Trivia for
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) More at IMDbPro »

• The role of Klaatu was originally intended for Claude Rains.
  
  
• The role of Gort was played by Lock Martin, the doorman from Grauman's Chinese Theater, because he was extremely tall. However, he was unable to pick up Helen because he was so weak and had to be aided by wires (in shots from the back where he's carrying her, it's actually a lightweight dummy in his arms). He also had difficulty with the heavy Gort suit and could only stay in it for about a half-hour at a time.
  
  
• There were two Gort suits: one that laced up down the back for when he had his front to the camera, another that laced up in the front for the shots of his back.
  
  
• To give the appearance of seamlessness to the space ship, the crack around the door was filled with putty, then painted over. When the door opened the putty was torn apart, making the door seem to simply appear.
  
  
• Patricia Neal has admitted in interviews that she was completely unaware during the filming that the film would turn out so well and become one of the great science-fiction classics of all time. She assumed it would be just another one of the then-current and rather trashy flying saucer films that were popular at the time, and she found it difficult to keep a straight face while saying her lines.
  
  
• One of the reasons that Michael Rennie was cast as Klaatu was because he was generally unknown to American audiences, and would be more readily accepted as an "alien" than a more recognizable actor.
  
  
• In the original story, the robot, Gort, was the master - Klaatu was merely one of a series of doubles, or maybe clones, that died after a short time.
  
  
• In the original story, "Farewell to the Master", the robot's name was Gnut, not Gort.
  
  
• Doubles were used for Klaatu and Bobby in long shots of them walking around Washington, DC. In reality, none of the principal cast ever went to Washington, and the scenes with Klaatu and Bobby at the Lincoln Memorial and at Arlington Cemetery were shot in front of background screens using footage shot by the second unit crew in Washington, DC.
  
  
• All of the scenes of Helen Benson and Klaatu in the taxi also feature footage from the second unit of Washington, DC as we see background vehicles in the rear and side windows of the taxi.
  
  
• To depict the seamless closing of the ship and its ramp, they just reversed the film of the shot of the ship's ramp and door appearing.
  
  
• The original choice of actor to play the alien visitor was Spencer Tracy.
  
  
• Darryl F. Zanuck was the one who first suggested Michael Rennie for the part of Klaatu, having seen him perform on the London stage.
  
  
• Robert Wise was attracted to the project because of its overt anti-military stance and also because he believed in UFOs.
  
  
• In line with the film's Christian allegory, Klaatu adopts the name "Carpenter" when hiding out from the authorities. Robert Wise hadn't considered the Christian implications until it was pointed out to him several years later.
  
  
• The spaceship was made of wood, wire and plaster of Paris.
  
  
• The Army refused to co-operate after reading the script. The National Guard had no such qualms and gladly offered their co-operation.
  
  
• The screenplay was based on the story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. It was originally published in the pulp magazine "Astounding Science-Fiction."
  
  
• Three years after this was made, it was adapted for the "Lux Radio Theatre". Michael Rennie and Billy Gray reprised their roles. Jean Peters played the role of Helen.
  
  
• Bernard Herrmann's music for the film is scored for two theremins, pianos, harps, different electrical organs, percussion, amplified solo strings and a large brass section including four tubas.
  
  
• Although he was already signed to play the Einstein-like Professor Barnhardt, the studio wanted to remove Sam Jaffe as a result of the political witch hunts that were then underway. Producer Julian Blaustein appealed to studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck allowed Jaffe to play the role, but it would be Jaffe's last Hollywood film until the late 1950s.
  
  
• Bernard Herrmann used two Theremins to create his creepy score, one pitched higher, the other lower, making this one of the first films to feature a largely electronic score.
  
  
• Ranked #5 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Sci-Fi" in June 2008.
  
  
• To increase the sense of reality, some of the most famous broadcast journalists of the time were hired to do cameos as themselves. These included Gabriel Heatter, H.V. Kaltenborn and Drew Pearson.
  
  
• Originally Klaatu's death and resurrection at the end of the movie was meant to be permanent, reinforcing his God-like powers, but at the time the Breen Office--the film industry's censors--didn't like the ending, suggesting it was too left-wing, and insisted that director Robert Wise and writer Edmund H. North put in the line, "That power is reserved for the Almighty Spirit". Both Wise and North hated the line and thought it completely inappropriate--negating the concept of Klaatu's race being all-knowing and all-powerful--but the studio wouldn't back them up and they were forced to put it in.
  
  
• In the scene where Gort is seen carrying Klaatu's body (inside the ship), Michael Rennie was actually sitting on a dolly out of camera angle to support his weight during this brief scene, since Lock Martin (Gort) was unable to do so himself.
  
  
• In the scenes of Gort carrying both Helen Benson and Klaatu up the ramp and into the ship, lightweight look-alike dummies were used because of Lock Martin's inability to actually carry either actor himself.
  
  
• One scene was cut from the movie before it was released. The original script called for Klaatu to be taken to a police station by the government man who came for him at the boarding house, not directly to Barnhart's home. At the station, men were being dragged in from all over and questioned, and Klaatu becomes upset when he sees how a man was beaten up by a crowd because they thought he was the spaceman. The scene was cut because director Robert Wise realized that the audience was interested in the Klaatu/ Barnhart meeting and the scene at the police station was unnecessary, but on the DVD there are stills from that deleted scene.
  
  
• Because the stationary Gort could not stand on the angled ramp, Lock Martin had to wear the Gort suit in the background during the final sequence. Martin, who was frail, had to wear the suit for so long that he began having spasms in his arms. During Klaatu's final speech, Gort's arms can be seen moving slightly.
  
  
• Harry Bates was paid a mere $500 by 20th Century-Fox for the rights to his short story "Farewell to the Master".
  
  
• The name "Richard Carlson" - another leading sci-fi actor of the 1950s - appears at the bottom of the glass door to Hugh Marlowe's office.
  
  
• Some reference works state that "Adventures of Superman" (1952) star George Reeves appeared as a television news reporter with eyeglasses in one sequence. This is not true. The actor playing the role bears no resemblance to Reeves, and in a 1995 interview with Reeves biographer Jim Beaver, director Robert Wise stated unequivocally that it is not Reeves in the role. It appears that someone jumped to conclusions based on the image of a reporter wearing glasses and thus resembling roughly the image of Superman alter-ego Clark Kent. Reeves had nothing to do with the film in any capacity.
  
  
• The phrase "Klaatu barada nikto" has become a popular phrase among sci-fi fans over the years and has been featured in other movies, such as Army of Darkness (1992).
  
  
• The film was shot on the 20th Century-Fox back lot, which is now an upscale office complex known as Century City.
  
  
• Writer Edmund H. North was a former army officer who wrote the script in response to the proliferation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
  
  
• In 1951, 20th Century Fox theatrically distributed this with the short film The Guest (1951).
  
  
• Whether the makers of the movie intended or not, there is a striking resemblance between Klaatu and the head of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was known to make corrections on the blackboards of theoreticians at the Project, similar to the scene where Klaatu corrects the work of Professor Barnhardt. Oppenheimer's other-worldly brilliance and association with destructive power that could threaten the existence of the world seem like more than a coincidence.
  
  
• The first actor to whom the role of Klaatu was actually offered was Claude Rains, who wanted to accept it but had to decline because of a prior commitment on Broadway.
  
  
• During the early phases of pre-production for The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), 20th Century-Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck suggested Jack Palance for the role of the robot Gort. The role was eventually filled by a much taller non-actor.
  
  

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