The New Pictures

The New Pictures The Day the Earth Stood Still (20th Century-Fox), by far the best of Hollywood's recent flights into science-fiction, combines a glimpse into the futuristic marvels of outer space with a thoughtful look at the seedy old earth of 1951. Like The Thing (TIME, May 14), it is the story of a visitor from another planet. But Klaatu (Michael Rennie) is no villainous monster; he is an ultra-civilized human being who makes the earthmen, by contrast, look like a monstrous race of Yahoos.

Klaatu comes from an unnamed planet 250 million miles away and thousands of years more advanced than the earth. His 4,000-m.p.h. spaceship pancakes to a perfect landing near the Washington Mall, and he steps out with a friendly greeting into a hostile ring of troops, tanks and artillery. When a jittery G.I. puts a bullet into Klaatu, a huge robot lumbers out of the spaceship and emits a ray that melts the weapons in the soldiers' hands and the tanks right out from under them. The wounded Klaatu signals a halt to the demonstration, is whisked off to Walter Reed General Hospital.

In his hospital bed, the visitor receives a White House secretary, explains in perfect English (learned from an interplanetary radio receiver) that the future of the earth hinges on his mission; he can discuss it only before representatives of all the world's nations. But diplomatic red tape and international tensions make such a meeting impossible. Bent on learning more about the earth's strange ways, Klaatu escapes from the hospital, pilfers an earthling's business suit and, as a lodger in a Washington boarding house, becomes the sanest, calmest man on the planet.

Klaatu's escape touches off a vast monster-hunt, demonstrating the earthlings' frightening capacity for panic, ignorance, unreasoning hostility and pygmy-minded self-seeking. He finally accomplishes his mission, thanks to a young war widow (Patricia Neal), her eleven-year-old son (Billy Gray) and the earth's leading scientist, well played by Sam Jaffe with an Einstein hairdo.

Crisply directed by Robert Wise from a script by Edmund H. North, the movie is no sermon or diatribe. It makes its points with all the tang and suspense of a good adventure yarn. It has its rough spots in story--and no doubt in scientific --logic, but these are effectively smoothed over by the realism of actual Washington backgrounds, expert technical effects and the presence of such radio news commentators as Drew Pearson, Elmer Davis and H. V. Kaltenborn, chattering away in the familiar accents of crisis.

Angels in the Outfield (MGM) answers an orphan's prayers by summoning down a heavenly host to help the Pittsburgh Pirates win the National League pennant.* Paul Douglas, as the team's profane manager, spurns this divine assistance until a thunderbolt and some pep-talks from Archangel Gabriel turn him into a true believer.

Producer-Director Clarence Brown, skipping nimbly over the theological soft spots in his plot, takes a firm stand against the forces of Evil, represented by Radio Announcer Keenan Wynn, who doubts that Providence cares whether the Pirates win or lose. On the side of muscular Christianity are Janet Leigh as the girl who gets Douglas; a pansy-eyed child star named Donna Corcoran as the devout orphan, and Ellen Corby as a nun who knows baseball like a book.

Based on a story by Richard Conlin, Angels is funniest when Douglas is still unregenerate, most offensive when a baseball commissioner, with the help of a priest, a minister and a rabbi, decides there really are angels in the ballpark. Best touch: the braying, indecipherable soundtrack that represents Paul Douglas' explosive profanity.

*Pittsburgh's last pennant year: 1927.

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