MPAA Rating: NR/ Genre: Sci-Fi/ Stars: Claude Rains, Bill Carter, Umberto Orsini, Maya Brent, Jacqueline Derval, Renzo Palmer, Carlo D’Angelo, Carol Danell, Jim Dolen, Joseph Pollini, John Stacy, Aldo D’Ambrosio, Massimo Righi, Giuliano Gemma, Anna Maria Mustari/Runtime: 84 minutes
I think it fairly safe to start this review off with a little secret about myself that you might not know. That being that not every slice of cinema I watch is one that I immediately jump out of my seat, spilling popcorn everywhere that my dog is more than happy to take care of for me, and say with glee “wow! that is definitely something I need to see again!” Shocking I know. Yet in the case of the slice of cinema I have had the immense pleasure of reviewing for you today, an Italian sci-fi B-movie from 1961 known as Battle of the Worlds that is seeing its “long awaited” release on Blu-ray today from a company known as The Film Detective (and who I incidentally must thank wholeheartedly for sending the film division here at Drop the Spotlight an advance copy for me to do a write up on and who I urge all of you to check out their website at https://www.thefilmdetective.com/ to see all the other cinematic treasures they have available) I must say that while I can safely say that about this slice of cinema, it is by no means whatsoever for the reasons that you may be thinking based upon either prior reviews of mine you have read or what you may have in your own mind to begin with. This is because this is a film that manages to be one of the most unintentionally hilarious films I have seen in some time and is one that most assuredly is the kind of film I can see groups of friends getting together with some choice substances of a beverage or plant variety and just kicking back and watching and laughing at the sheer absurdity that unfolds before them in a manner that would make even Tommy Wiseau proud. Indeed the cast in this, made up of quite a few talents who were unfamiliar to me and noted American character actor Claude Rains who is a delightful mixture of scene-chewing and befuddled, all seem to have been given scripts that suggest this is a different movie for each of their characters and as such give performances that don’t entirely coalesce into the narrative framework as well as they ought to, the visuals and camerawork are certainly decent but also are disjointed to such an extent that they are prone to shift around without warning in a way that will leave you either laughing or reaching for the Tylenol to cure your ever-growing migraine, the audio synching in this is so off-kilter that you will literally smile with fondness in the few moments where you see the words being said actually match up with the cast’s lip movements, and the script in this is so odd that there are lines of dialogue throughout like “Most things happen unexpectedly, even the apocalypse!” that will leave you wondering if an actual writer wrote this film or if the Italians were playing Mad Libs long before we here in the States discovered it. Sure there are some elements in this that aren’t too bad, but the fact is that if you are looking for a serious sci-fi slice of cinema then you might want to look elsewhere. However, if you are looking for a sci-fi film that is goofy with a capital G,O,O,F,Y then welcome aboard. Glad to know I’m not alone in this universe after all….
The plot is as follows: So I will admit that it was a bit hard to discern at moments just what was going on in this slice of cinema, but nevertheless I will most definitely give it a try. With that in mind, Battle of the Worlds opens on a guy by the name of Dr. Fred Steele and his loving girlfriend Eve Barnett who, along with a group of fellow researchers, work at an astronomy base on an island in the middle of nowhere. Yet, we soon learn that our love birds have no desire to stay at this base forever. In fact, when our story begins, they are in the process of leaving the island, getting married, and spending the rest of their lives together. Unfortunately, we soon see that the wedding bells must quickly be put on hold for a period of time. This is because the head of the group, an intelligent yet grumpy fellow by the name of Professor Benson has just discovered a mysterious planet-like entity he refers to as “The Outsider” has made its way into our solar system. Worse than that however is the fact that this planet-type thing also seems to be set on an inevitable collision course with our very own planet thus making an extinction-level event quite terrifyingly possible. However, unlike most of his contemporaries, we soon learn that Benson does not believe this celestial object will hit Earth and wipe all of us out. Rather, he argues, it will just come near us and carry on from there thus all life on Earth need not panic. Yet, despite doing this planet-type thing proceeding to do just that, we soon see relief and celebration quickly change back to fear when the object decides that Earth’s orbit is big enough for two celestial objects to share and takes up a very unwelcome residence there (and without agreeing to pay even a single dime of rent at that). As a result, we see the governments of the world (to Benson’s immense chagrin) make the decision to send a team out into space in order to investigate this mysterious object. Suffice it to say that what the team is able to discover dear reader not only proves to be the catalyst for a conflict the likes of which our planet has not yet known, but will be something that will leave you on the edge of your seat in the finest (or most hilarious) way possible….
Now when looking at this slice of cinema in terms of the components behind the camera, there is one constant that manages to tie the components I will focus on in this review together. That being that they all manage to do decent work, but they also all manage to be a bit off in their own respective ways as well. This starts with the film’s script and I am convinced that not only was the script an Italian version of Mad Libs, but there was not just one script in existence. The reason I say that is not only because a lot of the lines seem like they were simply filled in because they sounded good or appropriate for the genre, but because not once does this film ever give off the distinct vibe that everyone involved in front of the camera is ever on the same page in regards to how the story is acted out for us. Indeed from the couple who just want to get away from the base so they can begin their lives together, the cranky old academic who is trying to keep the whole thing under wraps for….reasons, the other couple (finding out they were married was delightfully out of left field incidentally) on Mars who are brought in to help out with the crisis, and other assorted characters it really does feel like everyone was told who their characters were and certain key points related to their characters, but not once were they ever told the full story. As a result, everyone is either overplaying, underplaying, or completely unaware of how to play things period thus making this a very mixed bag in terms of acting and I feel a better written script could have helped with that. This brings us to the work done by the camera crew and honestly there are some fairly good shots in this that they definitely do deserve praise for being able to get with the limited budget that they had. At the same time though, those good shots are also complimented by not only some fairly out of place shots, but by movement of the camera that proves to be so jarring at points that this film makes a handheld footage movie like Blair Witch or Cloverfield seem crystal clear at times in comparison. Finally, I should also point out that one of the more unintentionally comedic elements this slice of cinema has going for it behind the camera would have to be the work done by the audio department with particular regard to the synching of English to the dialogue being spoken by the actors so an English-speaking audience can make heads or tails of what the characters are saying. Now normally this wouldn’t prove to be problematic, but then again this isn’t normal circumstances. That being said, we see that in this film a lot of the time the dialogue being spoken does not match the lip movements of the various actors in the least. As a result, the film proves to be unintentionally hilarious in watching dialogue being uttered by someone and the cast looking like they are saying anything, but that which the dubbers are uttering. Suffice it to say that the work behind the camera is fine for the limited budget the film is operating with. At the same time though, I have also seen movies that operated with some of the same flaws and around the same budget if not less turn out significantly better. Just something to keep in mind….
Now in terms of this slice of cinema’s casting I would very much like to start this section off by saying that I really do admire the late yet great Claude Rains. Indeed from his iconic turn as Captain Renault in the cinematic masterpiece Casablanca from 1942 to powerful late-career work in 1959’s Judgement at Nuremberg and 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia with a host of wonderful work in between, Rains was one character actor who will always be seen as one of the finest ever to grace the realm of movie magic. With that being said however, it should still be noted that even an actor of his caliber and talent had no qualms about popping up in slices of cinema that were a bit….goofier than most of his regular work for lack of a better word. The reason I bring this up is because this slice of cinema is without a doubt in my mind an on-point example of that kind of cinema. With that said however, there is no denying that Rains not only is delightfully aware of the kind of movie that he is working in, but that he still manages to give a fairly decent performance albeit one that may be gloriously over the top, but that is able to restrain itself from ever once having Rains literally break the 4th wall with a pointed comment that could also be interpreted as how he views the film proper. Yet even with that in mind, there is no denying that there is a problem with Rain’s performance. Namely that he seems to be operating off a completely different script than everyone else. As a result, we see that Rains give us a cantankerous old coot of a character who is aware of the outer space phenomenon at the heart of the film before anyone else. Yet, rather than try to explain to the world let alone his staff what is going on in a way they can understand (and hopefully doesn’t involve mathematical formulas sketched on flower pots), first tries to coerce his staff to cover it up at all costs whilst having no qualms about degrading everyone around him as “intellectually inferior” simply because he knows something they don’t (calculus) and also low-key flirting with his much younger female assistant before eventually turning into a bit of a obsessed madman by film’s end for reasons I shan’t spoil here. Suffice it to say that is very much a delightfully goofy and odd performance in a film that is just as delightfully goofy and bizarre yet Rains still manages to bring a touch of class to the proceedings all the same. As for the rest of the cast, they honestly aren’t bad either with their respective work in this, but much like Rains it’s clear that the scripts they were given were all different too thus explaining why there seems to be so much confusion on the part of the cast in regard to what their roles in this story is supposed to be at times. Suffice it to say the cast is by no means the worst in the world, but they also could have fared a lot better as well had all the other elements behind the scenes actually made some kind of attempt to coalesce.
All in all dear reader it might be dated in quite a few aspects, but there is still a wonderfully old-school charm to be found with this slice of cinema. I mean make no mistake dear reader: I am not going to sit here and try to tell you that Battle of the Worlds from 1961 is by any stretch of the imagination a perfect film. Indeed the cast all seem like they are operating on their own distinct narrative agendas in this thus resulting in some quite jarring shifts in the tone of the narrative, the synchronization of the dialogue audio into the film proper is very loose at best despite the fact that the cast in this for the most part did seem to be speaking English during filming, and the visuals do seem to get a wee bit funky at moments here and there throughout the film’s 80-something minute runtime. Yet with that being said, this slice of cinema is one that not only proves to be surprisingly timely in certain aspects, but also manages to give us as movie goers both a final shot that if you are an animal lover will most likely give your heartstrings a fairly vigorous tug as well as a wonderfully over the top performance from screen icon Claude Rains who was clearly cast in this film only in an attempt to draw in “American movie goers”, but who still manages to give this film a touch of class all the same even if there are moments where even he looks absolutely confused as to what he is doing there. Suffice it to say that yes there might be a select group of people out there who treat this sci-fi slice of cinema with the same degree of reverence as something akin to Blade Runner, Star Wars (Episode IX not withstanding), or even 2001: A Space Odyssey. As for this reviewer however, I may not think this slice of cinema is a masterpiece, but I definitely do think it is, in its own way, a fun little time to be had. Therefore, if you want to see a rather….unique (to put it mildly) slice of sci-fi cinema from the country of Italy then definitely think about giving this one some of your time. Sure, it has its issues like I said, but remember dear reader: this is how sci-fi cinema was made at one time and above all, be it intentional or not, there is still a fair degree of perverse comedic enjoyment to this film that one should definitely keep in the back of one’s mind. Make of that what thou will dear reader. On a scale of 1-5 I give Battle of the Worlds “61” a solid 2.5 out of 5.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rxSpMp0vOY&t=3s
