Le Jour où la Terre prit feu

After more than forty years, this film is still a milestone in the science fiction genre. In its day, it was years ahead of its time. It had characters that acted like real people, instead of like John Agar and Lori Nelson. It contained a clearly implied sexual relationship between the two main characters, in an era when filmmakers were still routinely depicting even married couples as sleeping in separate beds. It was filled with shocking insinuations that the government is not all-wise and benevolent, that science doesn't really have all the answers, that the military is capable of blunders that put new meaning into the phrase "friendly fire," and that all may not be well, after all.

The film's greatest strength is in its understated, matter-of-fact presentation of the characters' various reactions to the relentlessly deteriorating situation. The performances are consistently honest and compelling, from the principal players down to the smallest walk-on parts. The award-winning script by Wolf Mankowitz is at times almost too clever for its own good. If there is one criticism that may be leveled against it, it is that most real people are not that consistently witty. Occasionally they are at a loss for words. Occasionally they say things that are lame, stupid, and altogether inappropriate. And this is the one element that was pretty much absent from the dialogue.

In an age when movies are being strangled to death by their own special effects, and character development often does not extend beyond the crudest bodily functions and four-letter expletives, it is genuinely refreshing to return to a film such as this one. Not only does it not rely on visual effects to tell its story, it is really so little dependent on the visual that it could have been equally successful as a radio drama (a forgotten art form nowadays), and might very well have caused an even greater panic than Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds."

1961's "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" must be judged according to the parameters of classics as 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still", and not today's special effects mega productions in which the perspective of the disappearance of planet Earth is taken with cynic humor.

The idea came to director Val Guest during the Cold War in 1954, and it is under that decade's spirit that the movie is better appreciated. I remember seeing it when it opened, and I have never forgotten that experience, specially its tinted sequence. Sixty years later I am able to see it again, and it is still the same notable film, not the least affected by today's cinematic technology, because, in its core, Guest's motivation -the worry for the actions of mindless men who struggle to control the Earth- is still relevant.

If it is not highly regarded today as "The Day the Earth Stood Still", I think it has to do with the fact that Universal sold it as a B movie in the United States (although not so by British Lion in the UK, where it was a huge success, and won the film industry's top prize for its screenplay) and because not too many critics paid attention to it and wrote positive reviews, establishing it as an important science-fiction movie since then. Although there are very few re-enacted disaster scenes and it relies upon footage of real catastrophes, the tension is handled effectively in the newspaper's office where most of the action takes place, with its overlapping dialogues and constant flow of new information; and in the development of the romantic story in the midst of violence and terror in the streets. Edward Judd, Janet Munro and Leo McKern contribute good performances to this fine movie, shot in wide-screen Dyaliscope.

What an absolutely devastating movie! I am still completely engrossed in it, and it has been a while since I took the DVD out of the player.

Was any science fiction movie ever more ambitious than this one? The staggering opening, tinted in reddish yellow and brilliantly composed in widescreen, looks like Tarkovsky and Lars von Trier, and has the same dry wasteland quality to it. Callous and unpublicized nuclear tests by both the Soviet Union and the US have upset the environment, causing record-breaking heat waves, floods, cyclones, eclipses, and what not, and we gradually find out that Earth has tilted and is hurtling towards the Sun where, in four months' time, the universe will savor "the delightful smell of charcoaled mankind", as put by a cynical newspaperman. The largest nuclear bomb ever made will now be detonated in Siberia, and no one knows what will happen now ... The environmentalist discourse seems extremely contemporary to us today.

Now, how to make intelligent, thoughtful entertainment out of that pulp?! Leave it to writer-director Val Guest who more than rose to the task. He put a heartbroken, newly divorced and slightly alcoholized reporter in the center, working for the London Daily News. He tries, with his science editor and surrogate father, to delve into what went wrong and who is responsible, and he falls in love with a switchboard girl with a cleavage. All this to keep the movie grounded, the drama realistic. All of this naturalistic drama is cross-edited with stock newsreel footage of natural disasters, and it works. It works supremely well, and you are sucked into the action, as the end of the world approaches.

All the actors are brilliant, not least Edward Judd as the main reporter, cynical, witty, vulnerable.

This 1961 classic is truly underrated. Performances by Janet Munro and the great Leo McKern (Rumpole of the Bailey) are quite good, and Edward Judd, whose career is introduced in this movie come together to create a create a sense of building tension as the audience finds out the reason for the strange changes in weather.

Judd plays his character a little roughly, but that is to be understood, given his problems with his divorce and visitation with his young son.

Leo McKern's dialogue and facial expressions are superb and create the perfect persona of the seasoned veteran science writer who interprets and unravels the mystery for us.

Janet Munro, who died prematurely in her thirties gave a very acceptable performance for a young starlet, who keeps reporter Pete Stenning (Judd) at bay, then feeds him the critical information that blows open the story. I have two copies - One I taped from TV in the 80's, and another that I bought new. My sci-fi collection wouldn't be complete without it.

Don't be fooled by the schlocky title of this 1961 British science fiction disaster film, it's actually one of the best apocalyptic films of its era. Told through the eyes of British reporter Peter Stenning (Edward Judd), we learn that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have simultaneously set off nuclear explosions to test their efficiency, causing the Earth to go off its axis. Directed by Val Guest (The Abominable Snowman / The Quatermass Experiment), it offers a sobering look at a country staring the end of the world in the face. It uses matte paintings to create images of abandoned cities and desolate landscapes, as well as incorporating real London locations create a movie that is heavy on atmosphere (heavy rains buffet the windows of buildings, thick fog wafts through the city, a raging hurricane crashes into the British coast). The production even features the real Daily Express, using the paper's own then headquarters, the Daily Express Building in Fleet Street. The film was made in black and white, and in the original prints the opening and closing sequences are tinted orange-yellow to suggest the heat of the sun. Monty Norman wrote the "Beatnik Music" score, and would become well known one year later when his James Bond Theme was used in the title sequence of Dr. No. Look out for a before he was famous appearance by Michael Caine in an uncredited role as a police constable.