The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Encyclopedia
The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a British science fiction
disaster film
starring Edward Judd
, Leo McKern
and Janet Munro
. It was directed by Val Guest
and released in 1961
.
The film, which was made on location in London
and Brighton
, used matte painting
to create images of abandoned cities and desolate landscapes. The production also featured the real Daily Express
even using the paper's own headquarters, the Daily Express Building
, in Fleet Street
, London.
A lone man walks through the sweltering streets of a deserted London. The film then goes back several months. Peter Stenning (Judd
) was an up-and-coming journalist with the Daily Express but a messy divorce has thrown his life into disarray. His Editor (Christiansen
) has begun giving him lousy assignments. Stenning's only friend, Bill Maguire (McKern
), is a veteran Fleet Street reporter, who offers him encouragement and occasionally covers for him by writing his copy.
Meanwhile, after the Soviet Union and US detonate simultaneous nuclear bomb tests, strange meteorological
events begin to affect the globe. Stenning is sent to the British Met Office
to get data mean temperatures. While there he meets Jeanie (Munro
), a young telephonist.
Stenning then discovers that the weapons tests had a massive effect on the Earth. He asks Jeannie to help him get any relevant information. It becomes clear that the Earth has been knocked out of orbit and is moving closer to the sun. The increasing heat has caused water to evaporate and mists to cover Britain.
The government imposes martial law, evacuates the cities and starts rationing supplies. Scientists conclude that the only way to bring the Earth back into a safer orbit is to detonate a series of nuclear bombs in western Siberia. Stenning, Maguire and Jeanie gather at a bar to await the outcome. As the countdown reaches zero, the bombs are detonated; 30 seconds later the shock wave travels round the world, causing dust to fall from the bar's ceiling. Two versions of the newspaper's front page have been prepared: one reads "World Saved", the other, "World Doomed". Stenning, because he broke the story, dictates the day’s editorial, still without any indication of whether the nuclear blasts have been successful or not. In the meantime, the staff manning the printers of the paper anxiously wait to see which headline will be proved correct.
The film ends with the sound of church bells ringing, with the viewer left unaware whether this heralds a new beginning or mankind’s doom.
Arthur Christiansen
, a former editor of the Daily Express, played himself as the editor of the newspaper. Three years before Zulu
, a then-unknown Michael Caine
played an uncredited police officer diverting traffic.
. It was shot with 35 mm anamorphic lenses
using the French Dyaliscope process.
In his commentary track for the 2001 Anchor Bay
DVD release, director Val Guest
stated that the sound of church bells heard at the very end of the American version had been added by distributor Universal, in order to suggest that the emergency detonation had succeeded and that the Earth had been saved. Guest speculated that the bells motif had been inspired by the 1953 film The War of the Worlds
, which ends with the joyous ringing of church bells after the emergency (and a nuclear explosion). But Guest maintained that his intention was to always have an ambiguous ending.
Monte Norman, who was credited with writing "Beatnik Music" in a couple of scenes, would become well known one year later when his "James Bond theme" was used in the title sequence of Dr. No
.
and South East England. Principal photography included Fleet Street
, Battersea Park
, the HM Treasury Building
in Westminster
and on Palace Pier, Brighton.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
disaster film
Disaster film
A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject...
starring Edward Judd
Edward Judd
Edward Judd was a British actor.Born in Shanghai, China, he and his English father and Russian mother fled when the Japanese attacked China five years later....
, Leo McKern
Leo McKern
Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO was an Australian-born British actor who appeared in numerous British and Australian television programmes and movies, and more than 200 stage roles.-Early life:...
and Janet Munro
Janet Munro
-Career:Munro starred in three Disney motion picture releases, Darby O'Gill and the Little People , Third Man on the Mountain and Swiss Family Robinson , as well as The Horsemasters , which aired on Disney's weekly television series...
. It was directed by Val Guest
Val Guest
Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...
and released in 1961
1961 in film
The year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:* Atlantis, the Lost ContinentB...
.
The film, which was made on location in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, used matte painting
Matte painting
A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques...
to create images of abandoned cities and desolate landscapes. The production also featured the real Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
even using the paper's own headquarters, the Daily Express Building
Daily Express Building, London
The Daily Express Building is a Grade II* listed building located in Fleet Street in the City of London. It was built in 1932 by Sir Owen Williams to serve as the home of the Daily Express newspaper and is one of the most prominent examples of art-deco architecture in London.The exterior features...
, in Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
, London.
Plot
Edward Judd
Edward Judd was a British actor.Born in Shanghai, China, he and his English father and Russian mother fled when the Japanese attacked China five years later....
) was an up-and-coming journalist with the Daily Express but a messy divorce has thrown his life into disarray. His Editor (Christiansen
Arthur Christiansen
Arthur Christiansen was a journalist, and editor of Lord Beaverbrook's newspaper the Daily Express from 1933 to 1957....
) has begun giving him lousy assignments. Stenning's only friend, Bill Maguire (McKern
Leo McKern
Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO was an Australian-born British actor who appeared in numerous British and Australian television programmes and movies, and more than 200 stage roles.-Early life:...
), is a veteran Fleet Street reporter, who offers him encouragement and occasionally covers for him by writing his copy.
Meanwhile, after the Soviet Union and US detonate simultaneous nuclear bomb tests, strange meteorological
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...
events begin to affect the globe. Stenning is sent to the British Met Office
Met Office
The Met Office , is the United Kingdom's national weather service, and a trading fund of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills...
to get data mean temperatures. While there he meets Jeanie (Munro
Janet Munro
-Career:Munro starred in three Disney motion picture releases, Darby O'Gill and the Little People , Third Man on the Mountain and Swiss Family Robinson , as well as The Horsemasters , which aired on Disney's weekly television series...
), a young telephonist.
The government imposes martial law, evacuates the cities and starts rationing supplies. Scientists conclude that the only way to bring the Earth back into a safer orbit is to detonate a series of nuclear bombs in western Siberia. Stenning, Maguire and Jeanie gather at a bar to await the outcome. As the countdown reaches zero, the bombs are detonated; 30 seconds later the shock wave travels round the world, causing dust to fall from the bar's ceiling. Two versions of the newspaper's front page have been prepared: one reads "World Saved", the other, "World Doomed". Stenning, because he broke the story, dictates the day’s editorial, still without any indication of whether the nuclear blasts have been successful or not. In the meantime, the staff manning the printers of the paper anxiously wait to see which headline will be proved correct.
The film ends with the sound of church bells ringing, with the viewer left unaware whether this heralds a new beginning or mankind’s doom.
Cast
- Janet MunroJanet Munro-Career:Munro starred in three Disney motion picture releases, Darby O'Gill and the Little People , Third Man on the Mountain and Swiss Family Robinson , as well as The Horsemasters , which aired on Disney's weekly television series...
as Jeannie Craig - Leo McKernLeo McKernReginald "Leo" McKern, AO was an Australian-born British actor who appeared in numerous British and Australian television programmes and movies, and more than 200 stage roles.-Early life:...
as Bill Maguire - Edward JuddEdward JuddEdward Judd was a British actor.Born in Shanghai, China, he and his English father and Russian mother fled when the Japanese attacked China five years later....
as Peter Stenning - Michael GoodliffeMichael GoodliffeLawrence Michael Andrew Goodliffe was an English actor best known for playing suave roles such as doctors, lawyers and army officers. He was also sometimes cast in working class parts....
as 'Jacko', Night editor - Bernard BradenBernard BradenBernard Chastey Braden was a Canadian-born English actor and comedian.Braden was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and educated at Magee Secondary School, Kerrisdale, Vancouver. He produced plays on CJOR Vancouver in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He married Barbara Kelly in 1942 and they moved...
as News editor - Reginald BeckwithReginald BeckwithReginald Beckwith was a British film and television actor, who made almost one hundred film and television appearances in his career.-Filmography:* Freedom Radio * Scott of the Antarctic...
as Harry - Renée AshersonRenee AshersonRenée Asherson , born Dorothy Renée Ascherson, is an English actress of stage, film and television.Much of Asherson's theatrical career was spent in Shakespearean plays, appearing at such venues as the Old Vic, the Liverpool Playhouse and the Westminster Theatre...
as Angela - Austin TrevorAustin TrevorAustin Trevor was a Belfast born actor who had a long career in British films and television.He was the first actor to play Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot on screen in three British films during the early 1930s: Alibi , Black Coffee and Lord Edgware Dies...
as Sir John Kelly - Edward UnderdownEdward UnderdownEdward Underdown was an english theatre, cinema and television actor. He was born in London.Early theatre credits include: Words and Music, Nymph Errant, Stop Press and Streamline ....
as Sanderson - Peter ButterworthPeter ButterworthPeter William Shorrocks Butterworth was an English comedy actor and comedian, best known for his appearances in the Carry On series of films. He was also a regular on children's television and radio and appeared in seven early episodes of Doctor Who in 1965 as the 'The Meddling Monk'...
as newspaper man - Pamela GreenPamela GreenPamela Green was an English glamour model and actress, best known at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s...
as nurse
Arthur Christiansen
Arthur Christiansen
Arthur Christiansen was a journalist, and editor of Lord Beaverbrook's newspaper the Daily Express from 1933 to 1957....
, a former editor of the Daily Express, played himself as the editor of the newspaper. Three years before Zulu
Zulu (film)
Zulu is a 1964 historical war film depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War....
, a then-unknown Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
played an uncredited police officer diverting traffic.
Production
The film was made in Black and White but in some original prints, the opening and closing sequences are tinted orange-yellow to suggest the heat of the sunSun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. It was shot with 35 mm anamorphic lenses
Anamorphic format
Anamorphic format is a term that can be used either for: the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio; or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
using the French Dyaliscope process.
In his commentary track for the 2001 Anchor Bay
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
DVD release, director Val Guest
Val Guest
Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...
stated that the sound of church bells heard at the very end of the American version had been added by distributor Universal, in order to suggest that the emergency detonation had succeeded and that the Earth had been saved. Guest speculated that the bells motif had been inspired by the 1953 film The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds (1953 film)
The War of the Worlds is a 1953 science fiction film starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It was the first on-screen loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic novel of the same name...
, which ends with the joyous ringing of church bells after the emergency (and a nuclear explosion). But Guest maintained that his intention was to always have an ambiguous ending.
Monte Norman, who was credited with writing "Beatnik Music" in a couple of scenes, would become well known one year later when his "James Bond theme" was used in the title sequence of Dr. No
Dr. No (film)
Dr. No is a 1962 spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R...
.
Locations
The film was shot in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and South East England. Principal photography included Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
, Battersea Park
Battersea Park
Battersea Park is a 200 acre green space at Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth in England. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames opposite Chelsea, and was opened in 1858....
, the HM Treasury Building
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
in Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
and on Palace Pier, Brighton.