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Charles Schneer had become aware of the flood of flying saucer sightings during the mid-fifties and decided that it would be a perfect vehicle for another low budget entry utilizing Ray Harryhausen's special effects. Ray, himself had become fascinated, at the time with the aspect of the possibility of visitors from other worlds and actually went to meet with people who claimed to have seen or actually been contacted by alien life-forms. Whether on not this had any impact on the scientific approach to this film is debatable, but more scientific jargon in thrown around in this film than many genre films of the time. It did, however, have impact on the design of the ships. Ray discovered that a photo had been taken of a flying saucer in England in 1954. The photo showed a circular saucer with three bumps on the outside edge of the saucer. These bumps would provide both the edge of reality, at least based on the supposedly real photo, and a place to anchor the wires that would support the saucers through the pain-staking stop-motion process.

After the screenplay was developed, Ray went out and took several pictures in the desert. Using these pictures Ray hand painted much of the story board directly on top of these pictures. Where he needed, he drew the others to fill in the storyline and many of these drawings would later serve as direction for sets to be built and special effects to be incorporated into the film.

The story follows Dr. Russell A. Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife (Joan Taylor). Recently married, they are working on Project Sky Hook at an isolated military base. After 11 rocket launches, all of which plummeted back to earth, a 12th is launched, this time with a TV camera to monitor the flight. Before the rocket can be launched a saucer arrives and is met with hostility by the military. Turning on the military the aliens unveil a powerful ray that disintegrates everything it comes in contact with. The Aliens contact Doctor Marvin and they arrange for a meeting where they reveal their plans to take over the earth. They give him 56 days to set on a conference in Washington D.C., or a forceful takeover will be enacted.

Using the time to develop a weapon that breaks up the magnetic signals that support the saucers, war is waged on earth against the backdrop of Washington D.C. As the weapon is used on the fleet of saucers, landmark after landmark is destroyed by the crashing saucers until the earth is victorious.

Utilizing practically every trick in the book for this film, it is, once again, Ray's special effects that make it work. The saucer's in flight are highly believable and set a precedent for us as far as what we believe saucers to look like and fly like. Even the fantastic light show that Speilberg offers in Close Encounter's is no match for the simple stop-motion effects used here. Of particular effectiveness is the night sequence with the saucers flying over a burning forest. As the scene builds in tension and excitement, one barely notices the lighting effects that Ray uses to make the fire glimmer on the underbelly of the saucers. If this had been poorly or not at all it would have been noticeable. As it stands it looks perfectly natural. The final shot of that scene has stayed in my memory since I first saw the film. The saucer, from a distance, hovering over the burning forest and then exiting.

Another effective shot has the saucer attack a bomber, cutting to stock footage, the bomber explodes and begins to slowly breakup with the saucer in the forefront. Effective use was made of stock footage for the early explosions of buildings in this film, many of them extracted from the action packed serial from Republic Pictures. Once the film moves to Washington D.C., it is all stop motion animation. As the saucers collide with buildings, explosions are optically printed over the image as Ray hand animates each piece of broken building flying through the sky. In one very effective scene, a saucers collides with the Washington Monument, severing it near it's base. The monument begins to fall, crushing a bevy of fleeing people. The same sequence, along with other special effects from this film, would turn up in THE GIANT CLAW.

Fans of the film might want to know that the Plaza Del Ray Sewage Plant served two purposes for the film. First, it was selected as the perfect place to shot the Project Sky Hook base scenes, with it huge pipes and monstrous rooms. Secondly, the sound generated as the machinery moved the muck through the pipes, became the basis of the sound the saucers made.

Overall, EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS is an effective sci-fi film made totally enjoyable by Ray's special effects work. Ray has often commented that the film deserved a better screenplay and a decent music score. That may be hindsight but if the film is ever remade and they don't use the same process to recreate the saucers it will never be a visually appealing.

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