Battle of the Worlds
Dr. Fred Steele (Umberto Orsini) and Eve Barnett (Maya Brent) work together at an astronomical station on a bucolic island. Steele has just had his request for a transfer approved, and he and Eve look forward to leaving the island and getting married. However, their budding romance is quickly put on hold as the station's scientists learn they must deal with a rogue planet -- "The Outsider" -- that has entered the solar system, and which is on a collision course with Earth. The brilliant but cantankerous Professor Benson (Claude Rains), living in an adjacent greenhouse with his dog Gideon, predicts that the Outsider will not strike the Earth but will simply make a close pass-a prediction that no other scientist will endorse. Meanwhile, a military base on Mars encounters the stray planet on its approach to Earth, and Commander Robert Cole and his wife Cathy quickly travel to the island outpost from Mars to help with the effort.The base scientists are elated when the Outsider passes the earth at a distance of 95,000 miles, just as Benson predicted. But Benson himself is stunned when the Outsider takes up an orbit round Earth. He concludes that the Outsider must be controlled by an alien intelligence, and he calls upon the world's scientific governing council to destroy it without delay.