When George Pal, creator of such classics as Destination
Moon, the Conquest of Space, and When Worlds Collide, brought the H.G. Wells
classic to the screen, he brought the time period up from turn of the century
England to contemporary (early 1950s) America. The action starts when a
mysterious meteor crashes near a small, rural town in California.
The Pacific Tech Institute sends Dr. Clayton Forrester, played by Gene Barry,
to investigate. There he meets Sylvia Van Buren, played by Ann Robinson, the
daughter of the local minister.
It soon becomes apparent that this is no ordinary meteor.
Something emerges from the meteor and obliterates the three men who are
watching over the crash site. At the same time, power goes out in the town and
watches are magnetized. The army surrounds the crash site and fights a
ferocious but futile battle as the Martian fighting machines, hovering craft
armed with death rays and protected by force shields, emerge and begin to
advance.
Forrester and Van Buren flee the area, taking his private
plane. They witness the doomed effort by the Air Force to stop the invasion.
They crash land and take refuge in a farm house. Soon after, another Martian
meteor crashes into the farm house. And the two confront the actual Martians
for the first time. Ann Robinson’s scream as one of them touches her shoulder
is a classic. The two manage to escape with a sample of Martian blood and
technology.
The Martian meteors are falling all over the world and the
fighting machines are advancing across the land, spreading death and destruction.
Cedric Hardwicke, as the narrator, relates the litany of battles lost, of
cities wrecked, and of entire nations made refugees in blind panic. Even the
use of a nuclear bomb fails to stop the Martians. As the invaders advance on Los
Angeles, civil order breaks down and Forrester and Van
Buren are separated.
But then, as the two meet in a church, filled with people
praying for a miracle, the miracle occurs. God, so the narrator says, in his
wisdom had already put on this Earth the means for its defense. Cities are
smashed—we see the ruins of Paris and Dehli—and millions are dead, but human
civilization survives.