When I was 5 I was off of school for a day. my mother stayed home that day and rented a bunch of old classics for us to watch. I can't remember for the life of me what else we watch aside from the birds. But this movie and that memory has stuck with me all these years. Not only is this one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever, it holds sentemental value for me as well. anyone else remember their first time watch this great film?
shareI first saw War of the Worlds in the early 1970's on Mel's Matinee Movie (on old WTCN). It was an instant classic in our Sci-Fi crazed household.
My brothers and I did a fake radio show (on tape) broadcasting the events of the invasion. That was a lot of fun.
I must've been about eight and saw it in the early 60s as a re-release one Saturday afternoon at my local cinema. I had no idea what was on - it was an era when you just went to the movies no matter what was on. I was a little bit late, and walked in just as the Minister (I think he was) was walking across the field reciting Psalm 23, and then got zapped. I was spellbound. The movie completely captured my imagination in the same way that "Jason and the Argonauts" did a couple of years later when my big brother took me to see it at the movies.
One movie led to a fairly long term interest in science fiction (a couple of decades) and the other to a reasonably long-term interest in Greek myths (probably about five years).
I saw this when I was very young, maybe 7, in the 60's. It scared the crap out of me, and affected my dreams for years.
Probably how I became a huge Sci fi reader.
People in 2015 can go on about how 'cheesy' it was, but it was absolutely brilliant in its day, and many years beyond.
Far superior to the 2005 Tom Cruise remake.
I got to see it for the first time on a big theatrical-screen set up to show it and Star Trek television episodes at a Star Trek and Sci-Fi convention I attended when I was 5 years old in what must've been 1976. (William Shatner was the guest-star speaker at that convention, speaking about Star Trek and the Moonshot and the real life Space Program, so excellent!) The film was amazing, the Martians and their ships looking strange and alien and like nothing I'd seen before, all from a literary Classic by H.G. Wells, whom I seem to remember already knowing a bit about.
I just watched the Classic 1953 film earlier today from an old virtual DVD release (a DVD-image, files in a folder, menus and all, from an HDD in my computer). It truly remains among the greatest Sci-Fi films ever made. George Pal made great and astounding Sci-Fi! (See also by Pal: The Time Machine (1960))