Review: The Day the Earth Caught Fire

When the Americans and Russians conduct separate oxygen bomb tests at the North and South poles at the same time, it results in disastrous effects across the entire globe. Britain undergoes a bizarre and out of season heatwave, for instance. Daily Express journo Edward Judd investigates, and finds out that there has been a sizeable tilt in the Earth’s axis. And that’s just the start of the problem. With Judd and his Daily Express comrades continuing to chase the story, scientists work on trying to solve the problem and save humanity from burning to a crisp. Leo McKern, Michael Goodliffe, and Arthur Christiansen are the Daily Express workers, whilst Janet Munro is a government switchboard operator whom Judd acquaints himself with. A young Michael Caine turns up briefly near the end as a copper.

 

Talky but mostly very effective 1961 science-fiction disaster movie from director-producer Val Guest (“Hell is a City”, “The Quatermass Xperiment”, “Killer Force”) and co-writer Wolf Mankowitz (Hammer’s “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll”). Almost docudrama-esque at times, the dialogue sometimes has that Altman touch where people are talking over one another in rapid fashion, which you’ll either love or hate. I was closer to the latter category, to be honest. It’s a touch slow and dry, but once it gets off and running it’s actually quite gripping, and the irritating talky bits aren’t constant. The film actually very much won me over, in spite of the irritating flaws.

 

Talky or not, I really respected how seriously the subject was treated. It’s a quite sobering experience. Just look at that excellent shot of the two newspaper headlines being prepared for each of the two likely outcomes of the situation. Holy crap. The ominously foggy B&W cinematography by Harry Waxman (“Swiss Family Robinson”, “Third Man on the Mountain”, “The Wicker Man”) is excellent, and the Les Bowie FX are pretty remarkable for what was not an especially large budget, and the use of stock footage is fairly seamless too. Acting-wise, Aussie-born Leo McKern perhaps steals the show as the crusty, cynical science editor. Edward Judd and particularly the very lovely Janet Munro (who sadly died quite young) make for appealing protagonists. Judd was apparently a replacement for Richard Burton, and a fine replacement indeed he is. He’s got that same line in bitterness that Burton often had in his performances.

 

Some of the other supporting performances are a bit rough, especially real-life Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen, playing himself rather stiltedly. Given the amount of dialogue, it probably would’ve been better to cast a real actor in that role I think. Nice small turn by an actress named Gene Anderson as a barmaid, I would’ve liked to have seen more of her (Apparently she was Mrs. Edward Judd at the time of filming). The strange thing about Sir Michael Caine’s cameo is that he sounds more like 1980s-90s Michael Caine than 1961 Michael Caine. It’s weird, but that’s what I was hearing.

 

I would’ve loved this rather docudrama-esque anti-nuclear science-fiction if it didn’t drown in a few long stretches of irritatingly delivered dialogue. Otherwise, this is really effective, well-shot stuff, if perhaps better an idea than execution of said idea. Definitely worth a look, though.

 

Rating: B-