La Nuit de la grande chaleur

The short-lived Planet Productions managed to get the great Terence Fisher and Peter Cushing together again (like 'Island of Terror' a year earlier). Even Christopher Lee was persuaded to take part in this science-fiction flick!

This effort was actually filmed in February/March 1967 and, as such, would not have been a particularly comfortable film to make (the cast were covered in glycerine to create the sweaty effect!).

Fisher manages to create a suitably isolated feel to the whole film - the inhabitants, who literally "live in their little old world" are cut off from the rest of civilisation.

However, as with films of this kind, the low budget decidedly restricts the scope of the film. There is a ton of exhausting dialogue at the inn and the characters are not particularly interesting.

Peter Cushing's character of Dr. Stone gets very little screen time and it is strange not to see Cushing at the climax of the film!

Christopher Lee walks around very sternly, not particularly masking his discomfort well at appearing in such a film.

The creatures responsible for causing the heatwave in the film are cheap and nasty creations, that do nothing to enhance the credibility of the film.

Ultimately, despite the fact that the film is well-intentioned, it is far from Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee's best!

This was only one of three films that Planet Film Productions made and I have always thought it was an eerie and effective film. It's definitely low budget but I'm not sure a bigger budget would have helped this film. Story takes place on an island off of England and the temperature has been rising steadily for the last few days. A writer named Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen) and his wife Frankie (Sarah Lawson) own and run the local Inn and pub and one of the tenants renting a room upstairs is a mysterious and unsociable man named Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee). Along with Dr. Vernon Stone (Peter Cushing), Jeff and Frankie sit around the pub trying to figure out why its so hot on the island but not on the mainland. Jeff has requested the help of a secretary to help him on his new novel and a woman named Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) has come for the job. Unknown to Frankie, Angela and Jeff know each other and had an affair some time earlier. Angela keeps prancing about in a two piece bathing suit and putting the moves on Jeff who only replies with kissing when Frankie is not looking. Then one day a local sheep farmer stumbles into the Inn and mumbles something about his sheep being dead. Hanson is very interested and goes to check it out. He finds the sheep dead and takes samples. When he gets back he learns that Frankie has seen something come down out of the sky and land behind the hill. Jeff demands that Hanson tell him who he is and what he is doing. Hanson tells him that he is a scientist sent to check out what things have been coming from the sky and the reason for the heat. He tells Jeff that they are aliens from a hot planet and they generate heat which is why it is so hot. Meanwhile, the temperature keeps rising and all the bottles at the pub start to explode. They all figure that within a few hours the heat will be unbearable, if the aliens don't get them first. The aliens make this loud whirring sound and they consume energy like batteries and generators and can burn humans up completely. This film was directed by Terence Fisher who specialized in science fiction and horror. He became the premier horror film director in England and he knew exactly what to do with a limited budget. Fisher knew how to create great atmosphere and this film has plenty of it. If you notice in certain scenes when the actors are outside you can actually see their breath! Obviously it wasn't hot like the story of the film wanted you to believe. Fisher had his actors smear glycerine on themselves to help create that sweaty effect and then they had to wear damp shirts. I couldn't help but notice that Cushing's character keeps his suit and jacket on even though it suppose to be about 100 degrees! Its okay, Peter! Take off your jacket! And how about Patrick Allen's response when his wife asks him about Angela. "She was a slut and I wanted her"!! I'm sure she felt relieved to know that its not real love. For you trivia buffs out there, Patrick Allen and Sarah Lawson are married in real life. Along with the great atmosphere I liked the deliberate pace that the film set and it was in no hurry to allow viewers to see what the aliens look like. Yeah okay, they look like fried eggs but I always thought they looked liked that rock creature "Ahorta" from that Star Trek episode. Another thing I noticed was that this was one of the few Cushing/Lee films where both of them don't make it through the end. Fisher also directed "Island of Terror" which this is reminiscent of. It would make a good double bill on a rainy night. I think true lovers of older science fiction and horror can appreciate this film more than casual viewers. I've always found it to be an enjoyable film and I hope it comes out on DVD soon!

STILL you have the chance to see Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing together doing their respective things, and I for one value that above production quality, fx realism and other budgetry constraints. So what if the aliens ultimately look like fried eggs? and besides, they don't! Try mutated snails with an ammonite heritage? Its a Terence Fisher flick - perhaps not his best...its still way better than I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER...and PEARL HARBOR, come to that! I have a copy of this old faithful (known by the more widespread and infinitely better title of NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT)and every now and then out she comes for another beloved squiz!

Continuity not the best for your tastes? Tad low on the production budget you think? Chris Lee just too insular and condescending by your standards? Boring love triangle? Well guys, I got a suggestion. DON'T WATCH THE DAMN THING - go rent 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU! (actually, I quite LIKED that too!)

Yeah NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT isn't "Amicus" or "Hammer" at its peak, but it is STILL a worhwhile piece of british scifi from the 60's! Live with it!

I'm fed up with reading about how bad the spfx are supposed to be in this film. Personally, I blame Christopher Lee for saying bad things about them in his biography. Actually, this film is not bad. It is a story about ordinary people in an extra-ordinary situation (an alien invasion). The people are stuck in a claustrophobic setting (a pub on an island) and it's about how they confront what's facing them. This is a fairly faithful adaptation of the book it is based on. It's more character than spfx lead, and I suppose this is the problem for modern audiences who have short attention spans and lack the ability to follow a scene that lasts for more than 3 seconds. Still, if you like sci-fi from an age when people had brain cells (ie, HG Wells, Jules Verne, John Wyndham, etc...) and don't mind spfx that could have come from the early Dr Who serials and the original Star Trek series, then you may well enjoy this film. If you happen to think Star Wars was the greatest film ever made, then don't bother -- it'll be way above your head.

Enjoyable British sci-fi outing of 1967, which sports not only a venerable Cushing-Lee pairing, but exciting scenes of overheating 1960's British automobiles to boot (the steaming, hood-up MG scene will be particularly horrific for current/former MG owners who've ever dealt with this aspect common to certain vintage British cars).

Filming must've required a specialist staffer just to continually drench the actors with fake sweat.

Of particular interest for Monty Python fans will be the final scene, which is the only time in the whole movie that the decidedly low-budget monster actually appears: no, I'm not going to spoil it for you!