The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951): B-

Given the unnerving Cold War climate, science fiction films from the ‘50s naturally exhibited a fevered, panicky fear of atomic annihilation, and few were better than Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still. An alien named Klattu (Michael Rennie) and his giant robot Gort (Lock Martin) land their flying saucer on the Washington, D.C. Mall, promptly scaring the shit out of everybody and causing one anxious American G.I. to shoot Klattu immediately after he’s disembarked from the ship. Fortunately, Klattu is a forgiving guy, and asks to speak with leaders of the world to discuss a secret message that, one eventually leans, concerns the danger Earth’s nuclear weapons pose to intergalactic peace. But when he hears that the strained relationship between the U.S. and Soviet Union prevents him from simultaneously addressing every country’s leader in person, Klattu – who looks just like a regular middle-aged man – goes undercover to think things through, eventually taking up residence at a boarding house where he befriends a kind single mother (Patricia Neal) and her son (Billy Gray). Wise’s sci-fi masterpiece was the first Hollywood film to posit aliens as sympathetic pseudo-humans sent to warn us about our civilization’s wayward ways (as opposed to ravenous creatures bent on conquest), but that doesn’t explain the illogicality of Klattu’s advice. Apparently, aliens are governed by a United Nations-style organization that uses robots to mete out unspeakable punishment against violent races and worlds. But if aliens use the threat of violence as a deterrent to chaos and war, then why does the spaceman oppose the U.S. and Soviet Union’s nuclear standoff, which is essentially the same thing? I guess Klattu just didn't trust us irrational Earthlings to reign in our homicidal urges. Anyway, it's probably best to avoid reading too much into The Day the Earth Stood Still's goofy paranoia, and to just sit back and enjoy the silly sight of Gort (who shoots destructo beams from the slit in his head) and the hilarious repercussions of Klattu’s temporary disabling of the world’s electricity. The milkshake machines no longer work? THE HORROR!