Doctor Clayton Forrester (The War of the Worlds) Doctor Clayton Forrester (The War of the Worlds) Doctor Clayton Forrester is a fictional character in George Pal's 1953 science fiction film "The War of the Worlds", the first film adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel of the same name. The Forrester character is played by actor Gene Barry. The film takes several liberties with the novel's source material. Rather than taking place in early 20th century England, the film is set in mid-20th century southern California. Dr. Clayton Forrester is the film's main character, taking up the role assumed by two (unnamed) brothers in Wells' original novel. Forrester
The War of the Worlds of the Worlds" presents itself as a factual account of the Martian invasion. The narrator is a middle-class writer of philosophical papers, somewhat reminiscent of Doctor Kemp in "The Invisible Man", with characteristics similar to author Wells at the time of writing. The reader learns very little about the background of the narrator or indeed of anyone else in the novel; characterisation is unimportant. In fact none of the principal characters are named, aside from the astronomer Ogilvy. Wells trained as a science teacher during the latter half of the 1880s. One of his teachers was T. H. Huxley, famous