Dear Klaatu, Please Save Us from Ourselves
The alien hero of a 1951 sci-fi thriller had a good plan for ending the world’s nuclear saber-rattling
By Allan Ripp
As if Russia’s assault on Ukraine wasn’t enough to heighten global insecurity, now comes China’s live-fire drills launching ballistic missiles and warships to menace Taiwan following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-governing island.
Add to that Iran’s latest brag of fast-tracking atomic warheads capable of incinerating U.S. cities and fresh nuclear threats from North Korea in response to the South’s hawkish new president. Even with Covid on the wane, 2022 has turned into the year of living dangerously close to the eve of destruction.
Given the United Nations’ ineptitude in lowering geopolitical tensions, this might be a good moment for governments worldwide to take a 92-minute time-out to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still. The 1951 sci-fi thriller, directed by Robert Wise (whose later credits included “West Side Story” and “The Sound of Music”) is a much-needed wake-up plea to stop sovereign saber-rattling before it’s too late. Made just as the Cold War was heating up, this 71-year-old cinematic chestnut seems eerily of the moment (you can skip the 2008 remake starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly).
British actor Michael Rennie plays a dapper alien named Klaatu, who’s journeyed 250 million miles to warn earthlings that the use of atomic weapons in prosecuting “petty squabbles” is a threat to intergalactic harmony. First seen emerging from a space ship landed on Washington’s Capitol Mall and capturing the world’s attention, Klaatu is shot when an Army soldier fears a small wand in his hand, which was to have been a gift to the President to study life on other planets. However, the wound is healed by Klaatu’s towering robotic protector, Gort (actually a 7-foot, 4-inch actor named Lock Martin who was formerly the doorman at Grauman’s Chinese Theater).
Visited in Walter Reed hospital by the Secretary of State, Klaatu urges a meeting of representatives from all nations. “Our world at the moment is full of tensions and suspicions,” the secretary says. “In the present international situation, such a meeting would be impossible.” When he tries to describe “evil forces that have produced trouble,” Klaatu cuts him off. “I’m not concerned with the internal affairs of your planet. My mission…concerns the existence of every last creature on earth. By threatening danger, your planet faces danger.”
Mingling among Washington’s denizens in a tailored suit and taking the name John Carpenter (which some believe was a Christ allusion), Klaatu convinces an Einstein-ish astrophysicist (a wild-haired Sam Jaffe) that the apocalyptic risk is genuine and he has the power to flatten New York City or sink Gibraltar to prove his space allies mean business. The professor promises to convene an emergency meeting of top scientists and Klaatu proposes a demonstration of force to affect the entire planet — “something dramatic but not destructive.”
A day later, when the elevator Klaatu is riding in with his rooming house neighbor (Patricia Neal) suddenly stops mid-descent, he knows the cause. “Electricity has been neutralized all over the world,” he explains. For the next 30 minutes, all motorized activity ceases — from Times Square to Paris, Piccadilly Circus and Moscow, from a mother’s laundry room and farmer’s milking machine to trains, rollercoasters, police choppers and auto assembly lines. Everything stops, though the Pentagon reports planes in flight and other essential services aren’t disrupted.
“Does all this frighten you — does it make you insecure?” the professor asks his secretary while watching the hubbub from his study. When she says yes, he replies, “That’s good, Hilda, I’m glad.”
Unfortunately, the message needs reinforcing. In the film’s final scene, having been shot dead in a hail of Army bullets but then resuscitated by the trusty Gort, Klaatu, clad in an elegant space tunic, delivers a stern warning to the international scientists assembled by the professor.
“The universe grows smaller every day,” he says statesman-like from the elevated ramp of his flying saucer. “The threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure.”
He then describes an interstellar police force of invincible robots to keep the peace. “This power cannot be revoked,” Klaatu says. “At first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor.” Not wanting to provoke these deputized super-Gorts, “the result is we live in peace, secure in the knowledge we are free from aggression or war.” And, he adds, “This does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly.”
Klaatu’s parting words indeed seem meant for modern ears. “It is no concern of ours how you run your 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 and live in peace. Or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer.”
Would that Klaatu could pay a return visit and stop us in our wayward path. Shutting our phones off for 10 minutes would probably be more than enough to get the world’s attention.
Mr. Ripp runs a press relations firm in New York.