Monday, March 17, 2008

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

More Harryhausen. I remember stumbling onto this movie on the little black and white TV in the back room of my grandparent’s house in rural Oklahoma. It scored a perfect 10 on the Argonaut scale. The flying saucer cutting through the Washington Monument is classic, as is the saucer crashing into the White House (both at the very end of the clip). They’re still potent images (and ones Independence Day stole decades later, to great effect).

My grandparent’s house had chickens out back we checked for eggs every morning, and cows out in the pasture. The occasional horse. There were woods out back as well, containing the legendary “tickle-tongue tree,” which I will leave for another post. I spent a lot of time fishing with my Dad and Grandpa when we visited them. My Grandma would give me as much root beer as I wanted. They let us play with firecrackers. On moonless nights it was black as pitch, as there were no streetlights or neighbors around. The stars shone like first love.

3 comments:

Eric Shonkwiler said...

I'm primed for the zombie apocalypse, not so much the UFOcalypse. Two things I genuinely fear(ed): bees, and aliens. Black eyed, scrawny limbed aliens. I punch them in my dreams.

Blood Meridian sidenote: From what I can tell, they're not terribly good, certainly not well known. A band called Fall of the States, Return of the State, the State Strikes Back...something with State, has an album called Blood Meridian that sucks up all the Google entries. Glad you enjoyed it, though.

Mona Buonanotte said...

Tickle Tongue Tree? Oh you must expound upon that one! (My mind is conjuring up all sorts of things.)

Anonymous said...

OMG. One of the FINEST science fiction movies ever made. No, really. *lol* I love the eerie ray-gun sound effects, the weird whirring of the saucers and the zombie-walking aliens in their huge helmets.

*sigh* I miss quality like this.