The Day of the Hour

As I mentioned, I have never seen the OG The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). We have corrected that oversight. 

A UFO disturbs the world, then sets down on the Mall in Washington D.C. From the saucer emerges a giant robot and a man, Michael Rennie as Klaatu. He tries to tell the soldiers that surround the saucer about his mission, but is shot by one of them and taken to Walter Reed.

He is met in the hospital by a representative of the President, and says that he has a message to deliver to all the leaders of Earth at the same time. Since neither the US nor Russia will allow the meeting to be held on any ground but theirs, Rennie is stymied. He sneaks out of the hospital to go live among the common people.

In the boarding house where he ends up, he meets a widow, Patricia Neal, and her young son. To allow Neal to go on a date, Rennie volunteers to take the boy for a day. They have a nice outing, and wind up visiting the smartest man in the world. The boy knows about him, because his mother works as a secretary nearby. The smart man isn't in, but Rennie strolls in and fixes some equations on his blackboard.

That night, the genius, played by Sam Jaffe!, invites him back, and they set up a plan to get the world's attention. In a few days time, Klaatu will make all powered machinery stop operating for one hour. That's the hour the Earth stood still.

I liked this a little more than the remake. Although Keanu made an unearthly alien humanoid, Michael Rennie also had a dignified air of otherworldliness. Sam Jaffe made a great Smartest Man in the World - I guess an Einstein figure? Or some other public intellectual? The whole "living among the Earthlings" section was pulled off better here. And we got a better Klaatu Barada Nicto - it was the phrase Neal was to use if Rennie gets shot. It prevents Gort from destroying Earth, and signals for him to get Klaatu and revive him. Pretty important.