The Day the Earth Stood Still: The Spaceman Slaps Our Wrists

SteynonLine ^ | July 19, 2025 | Rick McGinnis

[BenLurkin]

Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still was communist propaganda.

[P.O.E.]

[beethovenfan]

Klatu Barada Nicto

[Mark17]

Yup. I remember Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal and Sam Jaffe.

[Vaquero]

Yup

[basalt]

i read somewhere that they had to keep reshooting that scene because Patricia Neal kept bursting out laughing when she was to say that phrase...,i can def see why she laughed.

[montag813]

Yeah she thought the entire script was a joke and the film silly, until she saw the finished edit. She was always one of my favorites. Smouldering, intelligent sexuality.

[Sirius Lee]

It’s okay. “The Thing” was its healthy antidote.

[bk1000]

I loved sci-fi when I was younger, but I looking back it seems so much was trying to “send a message”. Usually about the futility of nuclear war, but still a veiled political message. Today, the movies want to “raise awareness” about this or that leftist trope, but it is the same thing.

[ArtDodger]

Didn’t Patricia Neal have a terrible stroke that left her paralyzed? She had to claw her way back from that to become the great actress again...

[PeterPrinciple]

There are some good audio books on amazon and you tube. But a lot of trash also.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=old+man%27s+war+john+scalzi&i=stripbooks&adgrpid=1332609480797794&hvadid=83288293606656&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=105709&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=p&hvtargid=kwd-83289014885530%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=22565_13494486&mcid=1846a9eae5f833f28794a7705371c266&msclkid=9a90de8d5a431eda1469b6f0522ca310&tag=mh0b-20&ref=pd_sl_811g2jqcf9_p

[laplata]

I saw that movie before I was in my teens and liked it.

[laplata]

Yes, she recovered. I think here part in “In Harms Way” with John Wayne was filmed after she recovered. Great WW II movie.

[The_Harlequin]

From someone who didn’t see the film, or someone who is just clueless. Comparing the film to communism is like comparing apples to uranium. There was never a commie controversy, much less a coherent connection. But there was a Christian connection that viewers and critics saw.

[dragnet2]

Thank you. Some people just have no clue whatsoever. Communist propaganda? Lol....

[BenLurkin]

“apples to uranium”

I’m stealing that.

[NonValueAdded]

I liked Cleese’s performance in the remake

[oldplayer]

This film was shown on TV in the 50’s or early 60’s - something like Saturday Night at the Movies. It was a huge event. It was like a first run movie. I remember our whole neighborhood of kids came inside to watch it. I bet more people saw it that one night than attended it in all the movie theaters ever. It was the talk of the school on the Monday following.

[captnemo1]

I really like this era of films. A lot of them featured giant bugs/rodents/bats/monsters.
Yet they all had one thing in common, people won the day. American perseverance and ingenuity.
A few of them brought up social issues, such as the original Star Trek did a decade later.
Politics aside, what is or could be was the theme for most of these types of films
Unless you want to read into them your own ideology and or religion or present pollical views.
Perspective, these were quickly made, cheap to produce films that may or may not have reflected a producers views.
It was a golden age of "what if".
They paved the way for the films of today... Be that good or bad.