The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961)

Director: Val Guest

Starring: Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern

A heatwave? In dear old Blighty? Well that tells you all you need to know doesn’t it; something has gone spectacularly wrong. It’s the third and final nuke-athon and there will be SPOILERS! I may witter on a bit longer with this one so get them matchsticks ready…

This film is ace. It might be preposterous that two atomic bombs going off either side of the globe would bounce the planet 11 degrees out of orbit and into a sunward heading but that’s irrelevant. In fact, when Val Guest ran the script by the Daily Express science correspondent for feedback purposes he received the reply; ‘Riveting story, but bloody balls…’ Nukes were – are – scary things and the intrinsic message is: don’t mess with ‘em otherwise you’ll need something a teensy bit stronger than Ambre Solaire SPF30 sun screen. The bombs in question, by a freak coincidence, have been detonated simultaneously, one by the Yanks in Antarctica, the Russkies with the other in Siberia. The consequence: it’s gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight. “4 months before there’s a delightful smell in the Universe of charcoaled Mankind.” Solution? I would’ve thought that was obvious, you disappoint me, Mister Bond. Set more nukes off innit. It’s the only way to be sure…

"How do you spell 'whopping booblies'?"

The story, written by Guest and Wolf Mankowitz, is told from the perspective of the news room at the Daily Express. Peter Stenning (Edward Judd), once a relevant, hard-hitting journalist, now spends more time in the pub than in front of his typewriter. Yes, that’s what I said, t-y-p-e-w-r-i-t-e-r. You fed ‘em ribbons and they miraculously printed words, amazing things. His sub-editor, Sandy (Edward Underdown) chucks him the small fry but the big breaking stories go elsewhere. He’s disillusioned, disinterested and very close to collecting a P-45. His friend and fellow reporter Bill Maguire (Leo McKern) ghost-writes column inches for Stenning just to keep him out of hot water. Unseasonable weather conditions call for some research on sun spots and the obstinate Stenning is packed off somewhat reluctantly to the MET centre for a quote on what he dismisses as a “silly season” story only to be met with a puzzling ‘no comment’. It’s not a completely wasted journey for he meets future contact/ lover Jeannie Craig (Janet Munro), though all it gets him today is a slap across the chops. When a solar eclipse occurs 10 days earlier than predicted all the pieces start dropping into place. Armed with Intel from Jeannie’s mole-work, Stenning and the Daily Express are at the forefront of the biggest news ever broken; the end of the world. Dogs and cats living together… you get the picture.

"First, what's phone hacking? Second, how quick can we do it?"

Anchoring Fire in a busy news room works superbly, in fact I’ll risk being bollocked by saying it’s up with the best newspaper based films out there, class like The Front Page. Yeh, that good. Each actor seems to absorb their environment, whether it be the real Daily Express offices or the perfectly detailed set duplication; they become fully paid up patrons of Fleet Street. Val Guest pushes this for all it’s worth (he once worked as a journalist), fast-paced overlapping dialogue you’ve gotta be sharp to keep up with, having people walk in and out of frame, in and out of rooms. He contrasts this blur of activity later on; as the temperatures soar, the action slows to a crawl – what better way to visually describe the mercury-busting Fahrenheit issue to an audience. Better than an orange filter anyway… A newspaper doesn’t begin and end with the reporters, so Guest takes us down to the lads on the shop floor readying the printing presses for a ‘slip’ edition, the foreman of each department notified of the breaking story. He ties the sequence together with the arrival of Stenning, who has missed the deadline (not entirely his fault), rolling in to see the finished edition about to hit the streets. Then you get the various editorial meetings, a room full of journos snapping dialogue around, trying to shoehorn the clues into a workable ‘Exclusive!’… You just kind of forget these guys are actors. All of this is helped by having Arthur Christensen on board in a key role, himself an ex-news editor and he doubled as technical advisor on the film. There’s no doubt his input is a big reason the fictional Daily Express office feels authentic.

Where's the inflatable pig then?

The FX may be cheap but they are eerily effective, delivered by the legendary Les Bowie and his team. The stand-out sequence happens when the river Thames steams up and London is enveloped in fog. The public are completely unprepared, stock footage shows us policemen swinging burning torches in front of vehicles to guide them. Funny story about foggy London… The Queen was due to open the Royal Chelsea Flower Show but Fire’s production smoke was blowing out of Battersea Park across to the other side and ruining Her Majesty’s cue. The police arrived to close the shoot down but members of the crew kept the Fuzz talking while Guest got the remainder of the shots he needed. Result! Bowie also utilises huge photo backdrops of London (I can’t tell what’s model work and what’s a painting sometimes), bleached out to give them a scorched appearance. One or two don’t quite work but otherwise they are an excellent way to get around budgetary constraints (I think the budget for Fire was £200,000). The painting of a dried out Thames in particular is magnificent. Wind machines blow up a cyclone at one point, it’s a cool little sequence of miniature mayhem complete with bobbing boats in the dock and a funny moment when a toy bus falls over. In and around all of this, Harry Waxman pulls it together with some exemplary work behind the camera.

A hot, naked, sweaty Janet Munro... end film here, I'm in heaven...

The film has to pull away from the news room to allow our romantic couple to connect. While this kind of thing usually applies a set of brakes to the action, Guest keeps the story going on around them. For example… the park banter is interrupted by the heat mist off the Thames; Stenning’s clumsy sexual advances back at her flat are shot down (“Dogs bark, cats meow and Stenning drinks,” Jeannie flatly remarks about his reputation around town) so he calls the office and we are given more information on the plot, plus we get to see other people caught up in the pea-souper; When Stenning too gets lost trying to work his way back to the office and ends up back in front of Jeannie’s place (I’m not convinced that’s an accident either, the sly old dog), the subsequent intimacy is disturbed by a call for Stenning and once again the story moves on a notch. This scene cuts to the above mentioned cyclone. There’s always something about the plot going on while these two characters grow closer. And still there’s time to show Stenning spending time with his son at the fairground, grabbing every minute he can before the little lad’s nanny packs him off back to the ex-wife. He’s worried about the way his kid is being brought up; it’s probably why the thrill has gone out of his writing.

When I was a toddler, I did this to Dinky toy buses as well

Another realistic aspect is Stenning’s commitment to ‘the story’, this despite Jeannie passing information to him and asking Stenning to keep it between them. He pointedly doesn’t promise; he’s the Press after all. “What else could I do, it had to come out, you couldn’t sit on a thing like this. We didn’t use your name…,” he tells her defensively when the bomb shell breaks. But Jeannie ain’t listening; “Who cares about my name. It’s my trust you used…” She loses her job and gets taken into preventative custody. Prevent what exactly? The Earth is hurtling toward the sun and we’re all about to get a bit crispy around the paws. Bit late for that, eh. Eventually, water is rationed and there are official areas for communal bathing while even staff at the Daily Express scrounge around for black market water. The latter leads to an outbreak of typhus and a pithy remark from Stenning about inoculations as he leaves the office; “You have to be injected,” someone tells him. “Against what? The end of the world?” There’s also a fair wedge of library footage used to punch up imagery of adverse global weather conditions, droughts, floods, fires – the latter utilising footage from the London ‘Blitz’ (Guest was a fireman during WW2). The eagle-eyed among you will also notice a couple of shots from another Guest gig, emergency services racing through a town in The Quatermass Xperiment.

"Sorry, we can't do the hacking thing coz cell phones haven't been invented yet."

Edward Judd, you would’ve thought on the basis of Fire, was going to be the next ‘Big Thing’. Columbia Pictures thought so too and signed him up. He did a handful of films before they dropped him abruptly amid rumours of him being difficult to work with. It wasn’t the fact that he got binned by Columbia that surprises most; it’s that he fell off the cinema radar entirely. Val Guest remembers him having a whinge from time to time on Fire but apart from that he was fine. Incredibly, Judd is best known (for people of a certain age group, i.e. mine) for a road safety advert: ‘Think once. Think twice. Think bike!’ Well, start remembering Edward Judd for Fire, please – because he’s top. Fire got an ‘X’ certificate due to Janet Munro’s breasts. It’s only partial nudity and it’s only brief (gone altogether in the U.S. cut – bloody prudes!) but please feel free to wear out the ‘pause’ button. She asked Guest to help her “grow up” because she was coming from ‘young’ roles and Disney flicks. Good lad, Val… “Sure, Janet, the best way to grow up in movies is to… erm… take your clothes off…” Munro enjoys some smart banter with Judd but then she’d had plenty of practice, being married to actor Ian Hendry. It was a volatile relationship and they both weren’t shy of a drink or three. Or four. Just leave the crate. Her tragic death is still a mystery; officially a heart condition, she in fact fell out of a rowing boat and drowned. Was she drunk? Did she have a heart attack caused by an excessive amount of alcohol? Or did she just… I prefer ‘heart condition’.

The crowd had never seen a dead pigeon before

Leo McKern. Superb. He throws his lines around with so much glee he’s in danger of owning every single scene he’s in. Whether it be raging against his protesting readership – “I can’t stop the bloody bomb it went off ten days ago!” or lusting after the barmaid over at Harry’s – “Sometimes I think I could…,” he says, watching her arse as she walks off, “… in fact I’m sure I could.” He and Judd share several crackling scenes together, they make a good double-act. McKern also finds space to allow moments of compassion to leak into Maguire’s irascible personality. Further down, the supporting cast reinforce the story with solid portrayals of journalists working against the clock. Guest gambled with non-actor Arthur Christensen as news editor chief Jeff Jefferson. He had to shoot around Christensen a bit to piece a performance together but I think it works out okay; his timing is off but he’s natural with the newspaper jargon. Still, Arthur gets off a nice moment, Jeff fielding a call from Moscow and it’s obviously bad news – he hangs up, takes his glasses off and seems to forget where he is for a few seconds before Stenning’s voice launches him back into action. Apparently, he worried constantly about forgetting his lines; McKern was the opposite, one read through and he knew his own and everybody else’s lines.

Barmaid May, far right, was Judd's wife at the time...

There are howlers but nothing bad. The beatnik rioters are the least intimidating rioters I’ve ever seen, complete with jazz trumpet-tooting yobs! I can’t believe Jeannie needs rescuing from these knobs. Stenning sorts ‘em with the tried and trusted method of a punch in the face. Can you imagine if the UK’s summer riots had featured hoody jazz trumpeters? Look out for the policeman directing Stenning through the rioting; you may not get a clear view of his (not yet famous) face but you will certainly recognise his voice. Also, the trailer mangles Maguire’s line – “Stupid, crazy irresponsible bastards!” – replacing “bastards” with “bunglers”. Plus, the accompanying music is like an inversion of The Longest Day’s opening cue. As the film winds up we see two front pages prepared as they wait to see if the corrective bombs will work; World Saved… World Doomed… possibly a tip of the hat to Citizen Kane.

The dried-up Thames - excellent work

As far as I’m concerned The Day The Earth Caught Fire is a classic, yet barely mentioned in dispatches. Shameful. This film should be screamed from the roof tops. Well, I’m up here, screaming. See me? It’s terrific.

 

Trailer: http://tinyurl.com/cjgoce7

Full movie: http://tinyurl.com/d7fglez

Think Bike!: http://tinyurl.com/czd9f6v

 

Cheers, folk.

ThereWolf, December 2011.