British reporters suspect an international cover-up of a global disaster in progress... and they're right. Hysterical panic has engulfed the world after the United States and the Soviet Union simultaneously detonate nuclear devices and have caused the orbit of the Earth to alter, sending it hurtling towards the sun.
Janet Munro Leo McKern Edward Judd Michael Goodliffe Bernard Braden Reginald Beckwith Gene Anderson Arthur Christiansen Austin Trevor Ian Ellis Geoffrey Chater Renée Asherson Marianne Stone John Dearth Edward Underdown Robin Hawdon George Merritt Verina Greenlaw Jane Aird Timothy Bateson Reginald Marsh Peter Blythe Pamela Green Michael Caine
O Dia em Que a Terra se Incendiou, Den sidste paddehat, Maailmanloppu, Världens undergång, Le Jour où la Terre prit feu, Der Tag, an dem die Erde Feuer fing, Όταν η Γη πήρε φωτιά, A nap, amikor a Föld lángra lobbant, ...e la Terra prese fuoco, El día que la Tierra se incendió, Dagen jorden ble satt i brann, El día en que la Tierra se incendió, Dzień, w którym Ziemia stanęła w ogniu, O Mundo em Chamas, Ziua in care a fost incendiat Pamantul, День, когда загорелась Земля, Jordens sista dag, Den, kdy Země vzplanula, Le jour où la terre prit feu, ...E la Terra prese fuoco, 지구가 불타는 날, O Dia Em Que A Terra Incendiou, 地球失火之日
UKU
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South Korea12
UKPG
Germany6
Germany
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South Korea
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Don’t let that campy title scare you away; this film is as much a disaster flick as Jaws is a monster movie. This is a film about lost ambition. A film about alcoholism, divorce, fatherhood, fraternal bonds, second chances, and throwing a parade when the whole bloody world is on fire.
But above all else, this is a film about finding those moments in life - a first kiss, a carnival ride with your boy, a toast with your mates - that get you to the next day...
Especially when there’s no guarantee that the next day will come.
The day the Earth Caught Fire is the personification of the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none". This film does everything right but it never once threatens to elevate itself beyond its genre conventions. And perhaps if this film came out pre 1950 it might of felt fresh, but there are only a certain amount of times a film can use "atomic energy is bad" as its warning message to humanity before it gets tiresome.
It's a shame because the underlying message is one that is still as potent and relevant in today society, if not more so. However, I do believe my mind set wasn't best prepared for this film. Going in I was expecting a film…
Cinematic Time Capsule
1961 Marathon - Film #74
The Earth!
The Earth!
The Earth is on fire!
We don’t need no water,
let the mother-effer burn!
Burn mother-effer, burn!
”But I have the utmost confidence the world’s scientists can produce solutions for any of the climatic problems we are likely to meet.”
Me and Stevie G on a Sci Fi spree
I often approach 50s and 60s Sci Fi sporting titles that deserve many an exclamation point with a giddy sense of worry and wonder. They're fickle, sometimes fantastic, often endearingly bad, sometimes truly awful. I assumed The Day the Earth Caught Fire would have a similar vibe, but this is a different beast altogether.
The first scenes, painting a golden, heat soaked landscape are gorgeous and striking and provide an excellent contrast to the crisp black and white we get after the narrative jumps back in time. That's the first thing that struck me, it is shot beautifully. Sure, there are some time worn effects, but the overall quality of the…
THE TWILIGHT ZONE by way of HIS GIRL FRIDAY. Effectively eerie apocalyptic last-days story played out as a newsroom procedural laced with surprisingly sharp Hawksian banter. Genuinely impressed at the level of nuance that it achieves - it's snappy and clever without turning comic, and sober-minded without becoming overly-moralistic or browbeating. A nice little counter-weight to watch alongside a few 50s-era nuclear-paranoia monster movies.
A bunch of government goofballs detonate two nuclear bombs, causing Earth to rotate eleven degrees off its axis. No big deal, you say? WRONG, FRIEND. Huge deal. Blistering heat, raging forest fires, catastrophic droughts. You know, all the stuff we’re bequeathing to the next generation, while bouncing before it gets too bad for us.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a sci fi disaster film, but it’s also a workplace drama. Our hero is journalist Peter Stenning (Edward Judd), a reporter that would still be quipping if he were being burnt alive while hugging a fir tree. His love interest (read: the woman he gets kinda rapey with until she’s into him) is a switchboard operator named Jeannie (Janet…
This is how it ends. Engrossing apocalyptic Serlingesque tale told from a newsroom’s perspective. Brilliant.
Here's a striking and thoughtful scenario of the end of the world. It resonates hauntingly these 60 years later, in light of modern revelations of climate change and the myriad ecological setbacks we now witness.
An eerie, sepia-toned opening scene sees a weary man trudging down the streets of an abandoned London. We see the Thames has become a parched riverbed and there is debris and ruin all around. Evidently, some still survive as we hear a public address speaker announcing a countdown....to what?
In flashback to ninety days earlier, we begin to get clues as to what led to this dreadful state of affairs. Told through the voice of Peter Stenning, a reporter (and the man in the opening…
Probably best they didn't set this in Carlisle. The Day The Earth Went A Bit Milder doesn't have the same ring to it.
The Day The Earth Caught Fire is a fascinating film that came around at a time that I guess would have been a little bit uncertain for the sci-fi genre. The monster movies of the 1950s were dying off, much of the paranoia that pervaded the genre had drained away, and they were also trying to adjust to the more liberal attitudes to what you could and could not have characters doing and saying in a film.
It reflects the latter two of these really well. Although the film focuses around the somewhat alarming…
Certainly NOT the movie I needed in this time of Climate crises.
It's from the early 60's and I vividly remember Nuclear testing below and above ground.
We are on a fateful trip to Hell and so many people steering the way should be made to suffer the consequences of their greed and dismissiveness now.
OK, enough of that. This is a terrific movie, with strong VFX and forcefully Directed by Val Guest. Well worth your attention.
Why I watched it? I like classic science fiction movies....but the main reason was that Michael Caine has an uncredited bit part in this one. This was made about 4 years before he became famous.
What's the movie about? The USA and USSR test two nuclear bombs at the same time. The end result knocks Earth off it axis as well as sending it on a path that is dangerously close to the sun.
How are the performances? Besides Caine's stellar 43 seconds on screen the movie offers up three solid performances: Janet Munro (looking very very sexy), Leo McKern (plays a lovable but grumpy guy) and Edward Judd (at times he looked Sean Connery).
Final thought: This one has…
At the time THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE was released, it sounded a warning against nuclear proliferation as it questioned the “official” government news releases and the ignoring of science. Now, as I write this 60-years later, THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE sounds a warning against out-of-control climate change as it questions the “official” government news releases and the ignoring of science.
I don’t care to think of what its accuracy will be 60-years from now.
Director and Screenwriter Val Guest (who gave us THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and QUATERMASS 2) has fashioned an unnervingly realistic tale with co-Screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz. Two atomic weapons, accidentally “tested” simultaneously in different parts of the world, shift…
