The Day the Earth Caught Fire
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bernard Braden, Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Michael GoodliffeDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-12
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Movie Reviews of The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Movie Review: The Greatest Disaster Movie of All Time!
Summary: 5 Stars
Although most people usually associate films in the disaster genre as displays of visual spectacle triumphing over thorough plotting and characterization, there have been quite a few notable exceptions where a strong story and fully-rounded characters prevail over the trademark use of lavish, studio-based production values and special effects. Granted, people usually go to disaster films to see their conceptions of such themes come to visual life in a larger-than-life manner, but the only way a disaster film can truly transcend such set boundaries is by focusing on the human condition and how it is affected by the event, rather than place primary focus on the event itself.
It is probably for this reason that my candidate for the greatest disaster movie ever made remains this taut science-fiction classic, produced and released by British Lion-Pax productions in 1961. (For those who are further interested in material of this sort, a "Twilight Zone" episode with a similar plot - "The Midnight Sun" - was produced and released within the same year, with a shorter budget and shooting schedule but the same level of authenticity.)
THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE also qualifies as the greatest "cosmic catastrophe" film ever produced (with all due respect to George Pal's WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE that was released a decade earlier). It is an intelligent, humane film devoid of most of the lavish special effects and second-rate writing that has run amok today in Hollywood's disaster films, most notably THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004) and ARMAGEDDON (1998). Instead of slamming right into the disaster scenes (as most directors like TOMORROW'S Roland Emmerich and ARMAGEDDON's Michael Bay did), it wisely chooses to focus on the doomsday event as it is indirectly seen and felt by people (in this case, the crew of the LONDON DAILY PRESS) who have been unwillingly caught in it, and have to cope with the problems caused by the true (unseen) culprits in whatever way they can, for better or worse.
The event in this case is the simultaneous detonation of H-bombs by the US and USSR. Although they are pretty much forgotten by the press at first (as are the beginning events of Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS by that film's protagonists), strange effects on the weather and natural landscape (such as droughts, fires, storms and increasingly dense fog banks), lead to further investigation by scientists and the press. The bad news hits home when everyone learns that the simultaneously-detonated H-Bombs have knocked the Earth eleven degrees off its normal axis, right out of its orbit and sent it hurtling day by day, on a straight path towards the sun. As the heat temperatures rise, water shortages grow and thousands of millions perish from heat suffocation, scientists are forced to resort to one last method - an exceptionally-strong and timed thermonuclear blast that might nudge the Earth away from the sun and back into its original orbit, or fail and lead to further obliteration of the human race before the final collision of the Earth with our star.
That's a pretty sketchy scientific premise (not to mention dated, as this is a Cold War film), and Les Bowie's special effects, when they ARE seen, are mostly models and mattes that seem to have a "bargain-basement budget" feeling (the kind also felt in THE CRAWLING EYE). But the direction by Val Guest (whose credits included his involvement in Hammer Productions' first two QUATERMASS films and as co-director of the James Bond spoof CASINO ROYALE) is perfect, particularly with his use of tinted scenes at the beginning and end of the film. The screenplay is filled with some of the best dialogue I've ever heard (it was co-written by Guest with Wolf Mankiewicz). The letter-boxed cinematography is also superb, primarily in its wide capture of London crowds and city landmark vistas. Interestingly, there is no musical soundtrack, save for a few classic selections heard at Hyde Park conducted by Monty Norman (the original composer of the "James Bond Theme").
The actors should have all been nominated for Academy Awards for their rich, biting chemistry. Edward Judd, as the bitterly-divorced alcoholic father and writer who's looking for a comeback, would have sent George Clooney back to acting school if he was still alive. Janet Munro, as the love interest, blends natural beauty with a spunky, no-nonsense manner that echoes the tone of the narrative. And Leo McKern is fabulous as always, as a source of knowledge and counseling to his fellow workers in times of crisis. Adding to the power and verisimilitude of the narrative is Arthur Christensen as the EXPRESS's editor-in-chief (which he actually was in reality!), tons of classy humor that would have the Monty Pythons running for their money, a brief but significant cameo by Michael Caine trying to direct traffic through fog-shrouded streets of London, and one of the best endings in the history of cinema (which makes the greatest use out of pre-release headlines - something to appeal to Mass Communications majors everywhere).
There HAVE been other films that have attempted to follow this style, most recently Mimi Leder's DEEP IMPACT (1998) and Danny Boyle's SUNSHINE (2007), but with his masterpiece THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, Val Guest did it first... and did it best.
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