles, models of the "War Machines," even 8mm I had made to record proof of ownership. All gone, destroyed by people I know. There seems to be a twist of fate that wants to erase bits of history....from existence. Thanks for the post. It's extremely good. Love the film. It gave me nightmares for years at 11yrs old in the Lincoln Theater, Trenton, NJ. Even, the theater is gone now.
War of the Worlds was my second favorite sci-fi film and I watch it every time I see it on. Beautiful effects for it's time that are not comparable in this day if you match what they had to work with at that time. Brilliantly done.
The effect are comparable to today's effects, because they were the best of their day, just like today's effects are the best of their day, and comparing them to what will exist in, say, 70 years' time will be as equally pointless. Take away today's filmmakers use of CGI and computers, and they couldn't improve on earlier film effects.
Love your videos, nice work. The War Machine is hands down the coolest spaceship ever made, best sounds ever too. And those Martians also scared the crap out of me when i was a kid. Great stuff.
It's pretty impressive to say the least. I wrongly assumed that all 1950's era sci-fi movies were thickly cut cheese as far as the special effects were concerned, but I'm happy to stand corrected.
@@Klutech Yes, there are a number of great sci-fi films from the 50's; "Forbidden Planet" , "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "The Thing", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", etc.
Great video and movie. I think ILl watch it tonight! For the.? ? ? time.. I watched it and the following evening I watched the 1960 version of "The Tme Machine" .I noticed something interesting. In the segment of the air raid n 1966. A few of the military uniforms seem to be from "Forbidden Planet"
6 місяців тому+6
Fun fact the leading actor and actress were later in the War of the Worlds remake with Tom Cruise in the doorway with his movie pregnant ex wife.
Great video Dan. Love the channel, my new favorite! Loved WOTW throughout my childhood. The scenes where Pastor Collins is disintegrated and the Army dropping of the A bomb always gave me chills.
Dan, once again another fantastically researched and well presented video. Just love your narration. Well done on such a great movie. Scared the bejezzes out of me back in the day as well.
So glad I found your channel! This was one of myall time favorite movies and I have seen it literally dozens of times (along with the original Time Machine)! Thank you for making these! I HAVE to find one of these models of the war machines!!! Incidentally, if you look closely at the "lack of tripods" in many other scenes with them, you can actually see the "heat" where they are touching the ground, and not just the first scene where you originally see them come out. Look closer at many of the other scenes and you will see them. Anyway, good stuff!!!
God, where have you been? I have fallen in love with this channel, from the Lost in Space Robot to now War of the Worlds. Please keep it up and please keep doing the Zack Smith moan. This channel and you are awesome! I write this on my 66th birthday. 🥳
I'm 68 and have watched this version many times in my life. Unlike me, it never gets old!
You're only as old as you feel :-) thanks for the support, Dan
I'm 63 & same.
The great British actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke provided the opening narration, as well as a voiceover at the end. In the 2005 remake, Gene Barry and Ann Robinson had a cameo at the film’s end, playing the grandparents of the two children. As a longtime fan of the 1953 film, I thought their inclusion was wonderful. Barry died in 2009. Ann Robinson is still living at 94 years old.
War Of The Worlds and Time Machine are two of my all time fave movies. They were the staple of my childhood on any given Saturday.
Ditto from a 63 year older😜🤪👍
Ditto from a 35 year old! Had the VHS then upgraded to dvd
PROPS - I agree 100%
I was 8 years old in 53 and beg and beg my mom to let me go see this movie. She refused because she said it would be to scary and cause me nightmares. But she tired of me constantly asking to see it and reluctantly took me to the Osage Theater in Bartlesville OK to see War of the Worlds. The scene where Barry and Robinson were in the partially damaged house and the Martian’s hand came reaching out towards them so terrified me I hid my face in my mother’s lap and plugged up both ears with my fingers. A woman behind us scream in horror and tossed her bag of popcorn in the air with some of it landing on my mother and me. Yeah, mom was right as I did have a couple of bad dreams the week following but all was good after that. Great movie and special effects were off the charts for that time of Hollywood movies.
Thank you for that wonderful story.
Than it worked.
This had me LAUGHING OUT LOUD, especially about the woman tossing the popcorn in the air! 🤣
Glad to see you ahem, ENJOYED the movie the way you did...
The Blob creeped me out way more than this one having a similar experience watching that.
I miss those times watching these shows on TV - I might even miss the old TV sets that I associate with all of these classic movies...
Great times back then!
@ Yep, The Blob was also a great SF movie. However, I was 14 when that movie came out and so much more mature and manly that I did not need mom to accompany me to watch that thriller. 😆
I grew up with all of this. This "War of the Worlds" (in particular) and "Forbidden Planet" and then (later) "Star Trek" original, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" and "Lost in Space" stoked my sci fi fever. Thank you so very much for filling in some of the gaps. Well done. Don't even get me started on "Land of the Giants" and so many more.... just start with "The Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" (Originals.)
I grew up with the George Pal adaptation & it’s one of the reasons I got into film design. The whole look of the war machines is absolutely stunning.
When I graduated, I actually got to meet Ray Harryhausen; he was receiving an honorary doctorate at the same ceremony. We got to talk about his work & the impact it had on me.
I’ve always loved that Gene Barry & Ann Robinson have cameos in the Spielberg adaptation. They play the children’s grandparents who we see at the end of the film.
Great story! I almost went into filmmaking at Uni then transferred to Architecture. I’m now retired and still wonder if I made the right choice!
I lived about 15 minutes from Grover Mills. That is the town the aliens showed up at on Orson Wells' radio play. They at that time welcomed the War of the World's with open arms. There was at that time a statue plaque for it. The Grover Mills coffee shop had Ann Robison at their grand opening. Even the lawn mower store put martian stickers on their mowers. Mills is near Princeton.
My memory of this film was me hiding behind a couch, scared witless. I was only around 5 years old, but. Still love it every time I see it.
One of my favorite old Science Fiction movies… When I was very young, and first saw the movie, the Martian war machines frightened me… There were street lamps on our street that resembled the energy weapon of the war machines that made me afraid to go out after dark, for about a week.. Still love seeing the movie when it gets replayed on tv… Thanks for this deep dive into War of the Worlds Dan! 👍🏻👍🏻
This is still one of my favorite sci-fi films growing up in the 70s
I saw this movie in 53, I'm 84 years young.
Would love to hear the stories you have. 😁
Thank you for making me feel young, I’m only 66.
Thanks !! God bless you !!
That is so interesting! Can you tell us what your reaction to the movie was then...was it actually scary to you? Even now I still think it's creepy when the eyeball camera is creeping around .😂
I'm only 62 I feel like a kid!👨🔧@@raybod1775
Paul Frees also supplied the voice of the “talking rings” in George Pal’s “The Time Machine”.
George Frees supplied the voice for..
A whole lot of stuff. From Boris Badenov to the guy who narrates Charlton Heston's destruction of Earth in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", to voice over work in movies and those classic Rankin Bass features.
@@winternow2242 Yes, I realize…I researched him after seeing this video. I brought up “The Time Machine” because it was also a George Pal production.
@@winternow2242 He also voiced KARR in TV show Nightrider.He voiced the thing in Hanna-Barbera the Fanstic Four the 1967
cartoon.He had a good relationship with
RanklinBass.A very talented man.And
wished I meet him.
I first saw it in ny local video store when I was a youngling. I cheeky sat on the floor and watched it beginning to end. It is such a vibrantly beautiful telling of the classic story
Ann Robinson is a cousin. She is one of few people still alive from the show. She is in her mid 90's. J. R.
That is amazing. I wonder if she is aware of how the film is viewed as such a classic today? I hope so…
The art of story telling has been lost in Hollywood. Modern movies assault the senses rather than engage the imagination. Old movies supported the story with visual effects, where modern movies are spectacular visual effects tied together by mediocre stories.
Still one of my all-time favorites! Right up there with Forbidden Planet! Can’t wait to see more of your great historical looks into the fantastic 50’s/60’s SiFi films. Thank you.
Would love a release in theaters today in the original format.
That would be great. WoW snd When Worlds Collide were actually rereleased to theatres after Star Wars. They would have been back in theatres around 1978. Most seem either not to know of this, or have forgotten it.
@@Christopher1889 amen
Amen
I grew up in Toledo ohio and lived across the street from Textile leather, the had an aluminum clad siding and if you rapped your knuckles on it it sounded exactly like the USS ENTERPRISE'S photon torpedoes
The ones that came down in Los Angeles were stripped bare of parts within an hour, and the ones in the Bay Area had their windows broken and the valuables inside stolen before they stopped sliding.
Haha!
And the aliens died of infections they got from all the poop on the streets in both cities.
One of my favorite parts of this movie, was the use of the Northrop YB-49 stock test flight footage to have this aircraft drop the atomic bomb on the Martian hive outside of Los Angeles. I think we see an homage to that part of the movie in the 1996 film Independence Day, where a Northrop B-2 Spirit is deployed in much the same way.
one thing I like about the remake is that Gene Barry and Ann Robinson appear as the grandparents at the end, it's just a nice Easter Egg for fans of the original
I seriously never noticed that. Now I have to watch it again LOL thanks Dan
I didn't know that either! Thanks for sharing that.
Indeed they did.
In early 2023, I was in a stage production of WotW, the movie adaptation, I played Van Buran's father, getting zapped at the end of Act 1.
Our sound effect woman had a long spring attached to two thin rods and put through a phase amp with echo, hitting the spring with a small hammer. It sound pretty close to the movie.
The audience didn't want to talk to the cast, they wanted to hit the spring with the hammer.
The 1953 version The War of the Worlds is a classic. I love that movie.
Still my number one movie of all time! At 60, I still get shivers watching the house scene! Thank you for your great insights and research!
One of the best, if not the best, alien invasion of Earth movies ever made! A true classic that has become timeless.
My 15 year old son and I have seen this movie and we both loved it we finally just got to watch forbidden planet we’re on a mission to watch every classic sci-fi movie and monster movie
Forbidden Planet is awesome. I would highly recommend the Angry Red Planet and the time machine.
@@MoviesMusicMonsters we also also have seen angry red planet the day the earth stood still earth vs the flying saucer teenagers from outer space we also seen the Time Machine made in the 2000s my son loves lost in space ouuu
The Blob with Steve McQueen. That one still scares the hell out of me and I'm 70.
Also, add "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to your list.
One of my favorite movies. Have the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray as well as a huge framed print of the movie poster. Thanks for the video.
You are so welcome :-) glad you enjoyed it, Dan
Still one of my favorite scifi classics, excellent sound effects. The photon sounds was used in Star Trek.
This is a great UA-cam site! 😎 BTW, Paul Frees was also the voice of Boris Badenov and Inspector Fenwick on Rocky and Bullwinkle, among about 10,000 other famous character voices! 🤣🤣🤣
I remember watching this as a kid in the sixties, its still my favourite.
I always found the Martian war machines to be among the most sleek and elegant looking "space craft" in all of scifi film.
So totally unique. Stands the test of time to this day :-)
Those War Of The Worlds flying machine scarred the crap out of me when I was 9... seeing the film for the first time. Every bit as scary as the saucers in Earth Vs The Flying Saucers. Now THERE'S a damn good movie, too!! As for Robinson Crusoe On Mars.... that is THE BEST damn adaptation of the classic EVER! Talk about bloody brilliant and then some! LOVED that film. And how about...
... yeah.
Enough.
I'm a Sci-Fi nerd. 😞
This movie was the first sci-fi movie I saw, and it set me for life. My all time favorite.
Great movie - great vid on it.
Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds added a great deal to the mystique of the story, too.
While not the tripods of the book or later movie, I absolutely loved the design of those ships, along with the awesome sound.
I saw that you can actually buy replicas of the 1953 War of the Word's war machines. They look just like the original ones. There were also other things from different old sci fi movies that you could buy. Too cool!
Wow!! We love ❤️ your channel. Fantastic work!! Thank you so much.
Dr. Clayton Forrester was also a character on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I went to the 25 Anniversary in Hollywood California and sat next to Ann Robertson and got her autograph. Gene Barry did not come, We heard he did not think it was going to be much of a celebration. I will never forget it. To this day its my favorite movie and I own it on DVD. Still have the commemorative buttons they gave out ❤ the Steven Spielberg version was not as good in my opinion. BTW my sister was an extra in the boat scene. She mentioned Spielberg suggested not to pay the extras because he thought it was a privilege for them to be in his movie. My sister was in the actors union so she got paid.
Fell in love with this movie in the 70's. I actually recorded the audio on cassette and would listen to it often with my eyes closed imagining the movie. Got it (and still have it) on DVD. Still have a Fangoria magazine showing how the movie was made. Thank you for this episode. Brings back great memories.
There's a Lux Radio Theater version from 1955 which adapts the 1953 film very faithfully. Stars Dana Andrews as Clayton Forrester, and Patricia Crowley as Sylvia.
It's very evident Sylvia has fallen hard for Clayton here.
As a kid in the late eighties or early nineties I stumbled upon a way to perfectly recreate the heat ray sound effect.
I had a Tomy voice changer and by adjusting the frequency modification to the right setting and holding the mic near the speaker it would produce a distorted feedback that sounded exactly right.
This was a very good episode mate. Can't wait for the Time Machine one to come out. Two of my all time favourite movies and stories. Well done.
As a kid this was my favorite movie. That Martian scared the crap out of me.
Great video on War of The Worlds, I saw this years later after seeing the remake with Tom Cruise and I gotta say that I was blown away by how amazing it was especially the alien war machines and the alien itself. It pains me to hear that they were melted down.
Yeah, a real shame. But that's just how things were in those days :-)
Hello! Recently discovered this channel, and I am home recovering from hip replacement surgery and have been watching these videos! They are so good!
Thank you, Dan!
Hey there my friend, so glad these videos can bring you some enjoyment during your recovery :-) be safe and hope you recover fully soon :-) Dan
My Father was a member of the Arizona National Guard at the time they made this movie. I know he told me about that time, but I was too young and dumb to realize how interesting it would be to me in the future. I know he drove a truck in one of the sequences, but I don't know if it ever made it to the final cut. I wish he were still around for me to ask him about it.
❤
Excellent stuff! Interesting fact, Paul Frees also played one of the arctic scientists in 1951s The Thing From Another World. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
I remember “Robinson Crusoe on Mars “and was completely blown away,the whole story line was fantastic,the orbiter,the escape pod,future Batman Adam West, the concept of aliens enslaving an entire population for mining (that in itself was intriguing,where did the aliens come from,why did they have slaves, why didn’t they arrive on earth and how did they travel through space)the aliens searching for and attempting to destroy a single escaped slave (who seem to resemble Native Americans) and the final rescue…
Converted to robotic flying vehicles. Blasting everything below them.
The special effects in this movie are unbelievable and those rich colours used for filming stand out so well, the alien ships used have such a great look to them, its a timeless design which in itself proves this film is in a league above, i agree that using something thats real rather than cgi graphics is better, some top films pull off cgi really well but many dont and look so fake almost cartoon looking.
Paul Frees did so much voice work. He voiced Borris in Bullwinkle, a lot of Rankin-Bass roles, I dream of genie, etc. If you are a gen-x kid like me, you have almost certainly heard him many times!
I absolutely loved (and was terrified by) this movie when I was little. My parents and I had a standing deal that if WOTW came on television - school night, midnight, didn't matter - I had permission to stay up and watch it or my father would wake me up to watch it. Very special to me. And now as a grown man I really appreciate the audacity of the entire production and how genuinely shocking this must have been to audiences at the time. Things like the helplessness of Dr. Forrester trying to get equipment and supplies through streets filled with panicked people who drag him out of the truck and loot it - that was pretty heavy stuff to put in a 1953 film.
It was a category X film in the Uk, adults only, I was circa 16 but snuck in because I was tall, having no one with me was a big mistake, it was the only film to genuinely scare me, it was so well made. That Martian eye searching the ruins did it for me, the sound as much as the visuals… ..I will never forget the scary experience…
Thank you Dan for another awesome video.
War of the Worlds is one of my favorite SciFi movies.
Finding out what became of the war machines, “Oh the pain the pain”
In the 70's I read a magazine article about the sound effects on War of the Worlds. It said the heat ray was a recording of a Chrysler Starter Motor sped up and the green ray was a pipe wrench hitting a radio tower support wire. Now if I could only remember what magazine.
Love your videos sir!
I have loved this movie since i was a kid in the 70s (:
I agree about real models looking real for years as a kid i thought they build a real full size Eagle for Space 1999.
As I tapped on your video I said I wish you would do the time machine! I will be looking forward to that.
It's on its way :-) probably next week. Thanks for the support, Dan
I remember reading an article about the tripods a few years back, and they were going to use the light effect for the legs through the whole movie. The problem was the lights (I don't know what type they were) were so strong that they were a fire hazard. The sparkle effect is actually dust exploding in the light beam. It also set fire to the dust on the studio floor. So after the first few shots, they stopped using them.
Maybe that's what I remember reading in an article in the early 70s, rather than it being the weapon. If it is, they were using very high voltage electricity to create sparks.
I definitely remember reading the same explanation.
When I was like 10 to 14 or so I always stayed up on Friday nights for the double feature on channel 10 in Columbus, OH. I saw this movie several times on there, and it was one of my all time favorites. I bet it's been 50 years since I last saw it, but I remember it so well. I was also a big Sci Fi reader, and read all of Wells' books multiple times. Good times growing up 😊
Paul Frees is one of the greatest voice actors, if not the greatest, of all time. Huge fan!
Thank you kindly for sharing this information love your clips keep them coming
War of the Worlds, Forbidden Planet and the Original The Thing were my favorites growing up in the late 60s early 70s on the Sammy Terry
show here in Indiana!!!
I agree except "Forbidden Planet" with that silly Robby the Robot stinks.
If you look at the ground when the machines are moving out towards the camera, you can see little fires lighting up when the "invisible tripod legs" each take a step. It's incredible attention to detail, and I'm shocked you "experts" haven't caught that!
First time I saw this epic, those little fires had me riveted!
I knew them to be 'footprints'...
Just like when a 10KV power line touches the ground. Maybe those invisible legs are a power circuit between the machine and the ground....high voltage equals high magnetism to lift the machine.
Paul Frees' most notable actor parts for me, besides the reporter and voiceover in War of the Worlds, was Boris Badenov in Rocky and Bullwinkle, and Santa Claus in Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.
YES!
Another fine one Dan !!! great back story, I had not idea
Hey, thank you so much :-) more to come, stay tuned :-) Dan
Paul Freeze also voiced Boris of Boris and Natasha in Rocky and Bulwinkle. He made a move, the name I can't remember, about a master chef who practiced canabalism
That movie was amazing. Still holds today.
Great content and discussion! I really enjoy your channel! Yes, Robinson Caruso on Mars, another one of my all time favorites! 👏🏻😉
Hey, thank you so much for watching :-) I truly appreciate it. Dan
Excellent job! Perhaps you can do ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS sometime ?
The sounds the alien heat ray guns and disintegrators made when spooling up and firing was AWESOME!
Thanks for this. My brother and I loved this movie as kids. No idea what year we first saw it but it was a very long time ago. I enjoyed learning more about it. Subscribed.
I have the recently released Criterion Collection DVD. It looks great. I've loved this movie since I saw it on tv in the '70s.
Boy, this movie really freightened me as a boy. I loved it...😊😊😊
What a great video, I loved this film as a kid and still do to this day!
I remember seeing the scene where the Martian machine rises and you faintly see the tripod energy beams below but if you watch closely as the machines move and attack the ground below them crackles and burns where the legs make contact so they didn't forget the idea that they are tripods and if I remember correctly this is really apparent in the scene where the machine "lands" outside the farmhouse so technically you do see the legs a few times through the film though most of the time they're invisible because they didn't add the beam effect 😊
Great Video, learned some great info..time for a rewatch
As a kid, my three favorite movies were The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, and Atlantis: The Lost Continent, all George Pal films.
And the hits just keep on coming. Love this episode of another favorite classic movie.
Hey, thank you so much :-) much appreciated.
Yes I recognize his voice. Frees was really the remarkable man with a thousand voices!!!
I first saw War of the Worlds at a theater in 1967. Pal's work remained my favorite. His Time Machine is superior in so many ways as well.
When I was a kid, I remember seeing the trailer for this amazing film on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies. A week later, that same network showed it on TV for the first time. My parents and siblings were truly amazed! Sometime later, NBC showed "The Time Machine" (1960) and "The Day the Earth Stood Still," as well. If memory serves, the booth announcer for NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was Don Reynolds. Many thanks, Dan Monroe/Media Master Design.
The reason there were no major stars in the film was because George Pal wanted fresh unknown talent that would make the film more genuine, no famous actors with bigger personas than the other worldly experience he wanted people to feel from the film.
I grew up on this movie and in 2022 was fortunate enough to see it on the big screen at Blobfest at the landmark Colonial Theater.
This is, by far and away, my favourite sci-fi movie of all time. It scared me so much when I saw it as a kid 😱
This movie scared me when I watched it on television as a kid in the 1970s. Now, it’s one of my favorite movies.
The sound effect of the heat ray was a recording of a young Yoko Ono singing.
Well isn't the singing voice of yoko Ono dubbed from a cat stuck in a blender.
Well, you have me laughing now and I needed it. lol
Was going down a rabbit hole of old monster movies that led me to this video. I'm always fascinated by the process of designing the monsters and bringing them to life.
For the love of science fiction, Paramount's 1953 film "WAR OF THE WORLDS" to me is the best superlative syfy film ever made. However, every "scrap and chit" I had collected was damaged or destroyed intentionally by somebody. Lobby photos, magazine articles, models of the "War Machines," even 8mm I had made to record proof of ownership. All gone, destroyed by people I know. There seems to be a twist of fate that wants to erase bits of history....from existence. Thanks for the post. It's extremely good. Love the film. It gave me nightmares for years at 11yrs old in the Lincoln Theater, Trenton, NJ. Even, the theater is gone now.
War of the Worlds was my second favorite sci-fi film and I watch it every time I see it on. Beautiful effects for it's time that are not comparable in this day if you match what they had to work with at that time. Brilliantly done.
The effect are comparable to today's effects, because they were the best of their day, just like today's effects are the best of their day, and comparing them to what will exist in, say, 70 years' time will be as equally pointless. Take away today's filmmakers use of CGI and computers, and they couldn't improve on earlier film effects.
Great job. I have always appreciated the effects of this movie. I didn't know about 3 strip process. Thanks for the info.
Paul was a major voice with Rankin Bass !
Love your videos, nice work. The War Machine is hands down the coolest spaceship ever made, best sounds ever too. And those Martians also scared the crap out of me when i was a kid. Great stuff.
Great videos good sir! I love the older classics. Especially sci-fi and horror.
Those special effects still stand up today. Incredible.
It's pretty impressive to say the least. I wrongly assumed that all 1950's era sci-fi movies were thickly cut cheese as far as the special effects were concerned, but I'm happy to stand corrected.
@@Klutech Yes, there are a number of great sci-fi films from the 50's; "Forbidden Planet" , "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "The Thing", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", etc.
Great video and movie. I think ILl watch it tonight! For the.? ? ? time..
I watched it and the following evening I watched the 1960 version of "The Tme Machine" .I noticed something interesting. In the segment of the air raid n 1966. A few of the military uniforms seem to be from "Forbidden Planet"
Fun fact the leading actor and actress were later in the War of the Worlds remake with Tom Cruise in the doorway with his movie pregnant ex wife.
Saw this on tv when I was a kid and that crazy sound they made when they shot there lazer scared the crap out of me.
Haha me too :-)
Great video Dan. Love the channel, my new favorite! Loved WOTW throughout my childhood. The scenes where Pastor Collins is disintegrated and the Army dropping of the A bomb always gave me chills.
Dan, once again another fantastically researched and well presented video. Just love your narration. Well done on such a great movie.
Scared the bejezzes out of me back in the day as well.
The 1953 version is my favorite!! I just wish I could get the sound of the heat ray as my ringtone!
So glad I found your channel! This was one of myall time favorite movies and I have seen it literally dozens of times (along with the original Time Machine)! Thank you for making these! I HAVE to find one of these models of the war machines!!! Incidentally, if you look closely at the "lack of tripods" in many other scenes with them, you can actually see the "heat" where they are touching the ground, and not just the first scene where you originally see them come out. Look closer at many of the other scenes and you will see them. Anyway, good stuff!!!
God, where have you been? I have fallen in love with this channel, from the Lost in Space Robot to now War of the Worlds. Please keep it up and please keep doing the Zack Smith moan. This channel and you are awesome! I write this on my 66th birthday. 🥳