The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961)
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Horror Movies & Sci-Fi Movies Database
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08.14.09
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Journalists of the London Daily Express investigate reports of strange phenomena occurring all over the world, such as flooding in the Sahara, unseasonable blizzards in New york, and violent tornadoes in the Soviet Union. All over England, temperatures are on the rise, girls in bikinis are everywhere, and wonderful special-effects mists are blanketing the Thames River. Top scientists at the Meteorological Center refuse to give any official explanation, which makes the newspaper editor suspicious. He orders science reporter Bill Maguire and alcoholic columnist Peter Stenning to dig for information. When Peter begins a romance with Met Center secretary Jeannie Craig, he learns from her certain clues that there has indeed been a cover-up . . . and he begins to sober up, so that he may win her love. Ten days before the film begins, two nuclear bombs had been exploded, one at the North Pole by the Soviet Union, the other at the South Pole by the United States. Nobody noticed before now that they were set almost simultaneously, until the Chief Editor, in a conference with his reporters, draws a line from London to New Zealand, showing the path that floods and other catastrophes have created in a devastating line. Stenning gathers from hints Jeannie gives him that the two explosions shifted the Earth's orbit and set it on a course toward the sun. As water becomes scarce, the British government takes emergency measures to control hysteria, rampant looting, and rioting by teenagers. The only possible solution is for another explosion of bombs that will restore the Earth's orbit. On detonation day, Stenning heroically makes his way through a wasteland to the newsroom to write a story that will prepare for the results of the blasts. He instructs the typesetters to prepare two front pages. One has the headline "World Saved," the other "World Doomed."
Movie Tagline:
THE PICTURE THAT GIVES YOU A FRONT SEAT TO THE MOST JOLTING EVENTS OF TOMORROW...TODAY! (original U.S. print ad
Title: Day The Earth Caught Fire, The
Release Date: March 15, 1962
Runtime: 98 mins
Genre: Drama
All Genres: Drama, Sci-Fi, Romance
Languages: English
Country: UK
Colors: Black and White
Sound: Mono
IMDB Rating: 7.2
Brimstone Pit Rating: 8.2 - (Rate This Horror Movie)
Category: Horror Movies Starting With D
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Director(s):
Val Guest
Cast:
Janet Munro ...Jeannie Craig
Leo McKern ...Bill Maguire
Edward Judd ...Peter Stenning
Michael Goodliffe ...'Jacko', Night editor
Bernard Braden ...News editor
Reginald Beckwith ...Harry
Gene Anderson ...May
Renee Asherson ...Angela
Arthur Christiansen ...Editor
Austin Trevor ...Sir John Kelly
Edward Underdown ...Sanderson
Ian Ellis ...Michael Stenning
Jane Aird ...Nanny
John Barron ...Sub-editor
Timothy Bateson ...Printer in printroom
Peter Butterworth ...Newspaperman
Michael Caine ...Policeman
Norman Chappell ...Hotel Receptionist
Geoffrey Chater ...Pat Holroyd
John Dearth ...Dick
Pamela Green ...Nurse, at laundrette
Robin Hawdon ...Ronnie
Reginald Marsh ...Newspaperman
Jim McManus ...Man at Water Station
Carmel McSharry ...Woman lost in fog
Charles Morgan ...Foreign Editor
John Rae ...Daily Express doorman
Marianne Stone ...Miss Evans, Jeff's Secretary
Remaining Cast:
Producer(s):
F. Sherwin Green
Val Guest
Writer(s):
Wolf Mankowitz
Val Guest
Composer(s):
Stanley Black
Movie Soundtrack(s):
"Light Cavalry Overture"
More Movie Taglines:
- THE PICTURE THAT GIVES YOU A FRONT SEAT TO THE MOST JOLTING EVENTS OF TOMORROW...TODAY! (original U.S. print ad
- all caps)
Movie Quote(s):
- Night Editor: ...it caused a twelve degree shift in the earth's orbit... and we're moving toward the sun.
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Peter Stenning: Anything you can split I can split better!
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Peter Stenning: Alcoholics of the press, unite!
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Bill Maguire: No woman's irreplaceable, no matter how much you love her. There will be somebody else sooner or later. London's full of somebody else's.
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Editor (Jeff): I don't care a tinker's damn about this eclipse of the sun as such; the evening papers will cane it, it'll be dead by tomorrow morning. But what I do care about is why there was an eclipse of the sun ten days before it was due. Bill, this is your department. Bill Maguire: I don't know why everybody regards me as Nostradamus. Your guess is as good as mine. Editor (Jeff): Yes, but I don't want guesses, I want facts. Try someone on top. Sir John Kelly... Bill Maguire: Stenning got in to see Kelly. Peter Stenning: He had twenty-eight armed guards around him. Editor (Jeff): Yes, but what did he say? Peter Stenning: He wouldn't even say "Good night" in case it was taken as an official comment on the future of mankind.
Movie Trivia:
- The realistic newspaper footage was shot in the Fleet Street offices of Express Newspapers and gives a vivid picture of the "old" London Fleet Street industry (most British newspapers have now moved out of this area, which was famous as a press centre). "Express" editor Arthur Christiansen plays himself in the film.
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Editor James Needs used stock footage from Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), also directed by Val Guest of a fire truck racing through the night past the patrol station in Bray.
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As the earth heats up Bill McGuire asks for information on the melting point of "everything from steel to my glass eye". Leo McKern did in fact have a glass eye.
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In an early scene Jeannie is struggling with a Roneo stencil duplicator, saying it is "over-inking". The Roneo company threatened to sue the producers for the potential damage to the reputation of their products.
IMDB Links:
» User Comments at imdb.com
» More information at imdb.com
Keywords:
Reporter, Newsroom, Newspaper, Alcoholic, Newspaper Editor ...[more]
Keywords All:
Disaster, Female Nudity, Drought, Cold War, Typhus, Fog, Solar Eclipse, End Of The World Scenario, Nuclear Testing, Funfair, Earth In Peril, Cyclone, Stock Footage, Divorced Father, Water Shortage, Ferris Wheel, Elevator Shaft, London England, Riot, Newspaper Reporter, Bar, Divorce, Heat Wave, Weather, Telephone Operator
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Rating: 8.2 out of 10.0 - 72 votes cast total
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