I    “Klaatu barrada Niktu!”
    So gasps Patricia Neal to the giant robot Gort in the most brilliant of all fifties sci-fi movies—The Day the Earth Stood Still. It is a retelling of the life of Christ—the alien comes to warn us of the dangers of our wicked ways and show us the path to harmony and enlightenment. What would happen  if Christ turned up in modern Washington? The answer is the same thing that happened last time—we  would persecute him and kill him. Whereby, naturally, he rises again from the dead. A stunning assault on McCarthyism and nuclear proliferation, with Michael Rennie in his most perfect role—playing a man far too nice and decent to be truly human. The special effects are pretty good for their time—which means stylishly crummy—and Sam Jaffe plays a scientist plainly meant to be Einstein. But the Pentagon and White House will not be distracted from their petty squabbles and the alien goes, ascending back into heaven after delivering a dire warning that judgement day is coming.
    Robert Wise directed the film, and it has grown in cult status over the years, but I was one of the ones who admired it immediately. It was a huge influence in turning me completely atheistic. I remember people laughing at me for admiring a silly film of flying saucers and robots—nobody laughs anymore.
    By then television had become the centre of my life, but still I was able to experience one adverse effect. In the last weeks before we moved from Prahran to Moorabbin, I still went to the Saturday afternoon matinees. On the afternoon they played The Day the Earth Stood Still, it was to be the last matinee that the Empress Theatre ever showed. Unable to accommodate a wide screen and no longer able to compete with television, it closed its doors and was turned into a footwear emporium. But by then, I had no reason to miss it at all.