dbborroughs For me this film is an old friend. Its a film I've seen countless times thanks to showing on the Late Late Show while I was growing up.Its been forever in the bargain bins. The film is about a giant asteroid that comes close to earth and our attempts to find out why its sending out ships to attack us. As a film its an okay time killer its not bad. Its not great but its definitely not bad. Its certainly better than many of the space opera films that followed in its wake through the 60's and early 70's. One of the reasons I think the film works, and is the reason I will watch the film again and again is the presence of Claude Rains as the mad genius who wants to know whats going on so he can save the world. Its a force of nature performance that allows him to really tear the roof off and go for it. Certainly it more than a little over done but some how seeing the great man being out of character is a great deal of fun. I really like the film and recommend it to those with a love of science fiction

Andrew Leavold From Italian genre expert Antonio Margheriti, or "Anthony M. Dawson" as he was known to the English speaking world, best known for films about cannibals and killer fish. In 1960 he started an entire genre of spaghetti sci-fi films with Assignment: Outer Space. It was a typically Italian exercise in creating something out of nothing, and not surprisingly at a time when any film with Hercules in the title meant instant box-office, it was sold around the world. For his second space opera Margheriti was handed a bigger budget - which means he was given slightly more than nothing - to create an ambitious, not to mention enjoyable, effects-filled no-brainer: the 1961 Battle Of The Worlds.More moolah meant star billing for an imported American actor. So, almost 30 years after playing The Invisible Man, aging raconteur Claude Raines plays Professor Benson, a cranky, wordy, gas-filled yet sympathetic egghead in Mr Magoo glasses who detects a planetoid dubbed "The Outsider" heading for the pseudo-utopian community on Earth. Against Benson's advice the Army sends its spacecraft to knock it out but they're destroyed by a fleet of spinning flying saucers who emerge from inside the planet with jagged laser beams a-blazing. The fools! Benson then discovers the planetoid locked into an ever-decreasing orbit around the Earth, suggesting a super-computer from a dying alien civilization inside the planet; his missionary zeal for pure knowledge leads him to offer himself in the ultimate act of sacrifice, descending deep into the bowels of the runaway planet.And they really do look like bowels - glowing red and filled with plastic tubing, a triumph of low-budget ingenuity from the Godfather of Spaghetti sci-fi thanks to his resourcefulness as a special effects wizard, working miracles out of a few toilet rolls and a vacuum hose. Amidst the relentlessly talky script and the pointless romantic interludes, there's a strange, almost quasi-revolutionary thread against the military industrial complex, but that's the crazy Italians for you. So, from the man who would one day direct Cannibal Apocalypse comes an early one in the insanely huge Antonio Margheriti catalog: the 1961 Battle Of The Worlds.

Chris Gaskin I've just seen Battle of the Worlds for the first time and is very similar to When Worlds Collide, which was made ten years before this in 1951.A planet is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth and a way is devised to try and stop it. To makes things worse, Earth is attacked by flying saucers from this planet but they are eventually defeated. A party, including Professor Benson then lands on this planet and they manage to blow it up and successfully do so, but with Benson still on there as he refused orders to evacuate. Earth is saved yet again.Battle Of the Worlds tends to be a little talky and slow moving in parts but the flying saucer scenes are OK. Despite it being talky, it is fairly eerie in parts.This features a good performance from Claude Rains (The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, The Lost World) as Professor Benson but he is the only star I've heard of in the cast.To sum up, an average movie but not brilliant.Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5.

m-fan The mysterious sounding music of the main title when the film starts sets the pace for the whole movie, which is laid-back yet enchanting (especially if watched at night).It is not hardly a typical space battle type picture so this should not be expected. As a matter of fact this movie shows a much more realistic viewing of what space travel will be like when it finally becomes common place. For example the rockets are propelled by some type of gas, and permission has to be given from mission control before engines are started, and rocket courses and accelerations have to take into account things like planet gravity and possible g forces on the crew.The main characters are interesting and even though it is overdubbed the dialog is good, with a few exceptions which are fun to laugh at. The acting by Claude Rains is very good, and you can actually feel sympathy for professor Benson, who has nothing to keep him going but science (and Eve though he finds it hard to admit it even to himself).The story is interesting and has a few twists to it that keep things moving along. The movie also presents an interesting commentary on possible future government-military-industrial and international organization. This movie might not fit everyone's taste, yet people who sometimes enjoy laid-back atmospheric fantasies should enjoy it.