Directed by: Robert Wise
Starring: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe
Character mistake: When the guard lets the nurse in Klaatu's hospital room with his meal, he rushes in as though he already knows something is wrong instead of just letting her in.
Character mistake: At the beginning of the film, the British radar-man says it's moving at 4,000 mph. Then says it must be a Buzzbomb. As a British radar man, he'd know that the Buzzbomb, or V1 rocket, only flew at 360 mph - 75% were shot down by the RAF.
Visible crew/equipment: When Gort picks up Patricia Neal next to the flying saucer, you can see cables leading down to her body to keep her hoisted. (01:20:15)
Klaatu: Perhaps before deciding on a course of action, you'd want to know more about the people here - to orient yourself in a strange environment.
Mrs. Barley: There's nothing strange about Washington, Mr. Carpenter.
Klaatu: A person from another planet might disagree with you.
Mrs. Barley: If you want my opinion, he came from right here on Earth. And you know where I mean.
Mr. Krull: They woudn't come in spaceships, they'd come in airplanes.
Mrs. Barley: I woudn't be too sure about that.
Trivia: In order to make Gort's body appear seamless, two different costumes were created, one that opened in the back for front shots and one that opened in the front for rear shots. Unfortunately, as someone has already pointed out on this site, it was sometimes rather difficult to co-ordinate which suit was needed for which shot and thus there are several times in the film where Gort's seams can be seen.
Question: For such and advanced species, wouldn't Klatu's people know that "reducing Earth to a burnt out cinder" (for its warlike ways) would also punish those billions of innocents who have no say in the policies of their governments or military? Wouldn't it be more effective to police the earth and neutralize any weaponry that we shot into space?
Answer: They said, how they handle their earth problems is no concern to them, it's only if they bring it to outer space and other worlds, they would take drastic measures to ensure that did not happen.