Customer Reviews
The Use of Violence As A Solution To All Problems - By: prisrob, 19 Feb 2007 
Klaatu: This comes from our own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us & livein peace, or pursue your present course & face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you."IMDB
'The Day the Earth Stood Still' was one of the first moviesin the 1950's to explore space travel & to provide a warning that "the use of violence as a solution to all problems" is an issue we need to face. All these years later we are still on this path & these words have not been taken seriously. This movie is known as the best Science Fiction movie ever written. 56 years later it still stands up. Patricia Neal had no idea this would be the case & had trouble keeping a straight face while reciting her lines.
Michael Rennie as Klaatu/Carpenter, as the spaceman who came to Earth to give us a warning. He takes up the persona of Mr. Carpenter & unfortunately is not taken seriously until it is too late. One of the reasons that Michael Rennie was cast as Klaatu was because he was generally unknown to American audiences, & would be more readily accepted as an "alien" than a more recognizable actor. Patricia Neal as Helen Benson is one of the few who does take him seriously, & with her son, Bobby,( a young Billy Gray) comes to love Mr. Carpenter. The world becomes afraid of this unknown spaceman, & of course we do him wrong. This black & white film won the Golden Globein 1952 for "Promoting International Understanding"- why oh why do we not have such an award today?
One piece of trivia is that "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 BlaKlaatu:" Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, & it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run yustein 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."
"In other words, it's not that these advanced worlds are a bunch of peace-loving little green men;in fact, they are governments that have voluntarily subjugated their sovereignty to a fascist organization that threatens them with annihilation unless they remain on the up-and-up. Klaatu's greatest hope for the people of Earth is that we can become enlightened enough to join his little group. No thanks. That's not peace as a choice, that's the kind of peace that's kept by threats & intimidation -- the kind of peace of people who would name a missile a Peacekeeper or a Patriot." Matt Bailey
The film is good at explaining how misunderstandings can develop between ordinary people & between nations & how easily fear can overwhelm reason & understanding. We also realize that optimism about the nature of human beings & our ease of resorting to violence & fear of the unknown is not our greatest virtue. Highly Recommended. prisrob 2-16-07
Delightful Gem - By: JA Fairhurst, 03 Jan 2006 
When the spaceship landed on the lawns of the White House, everyone was excited at what this portended for Earth & its relations with the rest of the Universe. However, when the alien finally came out of his ship & made his way down the ramp to meet those who had come to see him, a member of the military, who had surrounded the vessel, mistakes his peacefully reaching for a document as an attempt to reach for a weapon & shoots the alien Klaatu. Not to kill him, but he is badly wounded, which elicits a response from the starshipin the form of Klaatu's robotic companion, Gort. Gort destroys those watchingin everyone's expectations of the evil robot.
Meanwhilein hospital, Klaatu thinks he's talked the doctorin charge of his case into assembling the world's leading scientists so he could describe what had brought him to Earth. But it doesn't take him long to realise that he is just being strung along & the doctor had no intention of fulfilling his requests so Klaatu escaped into the Washington suburbs where he takes a placein a local boarding house along with a young widow & her inquisitive son. As the government desperately hunts for him, Klaatu makes contact with a local scientist whom he uses to pass on his request for the world's scientists to assemble at his ship. And this time, there's a definite threat involved, for just before the meeting was called, all devices dependant on electricity stopped working.
Klaatu's message: Don't fight. Put the planet's resources into improving the lot of the masses. If Earth persistedin its militaristic ways, then the Federation would have to act & Earth would find itself destroyed. And there was a surprise revelation; Gort was not Klaatu's servant, but his master, one of the guardians of the Federation.
Few of the humansin the film come out looking good - the government forces, at best, looking foolish & at worst, decidedly duplicitous & the inhabitants of Klaatu's boarding house mirrored their attitudes, with Helen Benson, the widow woman, as the only decent person amongst them. Her fiancé proved to suspicious of the new member of the household, particularly when it appeared his woman was taking an inordinate interestin the stranger!
What makes this film so special is that it was written & madein the early fifties at the height of the Cold War paranoia, when Reds under the bed were everyone's favourite enemy, & yet this shows the Government as the enemy, over reacting to Klaatu & his messagein precisely the wrong way. Having Michael Renniein the part of Klaatu certainly did not do any harm to the film as he managed the rolein an extremely dignified manner.
�There are signs of normalcy� - By: B. Chandler, 06 Jul 2005 We are visited by a flying saucer that lands near the U.S. capital. As a precaution the saucer is surrounded by the military with tanks, carbines, & side arms. The ship opens up & a being, Klaatu (Michael Rennie), steps out. He makes a menacing move with a foreign object. A quick thinking well trained military man shoots first.
Why are we being visited? A mysterious man named Mr. Carpenter may hold the answer. However the only people that will listen to the message are the world's scientists. To bring his point home Klaatu holds a demonstration. The result of the demonstration gives the movie its title "The Day the Earth Stood Still"
Besides being a classic this movie also captures a time. It is intriguing looking at the technology of the time & even the locations before they changed (some have not changed).
It is still fun to watch as Klaatu is encountered, detained, & the state of the governments (does not look like things have changed much). We all want to say to Gort "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!"
This movie was better built than most for its time & rivals some movies of today. The message is still relevant & we sometimes try to apply the same solution here.
