War of the Worlds is a classic alien invasion film teeming with Cold War paranoia and anxiety that brings the chaos of H.G. Wells’s novel to 1950s California. The space-age streamlined UFOs and spectacular images of destruction, along with Hungarian-born producer George Pal’s pioneering special effects, won the film an Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 1954.
As the aliens move towards Los Angeles, the inhabitants evacuate and the city descends into ruins. Urban cultural historian Eric Avila, this week’s Cold War Spaces guest, links the film to not only Red Scare fears but white flight. In his book Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (2004), he writes that the film reveals “a perception that Los Angeles was under attack by alien invaders and that suburban domesticity offered a safe alternative to the chaos that had descended upon the postwar American metropolis. In the changing racial geography of the postwar, postindustrial city, the urban science fiction film provided a cultural arena where suburban America could measure its whiteness against the image of the alien Other.”
Watch for free (with ads) on Crackle. Also available for purchase on other streaming services.
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Virtual Film Picks are inspired by the in-person Friday Night Films at the Wende program series. This selection is part of a curated list of weekly movie suggestions that can be watched at home, in conjunction with #WendeOnline.
