Alien intervention provides a benign theme for The Day the Earth Stood Still (released September 28, 1951) and informs a 1985 meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev. Lou Cannon, in his biography President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (1991), reports as follows:
“In Hollywood he became an avid science-fiction fan, absorbed with a favorite theme of the genre: the invasion from outer space that prompts earthlings to put aside nationalistic quarrels and band together against an alien invader.
"Reagan liked this idea so much that he tried it out on Gorbachev in their first meeting at Geneva in 1985, saying that he was certain the United States and the Soviet Union would cooperate if earth were threatened by an invasion from outer space. Reagan’s idea was not part of the script, and it startled his advisors.
"It may have also startled Gorbachev, who did not have at his fingertips the Marxist-Leninist position on the propriety of cooperating with the imperialists against an interplanetary invasion. In any event, Gorbachev changed the subject…
"(Colin) Powell… knew more than he ever wanted to know about Reagan’s preoccupation with what Powell called 'the little green men' and he struggled diligently to keep interplanetary references out of Reagan’s speeches. Powell was convinced that Reagan’s unique proposal to Gorbachev had been inspired by a 1951 science-fiction film, The Day The Earth Stood Still…”
The original story upon which the movie is based (Harry Bates' "Farewell to the Master," Astounding Science Fiction, October 1940) can be found at The Nostalgia League Library here.
Naturally the film was jiggered to include a "love" interest (Patricia Neal?!), undercut the aliens' omnipotence in favor of Christian sensibility, and eliminate the twist ending. I will return to a more in-depth analysis of these changes, with particular attention to what they mean to the Superman mythos, later. In the meantime, feel free to familiarize yourself with Bates' story, as I will be required to spoil its ending in order to bring my over-arching theme to light.
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