The Night the World Exploded

Two seismologists by the name of "Dr. David Conway" (William Leslie) and "Dr. Ellis Morton" (Tristam Coffin) along with their pretty assistant "Laura 'Hutch' Hutchinson" (Kathryn Grant) have just produced a machine that can predict earthquakes. Unfortunately, the first earthquake it predicts is extremely catastrophic and it's followed by much larger ones. Soon the earth has reached a critical point and everything points to a new discovery called "Element 112" as the cause. But can anybody do anything about it? Rather than answer that question and possibly spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a satisfactory science-fiction movie for the most part. Obviously, being made in 1957 one shouldn't expect graphics quite as good as those produced today but for that particular time they weren't too bad. Likewise, the acting was adequate as well. All things considered then I suppose this movie is worth a look by fans of this genre and I rate it as average.

Others have compared this movie loosely with The Monolith Monsters. The latter is far better, but The Night the World Exploded is still entertaining, and perhaps especially interesting for fans of eco horror or eco scifi: it's humanity's oil drilling, mining, and other such activities that have caused the catastrophe.

The science is more ludicrous than usual, and the sexism a little more underscored, but as a product of its time it's fun enough.

A 50's Sci Fi. Is it good? No. It's not good. There's far better sci fi even back in the 50's. It's a pretty short movie too. Short on length. Short on Story. Short on character development. Yeah I know I am stingy. 4/10.

And IMDB has now made it so a review has to have 600 characters before it can be entered. I really don't expect that to last very long because people are sure to complain about it. But until that happens I guess we have to expect reviews to be long winded and sometimes about absolutely nothing to do with the show in question.

It's really not even worth the time reviewing some of them.

Dr. David Conway (William Leslie), with the assistance of Laura "Hutch" Hutchinson (Kathryn Grant), is in a race to stop a series of earthquakes that threaten the entire world. It seems that a newly discovered element, Element 112, expands and explodes when dry and mixed with nitrogen. And, because of mining and oil exploration, Element 112 is making its way to the Earth's surface.

By no means is The Night the World Exploded a great film, but I found it reasonably entertaining. It's slow, lacks big-budget special effects, and the lead is a bit dry, but it's got something about it that worked for me. The sci-fi elements are presented believably enough to be effective. And there's some nice slow-burn suspense that's built throughout that worked on me. Other aspects that helped the film include a perky female lead in Kathryn Grant, real life disaster footage nicely blended into the film, and a short runtime.

I called William Leslie "dry", but it's not just him, it's his character also. I know his Dr Conway is a driven professional, but come on - how could not not see Hutch has feelings for him? It's not until the world is about to end that he pays any notice to her. What a dolt!

Entertaining typical 50's sci-fi low budget offering with slightly above average plot line for the time.

However, particularly amusing are scenes in the military command aircraft which used card tables and folding chairs in front of mock-up aircraft porthole windows.