War Of The Worlds Analysis

The War of the Worlds film (1953) as a Cold War film
This is one of the best science fiction films of the twentieth century and it is also a Cold War classic film. The film was released in 1953, produced by George Pal and directed by Byron Haskin and it was the year's biggest science fiction film hit.
The plot of the film is very different from the novel, which tells the story of a ninetieth century writer who journeys through London and its southern suburbs while the Martians attack and at the end he was reunited with his wife. In the film the protagonist is a Californian scientist who falls in love with a former college student after the Martian invasion begins in a small Californian town; he also reunited with his girlfriend at the end
The most powerful of these new weapons was the atomic bomb. Neither Russians nor Americans knew the amount of radioactivity and destruction power it could have. This was showed in the film through the preparation of the scientists to observe the drop, in Los Angeles, of the atomic bomb over the Martians machines and it secondary effects.
The mass destruction without mercy that the Martians were inflicting to humans in the world also reminded the viewers the mass destruction in all the Earth that an atomic war will bring. The radiation after an atomic bomb was a big concern at the time and this was obvious since the beginning of the film when it mention that the meteorite spaceship had radiation.
The concept of heat ray weapon, the green disintegrator ray, the force field of the Martians spaceships, the floating concept for the move of these machines were a preview of new technologies to come. The sound effects were fabulous and as a result they were used later in many well know science fiction movies. All this war technologies were a concern for the general public of 1953 when the movie was