This is one of the best 1950s alien invasion of Earth
movies. Scientist Dr. Russell Marvin, played by Hugh Marlow, and his wife
Carol, played by Joan Taylor, are buzzed by a flying saucer on their way to the
Operation Skyhook facility, where Marvin is in charge of launching the first
artificial satellite. Later, another launch of a satellite is destroyed by the
mysterious aliens and a flying saucer lands at the Skyhook facility. The army
garrison attacks the saucer and the aliens obliterate the facility. While
waiting for a rescue in an underground bunker, the Marvins discover a message
from the aliens beamed down to a tape recorder. The message is friendly, at
first, but then the Marvins discover that the aliens mean to possess our planet
and that we humans must surrender or die.
Working feverishly, the Marvins come up with a device that
can bring the saucers down. Then, the aliens attack Washington
and battle Marvin and his device and the US
military. The sequence, loving constructed by special effects master Ray
Harryhausen, manages to show the complete destruction of just about every
monument in the nation’s capital. But the aliens, for all their technology, are
no super men and are eventually vanquished. At least for the time being.
This film is a standout from others of the era in the
seriousness, and even maturity with which it handled its subject. There was not
a lot of cuteness or bravado. For the time, the special effects were first
rate.