Klaatu (The Day The Earth Stood Still) - Michael Rennie As Klaatu

Michael Rennie As Klaatu

Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie) arrives in a flying saucer in Washington, DC, wearing a silver spacesuit and accompanied by a large humanoid robot, Gort (played by Lock Martin). Klaatu arrives as a peaceful ambassador from an extraterrestrial confederation, but when he presents a harmless device he is shot by one of the soldiers that form his rather apprehensive welcoming committee. Klaatu explains the device was a gift to the President and could have been used to study life on other planets. To protect Klaatu, Gort vaporizes all of the surrounding weaponry.

Klaatu is taken to a hospital, where he quickly recovers. On learning that the government does not expect other nations to be willing to come to meet him, he goes out to meet the common people, using the surname "Carpenter," the name found on the clothes and suit case he borrows, as a pseudonym. He takes up residence in a boarding house and is shown the town by a young boy named Bobby Benson (played by Billy Gray) who stays there with his mother, Helen Benson (played by Patricia Neal), and drops by the home of Professor Barnhardt, a brilliant scientist (played by Sam Jaffe), who is absent.

Klaatu/Carpenter leaves a "calling card" by marking Barnhardt's calculations as a teacher would mark a student's. When Klaatu/Carpenter is brought later by an army driver, Barnhardt discusses the situation with Klaatu, agrees to summon scientists from all nations, and asks Klaatu for a show of power, thus exhibiting that the extraterrestrial alliance controls enormous power that would threaten Earth if Earth threatens the peace in space. Klaatu, in reply, neutralizes electric power all over the world (with some notable exceptions, such as hospitals and airplanes in flight) for 30 minutes. Klaatu's action is taken to be an act of war. Betrayed by Mrs. Benson's boyfriend, he is hunted down and fatally shot.

Because Gort's purpose is to prevent aggression and could "destroy the Earth" if anything untoward happens to him, Klaatu has told Mrs. Benson to deliver the phrase that will cancel the attack. Helen reaches the robot, uttering "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!" barely in time to save her own life, whereupon Gort aborts his attack, retrieves Klaatu's body, transports him to the saucer, and revives him from death.

After Klaatu is revived, he steps out of the saucer, giving the scientists the following ultimatum: Earth can either decide not to threaten aggression on other planets and join other spacefaring worlds—a peace ensured by a massive deterrent force, consisting of robots similar to Gort—or else "this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder". Klaatu then departs.