The 90 Minutes Washington Stood as Star

"Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration." Is this:

a) what the heads of GM, Ford and Chrysler told Congress this week;

b) what I said to my teenage daughters last weekend;

c) a line of dialogue from one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made, and certainly the most famous one set in Washington?

Of course, it's c, though you might know "The Day the Earth Stood Still" better from another line of dialogue: "Klaatu barada nikto."

A Keanu Reeves remake of the 1951 classic opens in theaters tomorrow, but don't expect to see the District in a starring role. The action's been ignominiously moved to New York City.

Until I rented it last week, I'd never seen the original film. To modern eyes, it moves . . . awfully . . . slowly. Unless I missed them, there are no surprise eviscerations or gratuitous alien sex scenes. But it bristles with creepy Cold War menace, features the mother of all flying saucers and shows Washington in lovely black and white.

The movie, directed by Robert Wise, starts with the iconic image of an alien craft swooping over the District and landing near the Washington Monument. The being inside, Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie), has a message for the world's leaders. Unable to deliver it, he slips into the civilian population, living in a Harvard Street NW boarding house where single mom Patricia Neal is another tenant.

For a Washingtonian, it's neat to see familiar landmarks, some of which are still here -- the Lincoln Memorial! Union Station! -- and some of which aren't: streetcars! Peoples Drug! WMAL-TV! When Klaatu is injured, someone barks, "Take him to Walter Reed Hospital." And there's some funny dialogue. "Why doesn't the government do something?" says one boarding house resident, worried about the alien menace loose in the city.

"What can they do?" answers another tenant. "They're only people like us."

"People my foot. They're Democrats."

Klaatu reaches out to a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Prof. Barnhardt, visiting the brainiac in his 16th Street NW home -- 1609 16th St., to be exact. It's where Greg Nelson lives today, the fifth owner of the handsome 1908 brick house.