"The Day The Earth Stood Still - availability on home video"

Availability on home video

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SPECIAL EFFECTS
CAST LIST
FAN ART & MUSIC
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TDTESS LINKS

As with most classic SF, TDTESS waxes and wanes on home video. The "Special Edition" laser disc (pictured above) was a good example of how to treat a classic, containing just about everything a collector would want, but is now sadly long defunct.

The Day The Earth Stood Still
Newly remastered
DVD Features: (USA and UK releases are slightly different)
• Commentary by director Robert Wise and Nicolas Meyer
• Shooting Script
• 5 Still Galleries
• Theatrical Trailer
• 70-Minute "Making the Earth Stand Still" Documentary
• Movietone Newsreel (1951)
• Restoration Comparison
• Cast a spell over a scene

The DVD version can be purchased online from either of these links.

The artwork to the left is from a USA VHS release and has an interesting new look courtesy of the excellent cover art.

All of these VHS releases have now been superceded.

There have been three releases in the UK over the last ten years, including one on laser disc.

The 1990 VHS release by CBS-FOX featured a colourised main photo. Note the picture is reversed for some reason.

There are two pictures on the back of the sleeve, both depicting scenes which don't actually appear in the film. This picture is colourised from a black and white still.

In 1997 the film was released by 20th Century Fox. The pictures of Gort on the front and spine of the slip cover appear to be in colour but aren't from the film. Possibly they're colour production stills of the full-size Gort model. The laser beam has certainly been added in recent times.
The back of the slipcover features more familiar photographs, the larger one in it's original black and white and printed the right way around.
The small picture on the back, of Helen crouching, is from the "Klaatu Borada Nikto" sequence, although this shot doesn't appear in the film. The photo in it's larger form (right) was also on the 1990 release.

The soundtrack is available on CD. "Tinkling space pianos, ominous robot monster chords, eerie, theremin-drenched passages and weird, plangent orchestrations" - this is Bernard Herrman's original recording, which hasn't aged a bit, although some of the elements have been overused by other people over the years. One of Herrmann's most visionary and influential scores.
Click the CD cover graphic on the left for more information or to order.
This link will also enable you to download and listen to some samples from various tracks.