As always there are spoilers ahead!
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After last episode’s UK village setting we stay in the country but head to London for a newsroom apocalyptic drama. We have more hints that we are heading into the 60s with a surly hero and a sultry ex-Disney heroine.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire was finally released in 1961 after eight years of director Val Guest trying to get the film made. Perhaps the mid-50s Britian wasn’t ready for this story although it would be interesting to see what kind of differences there would have been. (Val Guest was busy making The Quatermass Xperiment during that time!)
I welcome back two excellent guests to teach us more about this film.
Jay Telotte is Professor Emeritus of film and media studies at Georgia Tech. He has written/edited numerous books and articles about science fiction film including the 2023 book Selling Science Fiction Cinema.
Glyn Morgan is Head of Collections and Principal Curator at the Science Museum in London and a science fiction scholar.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:17 1961: Anxiety, British Free Cinema & Angry Young Men
07:28 The CND and memories of the war
08:05 The highs and lows of Cli-Fi
13:16 The beginning of the end
15:47 Val Guest
18:43 Snappy dialogue or too much talk?
22:25 The newsroom
27:40 Arthur Christiansen
30:06 The surlier hero
34:47 Janet Munroe
37:05 Disney & breaking out of type
41:06 One foot firmly in the 60s
42:09 Ambiguous and alternate endings
46:39 Legacy
51:57 Recommendations
NEXT EPISODE!
Next week we will be talking about the beautiful, half hour long, science fiction art film La Jetée (1962) that 12 Monkeys was based on. You can find the film on Apple, Amazon and also on YouTube but the version with English subtitles is not great quality.