The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961, Val Guest)

British disaster movie is a bit too intelligent for its own good. Leave it up to Europeans to make a film about the end of the world with too many talky scenes and not enough life-threatening situations. It is too eager to get the science right, often forgetting how dull technical details can be. In The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Earth is on collision course with the Sun. Our point of reference is the crew of a London newspaper, that aggressively goes after the story of the century. The main character (a bitter ex-reporter who is now the paper’s errand boy) is played by Edward Judd, but Leo McKern dominates in a supporting role as the paper’s weather expert. The special effects rely too much on stock footage of real fires, floods, etc. But the movie does get better once it (finally) gets to the section where Earth is literally “on fire.” This curious addition to the disaster subgenre proves that Americans are much better at handling this kind of material.

~ by gelpi2008 on Tuesday, June 23, 2009.