Headscratchers / The War of the Worlds (1953)

• When they see that the "meteorite" is radioactive, the sheriff says he's going to post DEPUTIES to keep an eye on it. We then see later 3 of the men who were hanging around the crash site keeping an eye on it. Were all the deputies at the square dance? Were the 3 deputized? Off duty?

  • Presumably. It is a pretty small town. The police department's probably not that big.

  • Also they're there to make sure that it starts no more fires. But they don't appear to have any firefighting equipment and the only vehicle seems to be the one guys pickup truck. What were they supposed to do if a fire did break out? Bat it with their hats?
    • The stuff they'd use to fight any fires is probably, well, in the back of the truck.
  • And for that matter, why would you assign to keep an eye on a fire hazard deputies or civilians and not you know, firefighters?
    • For this one, it is a pretty small town, perhaps not wealthy enough to fund a sufficiently large fire department to enable a bunch of firefighters to be specially posted to monitor a fire that's already been put out in case it goes up again. There may have been other matters they had to deal with as well (other, smaller fires that were caused as a result of the main one). So they may (partially) rely on volunteers to help them out.

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