The Day the Earth Caught Fire

Infobox Film
name = The Day the Earth Caught Fire

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caption = film poster
director = Val Guest
producer = Val Guest
Frank Sherwin Green
writer = Wolf Mankowitz
Val Guest
starring = Janet Munro
Leo McKern
Edward Judd
music = Stanley Black
cinematography = Harry Waxman
editing =
distributor = Universal International Pictures
released = 1961
runtime = 98 min
country = United Kingdom
amg_id = 1:12636
imdb_id = 0054790

"The Day the Earth Caught Fire" is a 1961 British science fiction film. It is rated PG in the United Kingdom and is shot in black-and-white. In some of the original prints of the film, the opening and closing sequences of the film are tinted orange-yellow to suggest the heat of the sun. The formal structure of the film resembles the 'newspaper movie' genre, although the 'delayed disaster' elements of the movie's plot would be echoed in laterlandmark Doomsday films such as The China Syndrome and The Day After.

ynopsis

The Soviet Union and the USA have detonated nearly-simultaneous nuclear bomb tests, leading to the Earth moving out of its orbit and towards the sun. Increasing heat from the sun causes the water on Earth to evaporate, and consequently the governments have to ration water. Scientists conclude that the only one way to bring Earth back into its orbit is to detonate a series of nuclear bombs in the west of Siberia.

The original film ending featured two versions of the front page of the "Daily Express" prepared for the presses to print: one reads "World Saved", the other "World Doomed". The staff of the paper anxiously waits to see which headline will be correct.

The distributor pressed for a revised ending: Church bells heard to ring out at the very end - an oblique suggestion that the planet was rescued.

Cast

The cast includes Michael Caine in his early acting days playing a bit part of a police officer diverting traffic, with one line to say. Three years later he was to star in the film "Zulu". The Editor of the "Daily Express" was played by real-life journalist Arthur Christiansen, himself a former editor of the "Daily Express".

Influences

There are songs by Japanese punk band Balzac and by The Misfits entitled "The Day The Earth Caught On Fire". Although not confirmed as being related to the film of the same name, the sci-fi/horror theme of both bands and their other song names would strongly indicate a connection. Also, the endin with two newspaper cover determining the fate of the world is strikingly similar to the ending of Superman Returns, where the Daily Planet waits on running the fate of the costumed hero.

ee also

*List of nuclear holocaust fiction

External links

*imdb title|id=0054790|title=The Day the Earth Caught Fire
*amg title|id=1:12636|title=The Day the Earth Caught Fire