Facts About 'The Day The Earth Stood Still'

Video Transcript

"In nineteen fifty-one for the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" studio executives wanted Spencer Tracy for the lead role as the alien Klaatu. But producer Julian Bronstien objected, he said if Spencer Tracy comes out of the spaceship, that's going to destroy all the credibility. Instead he opted for the English actor Michael Rennie, not known in this country, very tall and distinguished with an excellent voice. A superb choice for the alien Klaatu. now when Patricia Neal was going to say those famous words "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!" to try to make contact with the robot that was the assistant of Klaatu, she said she had a hard time refraining from laughing when that was made. But she said now, in later years she's come to really appreciate that role. The robot was portrayed by the actor Lock Martin. He was seven feet seven inches tall, and at the time was working as a doorman at Grauman?s Chinese. He had a few previous roles such as in "Abbot and Costello" and "The Harem". And after this film, he had only a couple of other roles. Specifically a brief role in "Invaders from Mars", as an alien, and then he had another role in "The Incredible Shrinking Man" in nineteen fifty-seven. But that brief role was left on the cutting room floor. As far as his role as Gort the Robot, he had two costumes. For frontal scenes, the costume had a zipper in the back. For rear scenes the costume had a zipper in the front. They couldn't dare show the zipper or that would've given the gig away that he wasn't really a robot. Now a real quick question for you. In this movie how long did the Earth actually stand still for, and in what manner? Well, it stood still just for thirty minutes, from noon until twelve-thirty. And it stood still in the sense that all electrical and other power was turned off except for hospital emergency rooms and planes to show the power that the alien Klaatu had. A superb sci-fi film."