The Day The Earth Caught Fire

Here the earth doesn’t wheel around the sun, but as the whole Universe around Val Guest. Because the English eclectic and legendary filmmaker (writer and actor), here does everything by himself. He wrote the story, the screenplay (with Wolf Mankowitz) produces and of course directs.
This isn’t the most sensational thing, because Guest reaches a great result creating a sci-fi that hasn’t anything apocalyptic or scary. Really nothing. Because this is a movie based on dialogues and on some smart ideas that give the sense of the drama. You can say that is a boring movie. Words and words without action.
Instead Val Guest builds very interesting dialogues that run the story brilliantly. In addition of it creates also a great sexy moment. Yes. The universe wheel around Val Guest. With the Earth damn close to the sun.
A London on his knees, a world near to the end is what we see from the first images of the movie. A yellow/orange film, the only colors of the movie, gives the sense of the excessive heat from the sun. But what happened? Of course the man is guilty because he has put in great danger the planet, due to Soviet and American nuclear tests, has changed the earth's axis, causing a total change of climate and oppressive heat in the United Kingdom.
Peter Stenning, a perfect character, a journalist in crisis, an alcoholic, tells us this story, wandering at the beginning into a London desolate and hot. He enters headquarter of the Daily Express and begins to dictate to phone an article that tells in flashback, the story of how the land taken (quite) fire.
The aforementioned experiments that have damaged the planet are kept hidden from the usual powers and even by the British weather service. Peter, however, knows Jeanine a girl who works for the weather service and reveals the horrible reality (starting with Peter a relationship).
The last ditch effort of the entire world is to detonate nuclear bombs to try to bring the planet in a good position. A final wide open with two headlines diametrically opposed ends, always brilliantly, this sci-fi.
Not the most famous work by Val Guest, but a film that has received considerable feedback from critics and from the audience and that in 1962 won the Bafta award for "Best British Screenplay". Easy to win if who write the story are Val Guest and especially Wolf Mankowitz one of the most famous and respected English writers who linked his name to the theater, to the cinema with hits such as "A Kid For Two Farthings "," The Millionairess" with Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren and "Black Beauty" (the latter two traits from his stories).
The production of "The Day The Earth Caught Fire" uses effectively simple things. Coloration of the film at the beginning and end apart we see some scenes shot in the real offices of the "Daily Express" in Fleet Streets, a London street famous for hosting for many newspapers. A historical record of a city in constant evolution that also shows us scenes filmed inside and outside the Ministry of Defense.
Quotes of the "Divine Comedy" and use of some scenes from "The Quatermass Xperiment" are commitment to actors who create simple but very intense characters.
Even here it is easy to get a great result with a cast of famous and expert actors at the time, to which is added an appearance of a very young and almost debutant Michael Caine.
Janet Munro is Jeanine the female lead. Grown between artists, becomes famous in the fifties as an interpreter of four Disney movies. She won a Golden Globe in 1960 for "Best Newcomer" and a nomination for "Bafta" in 1963 as "Best British Actress" for "Life For Ruth". Nomination that comes in period when the career of Janet Munro began a slow but inexorable descent. Because after Disney movies, the trying to change the character and becoming more mature and sexy doesn’t work. Some important film like this (in the original version can be seen briefly topless), other appearances and then TV series until 1972, the year of premature death, only thirty-eight years, due to heart problems.
The Australian with the glass eye Leo McKern, appeared in many British and Australian works, and plays one of his best known characters. The male lead instead is Edward Judd become over the years a performer known for sci-fi movies. Rounding out the list of important actors Michel Goodliffe, Bernard Braden and Reginald Beckwith here help the great Guest to set fire to the earth. And we are in love.

  Technical Data Sheet
Original Title: The Day The Earth Caught Fire
Alternative titles: Maailmanloppu (Finland), Le jour où la terre prit feu (France), El día en que la Tierra if fire (Spain), Den sidste paddehat (Denmark), A nap, Amikor to Föld Langra lobbant (Hungary), ... and the Earth caught fire (Italy), El día que la tierra if fire (Mexico), Dzien, w którym Ziemia stanela w ogniu (Poland), O Mundo em Chamas (Portugal), Jordens sista dag (Sweden), der Tag, an dem die Erde fing Feuer (Germany), O Dia em Que to Earth if Incendiou (Brazil)
Year: 1961
Country: UK
Director: Val Guest
Cast: Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Edward Judd, Michael Goodliffe, Bernard Braden, Reginald Beckwith, Gene Andersone, Renée Ansherson
Duration: 98 '
Production Company: Pax Films