The Day the Earth Caught Fire
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Features
• Anamorphic
• Black & White
• Closed-captioned
• DVD-Video
• Full Screen
• Widescreen
• NTSC
In Theaters : May, 1962
DVD Release : 12 June, 2001 |
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The Day the Earth Caught Fire Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Fast-Paced British Sci-Fi
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This well-written 1962 British sci-fi comes to us courtesy of Val Guest, who wrote as well as directed.
"The Day the Earth Caught Fire" follows journalist Pete Stenning (the very handsome and appealing Edward Judd, who, disappointingly, didn't move on to a major career after this film) through a worldwide upheaval caused by two nearly simultaneous atomic bomb test explosions, one set off by America and the other by Soviet Russia. The combined power of the tests not only shifts the tilt of the earth's axis, but changes its orbit around the sun. The result is vastly changed climate zones and a planet orbiting too close to the sun - within four months, if no solution is found, earth will come so near the sun on its new orbit that all life on the planet will be incinerated.
Stenning, a writer for the Daily Express, is recently divorced and drowning his sorrows in drink, with seriously negative consequences for his work. He is frequently out drinking when he should be writing, and the fast but empty repartee with which he deflects all criticism and warnings is beginning to wear down the patience of his colleagues and editors. Only the support of his friend, science editor Bill McGuire (the always wonderful Leo McKern), has kept Stenning from being booted off the Express's staff.
However, as the effects of the nuclear tests become clear, (despite the predictable attempts at denial by political leaders), Pete gets re-engaged in his work as he covers them: heat waves, water shortages, floods, earthquakes, cyclones. As he tries to penetrate the wall of denial put up by official channels, Pete meets Jeannie Craig (Janet Munro, Britain's answer to Leslie Caron, without the pointe shoes), an attractive typist from the secretarial pool of the "Met Office", who sometimes helps out on the switchboard. Immediately attracted to her, Pete nevertheless alienates her with his short fuse - their relationship gets off to an adversarial start. But, caught up in the increasing maelstrom of world events, they soon become lovers. Despite the film's 1962 vintage, the scenes in which Pete and Jeannie cautiously navigate sexual territory and begin their affair have a refreshingly modern, unapologetically adult feel.
Shortly after their affair starts, Jeannie, while on the switchboard, overhears crucial information about the cataclysmic events that are taking place. She tells Pete what she has heard, and he immediately breaks his initial promise not to use the information - the Express prints the story, and the leak is traced to Jeannie, who is arrested and held for questioning. By this time, temperatures in formerly moderate climate zones are well into the hundreds of degrees fahrenheit, the polar ice caps are melting, and international scientists are working frantically to find a method of staving off the fast-approaching End of the World.
The super cast (that includes everyone, not just the two leads) handles the fast-paced script with aplomb, and the documentary-style footage of natural disasters enhances the atmosphere of chaos and desperation that Guest achieves. This film cannot compete with the high-budget special effects that we are used to in today's science fiction films. But because of its intelligent script and well-drawn characters, this sci-fi is more satisfying than most special-effect extravaganzas. Despite the fact that the cast inhabits recognizable narrative slots - the Handsome Hero, the Pretty Romantic Interest, the Crusty Editor, the Sympathetic Friend - the actors deliver a group of realistically drawn characters, right down to the barmaid of the local press pub, that make the film enormously engaging as well as riveting to watch, and accounts for its status as a cult film.
"The Day the Earth Caught Fire" is a crackerjack sci-fi - highly enjoyable and very much worth repeat viewings.
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The Day the Earth Caught Fire dvd movie.