Film No. 32. 7th film shown Sun 04/03/07.
Jason Solomons said "A brilliant London film, a great journalist movie and a classic example of period sci-fi cinema. Loe McKern is thrilling as the Daily Express writer (it was shot in the paper's old Fleet Street HQ) who has discovered global warming - Val Guest's film seems more prescient every year. Also there's an early cameo from Michael Caine as a policeman ushering crowds out of the city, a scene eerily reflected in Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men this year"
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3 comments:
What I found most striking about this film initially was how sort of un-british it felt for its time, especially with a widescreen format, and the kind of rat-a-tat gunfire overlapping dialogue so common in american movies from the 30's & 40's. I thought it was very smart to have journalists as protagonists, to allow for this style, and to give the film a real sense of urgency that the characters would naturally experience, especially with a doomsday story like this!
I was very impressed with the visual use of newspapers - lying in gutters, blowing in the wind, floating in rivers, stuck on posts and boards, in people's hands etc - in all the brilliantly edited montage sequences that not only provided scientific facts, but also condensed time and sped the story along nicely in episodic headlines.
The mixing of original footage with stock material was beautifully judged and for the most part quite seamless. I do believe Val Guest filmed the real demo crowd scenes himself, a short time before filming the inserts with Edward Judd. However, the Daily Express's Fleet Street HQ was actually recreated in minute detail on set, rather than on location. In all these convincing office scenes, the unstagey and lively 'blocking' of actors, along with the constant deep focus made it very dynamic and gave every single person there a sense of importance(The editor was the actual Express editor in 1961).
Nice use of tinting too, reminding me of early silent flicks using colour tints to represent times of day etc. Here, the red wash truly lends itself to the scorching atmosphere, and the flashback cut to b&w really felt like a much needed cold water dunk. Perhaps more effective than if done in colour.
Was the question-mark ending a cop-out? Should the film have played out the apocalypse the world deserved? A big part of me wishes it had. I dunno. Maybe the way it stands is what makes it so prescient, in that now the question mark hangs over us all for real.
Cool wee movie. Good to see a proper british disaster flick too. A genuine precursor of "28 Days Later".
By the way, Edward Judd went on to be the ad guy that said "THINK ONCE. THINK TWICE. THINK BIKE."
Not a lot of people know that!
All caused by ppl forced outside to smoke, thx Mr McConnell !
The saturation of colour at the beginning and end of The Day the Earth Caught Fire made an immediate impact in a visceral way, reminding me of the effects on the senses of 2006's The Proposition. Same feelings of losing control - both for climactic and societal breakdown reasons. With its strong contemmporary resonances this great film had me seeking out info on CND demos of the time and it definately fulfils the principles set out by P French for the raison d'etre of this list.
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