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Product Description ------------------- Relive the exciting days of sci-fi movie matinees with the cult classic EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS! Featuring extraordinary visual effects by cinematic genius Ray Harryhausen, the film pits earthlings against alien humanoids in a violent battle for Earth's survival! When the zombielike aliens arrive at the U.S. Army base in search of help for their dying planet, they try to make friendly contact with scientist Dr. Russ Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his recent bride Carol (Joan Taylor). But the greets their fleet of saucers with fire, and the aliens are forced to retaliate. Can Marvin invent the ultimate weapon in a deadly game of beat-the-clock to save the human race? Hold on to your seat for an intergalactic flight into fantasy with EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS! .co.uk Review ------------- Notable neither for its director nor its stars, Earth vs the Flying Saucers has been given the widescreen DVD rather because of its special-effects man, the legendary Ray Harryhausen. A Twilight Zone styled voiceover introduces Dr Marvin Russell and his wife of two hours as they're buzzed by an overhead flying saucer--the first of many. When a translation device reveals the saucer-occupants' fiendish plan to take over the world, it's time for a good old army-alien punch-up. Cue screenfuls of avuncular patriarchs, loads of techno-flannel space-speak and plenty of gratuitous American-monument destruction. A by-numbers B-movie, this is only really notable for Harryhausen's stop-motion FX work--and though this, his fifth feature, isn't a patch on his later Technicolor masterpieces, his trick of demolishing facsimiles of recognisable landmarks is cited by many premier filmmakers as being hugely influential on their work. This is very much of its time, the saucer-people few of the thrills engendered by his later creations (Sinbad's Cyclops, for example). And with Cold War fears now just a memory, the Ruskies, or rather aliens, can no longer prevail upon a zeitgeist of xenophobic paranoia for their power. On the DVD: Earth vs the Flying Saucers's black-and-white picture is clean and crisp in this anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen transfer and the Dolby digital mono soundtrack is clear enough. The theatrical trailer will please fans of kitsch, as will the featurette "This Is Dynamation" produced at the same time as the first Sinbad movie. The real corker here though is the generously proportioned documentary "The Harryhausen Chronicles": narrated by Leonard Nimoy, it features a stellar cast of devotees (George Lucas among them) waxing lyrical about the influence of Harryhausen's films, and allows the man himself to ramble fascinatingly over clips of his filmic canon. If you're a fan, it's Harryhausen heaven. --Paul Eisinger