A small town in California is attacked by Martians, beginning a worldwide invasion.A small town in California is attacked by Martians, beginning a worldwide invasion.A small town in California is attacked by Martians, beginning a worldwide invasion.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 5 wins & 2 nominations total
Robert Cornthwaite
- Dr. Pryor
- (as Bob Cornthwaite)
Houseley Stevenson Jr.
- Gen. Mann's Aide
- (as Housely Stevenson Jr.)
William Phipps
- Wash Perry
- (as Bill Phipps)
Cedric Hardwicke
- Commentary
- (voice)
- (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke)
Peter Adams
- Pine Summit Fire Watcher
- (uncredited)
Eric Alden
- Man
- (uncredited)
Hugh Allen
- Brigadier General
- (uncredited)
Ruth Barnell
- Mother
- (uncredited)
Edgar Barrier
- Prof. McPherson
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe estate of H.G. Wells was so pleased with the final production that it offered George Pal his choice of any other of Wells' properties. Pal chose Aikakone (1960).
- GoofsModern viewers often complain that the wires used to suspend the Martian war machines are plainly visible throughout the film. The film was originally shot in three strip Technicolor, with prints made using a dye transfer process that resulted in very saturated colors, but with a slight reduction in overall resolution. This reduction in resolution "fuzzed out" the wires in original prints, making them effectively invisible. Later prints were made in Eastman Color, which uses a photographic process and yields sharper prints, but here had the side effect of making the support and electric wires plainly visible - the models had electrical wires as the side pods of the machines really lit up green and the "cobra heads" lit up as well. It is common practice in the film industry to take into account what details will be visible when a print is projected so as not to waste production time and money on details that will never actually be visible to a viewing audience, especially in the areas of effects and matte paintings. Thus, the filmmakers never thought the wires would be visible and in fact they weren't until the first Eastman Color prints of the film were struck in the late 1960s, and they had become even more visible on modern video releases as there is no dye sublimation resolution loss when making video masters from the original negatives. In the 2018 restoration this was resolved using digital technology.
- Quotes
Radio Reporter: All radio is dead, which means that these tape recordings I'm making are for the sake of future history - If any.
- Alternate versionsFor the 2018 restoration Ben Burtt created a new 5.1 surround sound mix with replacements for many of the film's original sound effects, with the jarring result that the sound effects have fidelity far above that of surrounding dialogue in the film. The 2020 Criterion Collection release features this new sound mix as well as the original mono track.
- ConnectionsEdited from Maailman sortuessa (1951)
Featured review
Great as a sci-fi film--atrocious as a book adaptation
OK, it's not an adaptation of the H.G. Wells book. If it's supposed to be, it's horrendous...BUT taken as a sci-fi film from the 50s, it's tremedous. The dialogue is corny and the acting is beyond belief (did anyone tell Gene Barry not to move a muscle in his face?), but the special effects are incredible. Some are pretty obvious (love it when the spaceship crashes into what is obviously a paper mache building!) but the majority of them stand up even today. I had the good luck to see a newly struck print and the color was superb and I've never seen the film look so good! This movie scared the hell out of me as a kid...as an adult it doesn't (of course) but it's still a heck of a lot of fun! This is 20 times better than that piece of crap "Independence Day". "ID" had cardboard characters, REALLY stupid dialogue (much worse than this movie) and stunning gaps of logic (Will Smith learning in 3 seconds how to fly an alien spacecraft; A COMPUTER VIRUS??????). This one doesn't. A true classic. See it!!!
helpful•179
- preppy-3
- Mar 13, 2000
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Världarnas krig
- Filming locations
- Westminster Presbyterian Church - 1757 North Lake Avenue, Pasadena, California, USA(First church Forrester searches)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 25 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
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