Sci-Fi

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) RePoPo

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The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951)
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Technical Information
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Type..................: Movie
Container file........: AVI
Video Format..........: H.264
Total Bitrate.........: 2402 Kbps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)....: 0.299
Audio format..........: AC3 192 Kbps (DVD Untouched)
Audio Languages.......: English 1.0
Subtitles Ripped......: English, Spanish
Subtitles in Subpack..: English HoH, Spanish, French
Resolution............: 640x480
Aspect Ratio..........: 1.33:1
Original Aspect Ratio.: 1.37:1
Color.................: B&W
FPS...................: 23.976
Source................: NTSC DVD
Duration..............: 01:32:06
Genre.................: Sci-Fi
IMDb Rating...........: 8.1
Movie Information.....: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043456/

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Release Notes
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson
All of Washington, D.C., is thrown into a panic when an extraterrestrial
spacecraft lands near the White House. Out steps Klaatu (Michael Rennie, in a
role intended for Claude Rains), a handsome and soft-spoken interplanetary
traveler, whose "bodyguard" is Gort (Lock Martin), a huge robot who spews forth
laser-like death rays when danger threatens. After being wounded by an
overzealous soldier, Klaatu announces that he has a message of the gravest
importance for all humankind, which he will deliver only when all the leaders of
all nations will agree to meet with him. World politics being what they are in
1951, Klaatu's demands are turned down and he is ordered to remain in the
hospital, where his wounds are being tended. Klaatu escapes, taking refuge in a
boarding house, where he poses as one "Mr. Carpenter" (one of the film's many
parallels between Klaatu and Christ). There the benign alien gains the
confidence of a lovely widow (Patricia Neal) and her son, Bobby (Billy Gray),
neither of whom tumble to his other-worldly origins, and seeks out the gentleman
whom Bobby regards as "the smartest man in the world" -- an Einstein-like
scientist, Dr. Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe). The next day, at precisely 12 o'clock,
Klaatu arranges for the world to "stand still" -- he shuts down all electrical
power in the world, with the exception of essentials like hospitals and planes
in flight. Directed by Robert Wise, who edited Citizen Kane (1941) and The
Magnificent Ambersons (1942) for director Orson Welles before going on to direct
such major 1960s musicals as West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music
(1965), The Day the Earth Stood Still was based on the story Farewell to the
Master by Harry Bates.
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CAST
Michael Rennie - Klaatu
Patricia Neal - Helen Benson
Hugh Marlowe - Tom Stevens
Sam Jaffe - Dr. Barnhardt
Billy Gray - Bobby Benson
Frances Bavier - Mrs. Barley
Lock Martin - Gort
Drew Pearson - Himself
H.V. Kaltenborn - Himself
John Brown - Mr. Bradley
John Burton - British Radio MC
Wheaton Chambers - Jeweler
Frank Conroy - Harley
James Craven - Businessman
Marjorie Crossland - Hilda
Edith Evanson - Mrs. Crockett
Bobby Gray
Harry Harvey - Taxi Driver
Gil Herman - Government Agent
Harry Lauter - Platoon Leader
Freeman Lusk - Gen. Cutler
George Lynn - Col. Ryder
Tyler McVey - Brady
Dorothy Neumann - Barnhardt's Secretary
Robert Osterloh - Major White
House Peters, Jr. - MP Captain
Marshall Bradford - Newscaster
Fay Roope - Major General
James Seay - Government Man
Olan Soule - Mr. Krull
Stuart Whitman
Rush Williams - MP Sergeant
Carleton Young - Colonel

CREW
Robert Wise - Director
Julian Blaustein - Producer
Edmund H. North - Screenwriter
Leo Tover - Cinematographer
Bernard Herrmann - Composer (Music Score)
William H. Reynolds - Editor
Addison Hehr - Art Director
Lyle Wheeler - Art Director
Darryl F. Zanuck - Executive Producer
Claude E. Carpenter - Set Designer
Thomas K. Little - Set Designer
William Travilla - Costume Designer
Arthur L. Kirbach - Sound/Sound Designer
Harry M. Leonard - Sound/Sound Designer
Ben Nye, Sr. - Makeup
Fred Sersen - Special Effects
Harry Bates - Short Story Author
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TRIVIA (from IMDb)

* he role of Klaatu was originally intended for Claude Rains.

* The role of Gort was played by Lock Martin, the doorman from Grauman's
Chinese Theater, because he was extremely tall. However, he was unable to pick
up Helen because he was so weak and had to be aided by wires (in shots from the
back where he's carrying her, it's actually a lightweight dummy in his arms). He
also had difficulty with the heavy Gort suit and could only stay in it for about
a half-hour at a time.

* There were two Gort suits: one that laced up down the back for when he had
his front to the camera, another that laced up in the front for the shots of his
back.

* To give the appearance of seamlessness to the space ship, the crack around
the door was filled with putty, then painted over. When the door opened the
putty was torn apart, making the door seem to simply appear.

* During the early phases of preproduction, 20th Century Fox's studio chief
Darryl F. Zanuck suggested that Jack Palance could be used for the role of the
robot Gort.

* Patricia Neal has admitted in interviews that she was completely unaware
during the filming that the film would turn out so well and become one of the
great science-fiction classics of all time. She assumed it would be just another
one of the then-current and rather trashy flying saucer films that were popular
at the time, and she found it difficult to keep a straight face while saying her
lines.

* One of the reasons that Michael Rennie was cast as Klaatu was because he
was generally unknown to American audiences, and would be more readily accepted
as an "alien" than a more recognizable actor.

* In the original story, the robot, Gort, was the master - Klaatu was merely
one of a series of doubles, or maybe clones, that died after a short time.

* In the original story, "Farewell to the Master", the robot's name was
Gnut, not Gort.

* Doubles were used for Klaatu and Bobby in long shots of them walking
around Washington, DC. In reality, none of the principal cast ever went to
Washington, and the scenes with Klaatu and Bobby at the Lincoln Memorial and at
Arlington Cemetary were shot in front of background screens using footage shot
by the second unit crew in Washington, DC.

* All of the scenes of Helen Benson and Klaatu in the taxi also feature
footage from the second unit of Washington, DC as we see background vehicles in
the rear and side windows of the taxi.

* To depict the seamless closing of the ship and its ramp, they just
reversed the film of the shot of the ship's ramp and door appearing.

* The original choice of actor to play the alien visitor was Spencer Tracy.

* Darryl F. Zanuck was the one who first suggested Michael Rennie for the
part of Klaatu, having seen him perform on the London stage.

* Robert Wise was attracted to the project because of its overt
anti-military stance and also because he believed in UFOs.

* In line with the film's Christian allegory, Klaatu adopts the name
"Carpenter" when hiding out from the authorities. Robert Wise hadn't considered
the Christian implications until it was pointed out to him several years later.

* The spaceship was made of wood, wire and plaster of Paris.

* The Army refused to co-operate after reading the script. The National
Guard had no such qualms and gladly offered their co-operation.

* The screenplay was based on the story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry
Bates. It was originally published in the pulp magazine "Astounding
Science-Fiction."

* Three years after this was made, it was adapted for the "Lux Radio
Theatre". Michael Rennie and Billy Gray reprised their roles. Jean Peters played
the role of Helen.

* Bernard Herrmann's music for the film is scored for two theremins, pianos,
harps, different electrical organs, percussion, amplified solo strings and a
large brass section including four tubas.

* Although he was already signed to play the Einstein-like Professor
Barnhardt, the studio wanted to remove Sam Jaffe as a result of the political
witch hunts that were then underway. Producer Julian Blaustein appealed to
studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck allowed Jaffe to play the role, but it
would be Jaffe's last Hollywood film until the late 1950s.

* Bernard Herrmann used two Theremins to create his creepy score, one
pitched higher, the other lower, making this one of the first films to feature a
largely electronic score.

* Ranked #5 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films
in the genre "Sci-Fi" in June 2008.

* To increase the sense of reality, some of the most famous broadcast
journalists of the time were hired to do cameos as themselves. These included
Gabriel Heatter, H.V. Kaltenborn and Drew Pearson.

* Originally Klaatu's death and resurrection at the end of the movie was
meant to be permanent, reinforcing his God-like powers, but at the time the
Breen Office--the film industry's censors--didn't like the ending, suggesting it
was too left-wing, and insisted that director Robert Wise and writer Edmund H.
North put in the line, "That power is reserved for the Almighty Spirit". Both
Wise and North hated the line and thought it completely inappropriate--negating
the concept of Klaatu's race being all-knowing and all-powerful--but the studio
wouldn't back them up and they were forced to put it in.

* In the scene where Gort is seen carrying Klaatu's body (inside the ship),
Michael Rennie was actually sitting on a dolly out of camera angle to support
his weight during this brief scene, since Lock Martin (Gort) was unable to do so
himself.

* In the scenes of Gort carrying both Helen Benson and Klaatu up the ramp
and into the ship, lightweight look-alike dummies were used because of Lock
Martin's inability to actually carry either actor himself.

* One scene was cut from the movie before it was released. The original
script called for Klaatu to be taken to a police station by the government man
who came for him at the boarding house, not directly to Barnhart's home. At the
station, men were being dragged in from all over and questioned, and Klaatu
becomes upset when he sees how a man was beaten up by a crowd because they
thought he was the spaceman. The scene was cut because director Robert Wise
realized that the audience was interested in the Klaatu/ Barnhart meeting and
the scene at the police station was unnecessary, but on the DVD there are stills
from that deleted scene.

* Because the stationary Gort could not stand on the angled ramp, Lock
Martin had to wear the Gort suit in the background during the final sequence.
Martin, who was frail, had to wear the suit for so long that he began having
spasms in his arms. During Klaatu's final speech, Gort's arms can be seen moving
slightly.

* Harry Bates was paid a mere $500 by 20th Century-Fox for the rights to his
short story "Farewell to the Master".

* The name "Richard Carlson" - another leading sci-fi actor of the 1950s -
appears at the bottom of the glass door to Hugh Marlowe's office.

* Some reference works state that "Adventures of Superman" (1952) star
George Reeves appeared as a television news reporter with eyeglasses in one
sequence. This is not true. The actor playing the role bears no resemblance to
Reeves, and in a 1995 interview with Reeves biographer Jim Beaver, director
Robert Wise stated unequivocally that it is not Reeves in the role. It appears
that someone jumped to conclusions based on the image of a reporter wearing
glasses and thus resembling roughly the image of Superman alter-ego Clark Kent.
Reeves had nothing to do with the film in any capacity.

* The phrase "Klaatu barada nikto" has become a popular phrase among sci-fi
fans over the years and has been featured in other movies, such as Army of
Darkness (1992).

* The film was shot on the 20th Century-Fox back lot, which is now an
upscale office complex known as Century City.

* Writer Edmund H. North was a former army officer who wrote the script in
response to the proliferation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

* In 1951, 20th Century Fox theatrically distributed this with the short
film The Guest (1951).

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PLEASE NOTICE
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Size has been calculated in order to get the optimum PQ without oversizing the
file, hence the irregular size of the file (not the usual 700Mb/1.4Gb rip).
A rate of Bits/(Pixel*Frame) around 0.3 is perfect, above that point, picture
quality becomes virtually the same to the original source.

Check you have installed the right codecs, as listed in this .nfo file, before
trying to play it. VLC will play this file without having to install any codec.

If you don't like the codec(s), container, resolution, file size, languages or
any technical aspect on this rip, keep it to yourself and go and do your own.

Serious feedback on quality will always be welcome. IF you can/can't play it
on standalone players, PS3, Xbox, etc etc, that'd be of interest so I can
enhance future rips.

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