In 1951, postwar Hollywood had its first encounter with an alien intelligence and found it to be vehemently, unabashedly anti-nuclear. "A strange, flying-saucer-like contraption from another planet settles on, of all places the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., and there alights, in the person of Michael Rennie, a gentleman and a scholar sent down to counsel peace. The prevailing, literate calm of this picture makes it even more provocative and amusing now than in its initial release. And the picture is smooth indeed, neatly-played and wryly-twisted here and there amid all the conversations, and a welcome relief from the typical, blaring, comic-strip hashes of this genre." (Howard Thompson, American Film Institute). P.S. Klaatu barata nikto!