Earth VS. the Flying Saucers

Release Date: July 1, 1956
Cast: Hugh Marlowe as Dr. Russell Marvin
Joan Taylor as Carol Marvin
Donald Curtis as Maj. Huglin
Morris Ankrum as Brig. Gen. John Hanaley
John Zaremba as Prof. Kanter
Length: BW 83 minutes
Director: Fred F. Sears
Producer: Charles H. Schneer, Sam Katz
Cinematography: fred Jackman, Jr.
Screenplay: David Duncan, Pat Fielder
Music: Mischa Bakaleinikoff
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Interesting Tidbits

Special effects genius Ray Harryhausen used stop-motion animation on the flying saucer sequences. He also animated the falling debris of the Washington landscape.

Writer Bernard Gordon was blacklisted from the motion picture industry because of his political views. It seems at one time he had joined the Communist party. Remember, this was the McCarthy era. He was not credited in the film.

Hugh Marlowe appeared in another science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The Plot

While driving through the desert with his wife Carol Marvin to a military base to send the eleventh rocket to the orbit of Earth for helping the exploration of the outer space in the Operation Sky Hook, Dr. Russell A. Marvin and Carol see a flying saucer and accidentally records a message in their tape recorder.

Once in the base, Dr. Russell is informed by his father-in-law and general that the ten first satellites had mysteriously felt on Earth. When Dr. Russell decodes the message, he encounters the aliens that ask him to schedule a meeting with the leaders of Earth in Washington in 56 days with the intention to invade Earth without panicking the population. Dr. Russell develops an anti-magnetic weapon that becomes that last hope of human race against the hostile aliens.
Source: Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. IMDB.com.