Rating: 
Summary: Invasion of A Classic
Review: Harryhausen was a wizard when it came to special effects. The movie's script was sluggish at times but the effects more then made up for it. A personal pic is the sceen when a saucer crashes with the capital building. This movie was often imatated but never duplicated. It remains one of my personal pics (along with When Worlds Collide and War of the Worlds).
Rating: 
Summary: good effects, bad acting and script
Review: although ray harryhausen's special effects are still amazing to this day, the plot is dull and the acting is simply awful. worth watching only for the genius of harryhausen
Rating: 
Summary: The quintessential 1950's flying saucer movie.
Review: If anyone could give character and believability to flying saucers, it's Ray Harryhausen. This early Harryhausen effort was designed to capitalize on the flying saucer craze of the time, and as such it succeeded well. Harryhausen's special effects work does much to make this otherwise "B" movie effort appear to be much more than it is, lending a much needed sense of scope and grandeur to the film.Several of Washington D.C.'s most well known landmarks are convincingly destroyed near the end of the movie, making for a rousing climax. The aliens themselves are well designed and nicely rendered, lending a sense of mystery and foreboding to the movie. Unfortunately, the film was flatly and statically directed by Fred Sears and whenever the flying saucers are elsewhere the movie slows down considerably. However, the flying saucer sequences make up the bulk of the film, which keeps it from bogging down too badly. Trivia buffs will enjoy this fact- Ray Harryhausen's father was a machinist and he fabricated the memorable saucer models from his son's sketches.
Rating:
Summary: Great representative of 1950's Sci-Fi genre'
Review: "Earth vs. The Flying Saucers" debuted in July of 1956 and it's easy to see why it was a fairly successful film for it's time. Capitalizing on the wave of UFO sightings that were sweeping the country at that time, "EVFS" had to have had an impact on a large number of paranoid Americans.
The strength of the film, of course, in found in the believable saucers concocted by the great Ray Harryhausen. So believable, in fact, that the viewer slowly forgets that the saucers are only an effect and not really in the picture. Harryhausen was a master at mixing light and background with his effects and displays that genius in this film!
Rather than go into the plot of the movie (which has been done and overdone by previous reviewers), let me suffice to say that this film needs to be judged by the technology that was available at that time. Sure, it special effects are primitive compared to today's computer-generated blockbusters, but that shouldn't detract the viewer from appreciating the film on it's own level. One can definitely see the effect that this film had on the production of films like "Independence Day".
Unlike many of the DVD's of the 1950's Sci-Fi films produced today, "EVFS" contains some great extras. In particular, the "Harryhausen Chronicles" are almost worth the price of the disc alone. This semi-documentary gives the viewer some great insight from first-person interviews with Harryhausen. His great imagination and wit jump off the screen as he gives the viewer the background secrets to the creation of some of his greatest special effects. Also included are vignettes on the "making of" EVFS with Harryhausen and Joe Dante and "This is Dynamation".
This is great stuff and should be a part of every Sci-Fi collection! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Rating: 
Summary: FUN HARRYHAUSEN FILM
Review: As a Harryhausen fan I've always been disappointed that he didn't have a larger body of work. Perhaps it was by his choice but I suspect that part of it was that Ray's stop-motion animation technique was so time-consuming and costly, that it certainly proved to be his worst enemy at times, especially since he didn't exactly work on pictures with "A" budgets for the most part. But Ray's perfectionist zeal was a boon to his fans. His effects used in Earth vs. The Flying Saucers raises the bar on films that previously had relied on tying a flying saucer to fishing line and moving it across the screen. Harryhausen's flying saucers almost define flying saucers, and the "flat men" aliens are quite unique.
Dr. Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe)heads up Operation Skyhook, which is tasked with sending rockets into the upper atmosphere to probe for future space flights. Unfortunately, all the rockets are somehow disappearing. During the final rocket launching, a UFO lands and the military shoots at it, triggering the destruction of the installation and a cryptic warning from the aliens. In response, Marvin and his colleagues develop an anti-magnetic beam weapon to disable the flying discs. The weapon and the mettle of the populace of Washington, DC are soon put to the test.
Besides the Harryhausen effects, the other thing setting this film well above others of its ilk is the screenplay by Curt Siodmak, who wrote so many classic screenplays including the Wolf Man. As usual the biggest drawback in these 50's era sci-fi films is the wooden acting of its stars. Marlowe is passable but after that it's strictly B movie central from the rest of the cast.
While this does not have the stature of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" or "Forbidden Planet", this film is still a classic. It is so stereotypical of the cold war alien paranoia films that I use it as the example in my film class. It is obviously the basis for films that came later, such as "Independence Day" and "Mars Attacks".
The nice DVD comes with a couple of very solid features on harryhausens Dynamation and the making of the film itself.
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Summary: The Saucers Are Coming!!!
Review: The 1956 Columbia Pictures presentation of "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers" plopped itself down into the midst of an America that was largely on tenterhooks because of very real Communist expansionist activities around the world (hence the spectre of an "invasion" mentality), as well as an America steeped in the awareness of strange things being seen in the skies since the mid-1940s (sporadic signtings of weird "airships" or "flying chariots' go far back into history, but EN MASSE incidents dated only to the Second World War in the skies over Europe...to little silver disks sailing through Allied bomber formations, to larger light balls soaring about everywhere, seemingly with "intelligent guidance"...things called "ghost rockets" and "foo fighters" that the Allies thought were German secret weapons, and the Germans thought were Allied secret weapons).
In June of 1947 an Idaho businessman named Kenneth Arnold was
involved in a Civil Air Patrol search near Washington's Mt. Rainier, helping the US Air Force in searching for a downed cargp plane, when he saw a group of strange aircraft sail past the mountain in an echelon formation like geese or ducks. He was close enough to tell they weren't birds, but crescent shaped metallic "whatzits". Arnold reported them, but believed they were some sort of classified, experimental aircraft on maneuvers.
The government denied this. In talking about these things he'd seen, Arnold said the "craft" (crescents, mind you) kind of moved forward through the air in a skipping sort of motion "like if you spun a saucer out (frisbee style) across the top of a pond and it skipped scross the water". Well, he used the word "saucer", and the things were supposedly flying, so the media put the two concepts together and the term "Flying Saucer" was born. The implication being these "must be" the craft of some kind of people from outer space. But what did they want? Why were they here? Imaginations were left to run wild with that...as well as memories of H.G. Well's novel "War of the Worlds" and the terrifying radio program done of it in the 1930's by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre Players.
People got a little "antsy" over these things (justfiably so) and interest in them was high (still is). The Air Force was charged with investigating this situation and set up several projects to investigate them, the most famous being Project Blue Book at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Early on the AF had somewhat of an open policy with the public about "these things". but in 1952 that changed radically. In the summer of 1952 the greater metropolitan Washington, DC, area was besieged by "saucers" for several days in July. They were all over the skies over Washington and on out into the Virginia and Maryland countrysides. Jets took them on and got outflown and outmaneuvered. Rumors persist to this day that there were "shootdowns" on both sides. Maybe. Maybe not.In any event, after that wild summer the government cracked down big time on UFO reporting. The policy became "Deny it. Deny it all", the same policy that exists to this day. Project Blue Book was turned into nothing more than a "discrediting agency" for "PR" purposes and the real AF UFO investigation switched to a NEW unit, the 4602nd Air Intelligence Service Squadron, a group whose existence was only discovered in the past decade or so. It has operated under various code names, "Moon Dust", etc., ALL ALONG, while the public was told that THE "investigating agency" (Blue Book) had been SHUT DOWN in 1969 on the recommendation of a spurious, CIA-controlled "Scientific" Investigation at the University of Colorado. All this Colorado horseplay did was write official "finis' to Project Blue Book, the OFFICIAL AF UFO research project. But "deep black" clandestine government UFO investigations continued...and continue NOW...in full swing...under various covert code names. Surprise, surprise, the government lies! But not just ours...they ALL do!
The 1952 D.C. incident was made prominent in a classic expose book called "Flying Saucers From Outer Space" by Marine Corps retired Major. Donald Keyhoe, and this later formed the basis for the screenplay of "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers". "Earth" , in cranking out an exciting SF adventure for the younger crowd, does a sizable bit of exaggerating on what what really went on...with saucers destroying national landmarks in DC while the AF and the Army use newly brainstormed rayguns to shoot them down. Its an Us-vs-THEM shoot-em-up showdown in the sky.
The war-of-the-worlds scenario of a dying race looking to relocate on Earth was the basis for this invasion plan, and it works fine enough in this capacity in this film. The stop-motion animation effects by Ray Harryhausen are excellent for their time and technology level. Harryhausen's work is always a treat and is no less spectacular here than in any of the Sinbad series entries or any of his big gorilla or dinosaur work.
Hugh Marlowe (From "Day the Earth Stood Still") stars here and does a fine job in one of the few SF movies of the period that doesn't star either Richard Denning or Richard Carlson (or both). All supporting roles are handled competently.
"Earth" delivers all the thrills, chills, excitement and goosebumps you could ask for in a B-level potboiler and if you want to stuff yourself with hot chocolate and popcorn in front of the old idiot box while it rains a river outside sometime, pop this oldie-but-goodie in your DVD player, kick back, relax, and enjoy. It's a lot of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Campy Conspiracy Theorist-Inspired 1950's Sci-Fi B-Movie
Review: Almost 50 years ago (1956), Fred F. Sears (1913-1957) directed one of the more memorable sci-fi B-movies entitled "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers", which was based upon the book "Flying Saucers from Outer Space" written by Donald E. Keyhoe (1897-1988). (A retired marine officer, Donald E. Keyhoe became an advocate of government alien-cover-up conspiracy theories.) At only 83 minutes, film audiences were treated to a fictional scenario that focused on the U.S. being invaded by strange, powerful, humanoid aliens that arrive in seemingly unstoppable, spinning flying saucers (about 100 feet in diameter). They are first encountered by a husband & wife scientific team, Dr. Russell A. Marvin (Hugh Marlowe, 1911-1982) & Carol Marvin (Joan Taylor), who are testing high-altitude rockets. After Carol's father, Brig. Gen. Hanley (Morris Ankrum, 1896-1964), is kidnapped by the aliens, they realize that they must find a way to combat the aliens to stop their impending invasion of Earth (by attacking Washington, D.C.) using their powerful disintegrating-beam weapons.
Though the film is entertaining, it does suffer from several obvious flaws that are due, in part, to a weak film budget:
1. The armored aliens walk stiffly like robots, or if they are suffering from severe arthritis. This doesn't make them seem very menacing, except for their disintegrating-beams that can emanate from stiffly raised arms.
2. The notion of a spinning flying saucer does not seem like a very comfortable way to travel. Unless the aliens can counteract basic physical laws of motion (as described by Sir Isaac Newton, 1642-1727), it would be very difficult to maintain a non-spinning interior with a fast-rotating exterior of the ship. This was the basic physical law that had to be overcome in order for helicopters to be feasible.
3. Though quite entertaining, the alien attack on Washington, D.C. includes a supposed, nearby U.S. military counter-attack. However, the stock footage used was of rockets being launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and anti-aircraft artillery that is located in a mountainous desert-southwest location.
4. The alien invasion itself appears stopped after only about half a dozen (or slightly more) alien flying saucers are downed. Given the amount of effort that would be necessary for an invading alien force to successfully invade and subdue an entire planet, a successful invasion seems rather ostentatious, foolhardy and fruitless with only a handful of ships.
Despite the flaws, the film's ability to entertain was due in large measure to the visual effects supplied by Ray Harryhausen; whose other film visual effects include the 1963 "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), "One Million Years B.C." (1966) and "Clash of the Titans" (1981); as well as a descent script written by George Worthing Yates (1901-1975) & Bernard Gordon. (Bernard Gordon was one of the unfortunate victims of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's, 1908-1957, House Un-American Activities Committee.) Though memorable as a B-movie, "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" is not on the same par as some of its better contemporaries that include "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951, which also starred Hugh Marlowe), "The War of the Worlds" (1953) or "Forbidden Planet" (1956). It was, however, one of the inspirations for Tim Burton's humorous 1996 sci-fi spoof, "Mars Attacks!". Overall, I rate "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" with 3.5 stars out of 5, rounded up to 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: re: Wide screen DVD? Not really
Review: To add to what FlickFlack (NM, USA) said previously: The most obvious evidence of top and bottom clipping can be seen early in the movie when Dr. Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) is describing, with the use of an animated graphic, how his "birds" (satellites) will be orbited around Earth. In the original film and the VHS tape, you can see the complete circular orbit paths. In the "widescreen" DVD, the graphic has been significantly butchered.
The IMDB ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049169/ ) says that "Earth vs" was originally shot at a widescreen 1.85:1 ratio, but they've been wrong before. E. Lentoni (Long Island) in the preceeding message says that it was filmed at 1.33:1. I don't know who's correct, but I do know that I've never seen a true widescreen version on either tape or disc. Although many 1950's films were shot at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (the same shape as a TV picture tube, as a matter of fact), there were a lot of wider formats after about 1953. With the introduction of the DVD, I've certainly seen the "shortscreen" version.
Here's an irritating fact: Assume that the original film really was 1.85:1. Then trim the edges to make a fullscreen 1.33:1 image for the VHS tape. You have just removed 28 percent of the picture, leaving 72 percent. Now take that reduced image and trim the top and bottom off to make a "fake" widescreen 1.85:1 DVD image This is what Columbia did. You have now reduced the image to 72 percent of it's already shrunken size, and 52 percent of the filmed size. That's what you get with the DVD- only about 52 percent of the original filmed picture remains. You've lost essentially HALF of the picture information!
Rating:
Summary: questionable transfer
Review: This quick review addresses the decision of Columbia to sell this dvd as a widescreen version, though the film wasn't shot that way. As reviewer FlickFlack (NM, USA) pointed out, the top and bottom of the film were basically chopped off or 'blacked out' giving the impression of a widescreen version. I have this film also on vhs. I used an A/B switch to compare the versions while they played concurrently. The vhs vesion, which is in the original aspect ratio, has MORE to see. Respectfully I disagee with FlickFlack that not much important info is lost on the dvd. To my eyes I believe some pertinent information WAS lost by changing the aspect ratio of this film.
Anyway, I'm just trying to help. I wouldn't have bought this dvd had I known what Columbia Tristar did to this movie.
Five stars for the special effects, three stars for the script, and one star for the transfer.
Rating:
Summary: Wide screen DVD? Not really.
Review: "Earth Vs the Flying Saucers is a classic - read most of the other reviews. The Columbia Pictures (Columbia Tristar) release of the DVD contains a very good transfer, with picture quality as good as one could get from a 50-year-old film, and the sound quality is much better than the video tape, so it's worth buying for those reasons. BUT...
The IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) says that the film was shot at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and the image seen on the TV screen does indeed seem to be about that shape. However, Columbia's claim that this is a wide screen DVD is false. The DVD's image is exacly as wide as my full screen (1.33:1) VHS copy (from Good Times Video). The difference is that Columbia has just chopped off the top and bottom of the full screen version to make it look like wide screen. The full screen VHS actually contains more picture "information" than the "wide screen" DVD. If you are buying the DVD thinking that you'll see a wider picture than is on the full screen tape, you'll be disappointed. You will see nothing new. I must say that you don't really loose much important stuff, but on the other hand you're certainly not gaining anything- the information that was cropped from the original film to make the full screen tape is still missing from this "wide screen" DVD.
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