VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) AND THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963)
— RANKING: 75 (TIE) —
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JOHN WYNDHAM: One of England’s finest sci-fi writers of the postwar era offered unique variations on the theme of endgame: steely-eyed space children are hatched on Earth in Village of the Damned, and our beloved plants turn against us (one menacing gorgeous Nicole Maurey) in The Day of the Triffids. Courtesy: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Security Pictures-Allied Artists.
CREDITS
MGM; Wolf Rilla, dir; John Wyndham, novel; Rilla, Stirling Silliphant, Ronald Kinnoch, scr.; Kinnoch, pro.; Ron Goodwin, mus.; Geoffrey Faithfull, cin.; Gordon Hales, ed.; Ivan King, art dir.; Tom Howard, special photographic effects; 77 min.; B&W; 1.85:1.
CAST
George Sanders (Gordon Zellaby); Barbara Shelley (Anthea Zellaby); Martin Stephens (David Zellaby); Michael Gwynn (Alan Bernard); Laurence Naismith (Willers); June Cowell, Linda Bateson, John Kelly, Carlo Cura, Lesley Scoble, Mark Milleham, Roger Malik, Elizabeth Mundle, Teri Scoble, Peter Preidel, Peter Taylor, Howard Knight (The Children).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
A brick wall . . . A brick wall . . . I must think of a brick wall . . .
GORDON ZELLABY, AS HE ATTEMPTS TO KILL THE CHILDREN WHILE CONCENTRATING ON KEEPING THEM OUT OF HIS MIND.
BACKGROUND
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (1903–1969), whose various pen names included “John Wyndham,” made his reputation with stories for Tales of Wonder, England’s equivalent to the U.S. pulps of the 1930s. Following World War II, he, like his counterparts in the United States, proved instrumental in moving science fiction away from popular “space operas” featuring epic heroes, nearly naked beauties, and bizarre monsters. In a new era, this scribe decided that the time was right to go back to the future, reviving Jules Verne’s approach of studying the latest advances in science, then presenting those advances in a relatively realistic fictionalized form. This led to post-apocalyptic visions in his most famous works, The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). The latter was filmed first, retitled Village of the Damned.
THE PLOT
On a seemingly normal day in the quiet country village of Midwich, every living creature drops as if suffering from exhaustion, only to rise within the hour. Two months later, the local women are pregnant, eventually all giving birth on the same day. The shire’s most educated man, Gordon Zellaby, grows suspicious after his wife Anthea delivers a child who looks nothing like them. During the years that follow, the children—all with the same blond hair and wide, intense eyes—become a cult, able to communicate with one another through telepathy, and they use mind power to destroy anyone who they believe threatens them. The “normal” villagers realize their offspring are the results of fertilized eggs from some living force in outer space, their small town an experiment at infiltrating, then conquering, Earth.
THE FILM
Wolf Rilla (1920–2005), a German-born filmmaker working in Great Britain, was chosen partly for his talent, but also because he was not associated with genre films. This freed him, so far as the producers were concerned, to use a matter-of-fact style. The film’s popularity in the United States, as well as in England, paved the way for a dialectic approach to the genre with fewer bug-eyed monsters on view. Village was shot on a $200,000 budget, which was modest in comparison to A films of the era but twice that of a typical B picture.
THEME
More in the tradition of The Thing from Another World (1951) than The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), this film is xenophobic, portraying arriving aliens as unsympathetic. To further heighten this view, the children are played as variations on the Hitler Youth from two decades earlier: ultra-Aryan in appearance, methodical in attitude, unable to either feel or express love, and utterly amoral in attitude.
TRIVIA
The movie had been scheduled for production several years earlier, with Oscar-winning, English-born, Hollywood actor Ronald Colman cast in the lead. However, he died before filming began, and Village was put on hold indefinitely. By the time that George Sanders agreed to take the part—largely so that he could portray a sympathetic character, rather than one more of his upscale, yet seamy villains—he had married actress Benita Hume, the widow of Ronald Colman.
Fans vividly recall the children’s glowing eyes, an effect achieved by lighting, matte work, and animation. This effect was not part of the original English print; rather, it was added for the American release when U.S. distributors decided the movie needed “something extra” to make it more frightening. The golden hairpieces were designed to suggest that the children had high foreheads, a mark of great intelligence. This idea was borrowed from This Island Earth (1955). Wyndham labeled the children “cuckoos,” recalling the birds that lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, which then raise the hatchlings.
Village of the Damned was followed by an unexceptional sequel, Children of the Damned (Anton Leader, 1964), as well as a weak remake (John Carpenter, 1995).
THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963)
CREDITS
Security Pictures/J. Arthur Rank; Steve Sekely, Freddie Francis, dir.; John Wyndham, novel; Philip Yordan, Bernard Gordon, scr.; George Pitcher, Yordan, Bernard Glasser, pro.; Ron Goodwin, Johnny Douglas, mus.; Ted Moore, cin.; Bill Lewthwaite, ed.; Cedric Dawe, art dir.; Wally Veevers, Bob Cuff, special visual effects; 93 min.; Color; 2.35:1.
CAST
Howard Keel (Bill Masen); Nicole Maurey (Christine Durrant); Janette Scott (Karen Goodwin); Kieron Moore (Tom Goodwin); Mervyn Johns (Mr. Coker); Ewan Roberts (Dr. Soames); Alison Leggatt (Miss Coker); Geoffrey Matthews (Luis de la Vega); Janina Faye (Susan); Gilgi Hauser (Teresa de la Vega); John Tate (Captain of the SS Midland); Carole Ann Ford (Bettina); Colette Wilde (Nurse Jamieson); Mick Dillon (Triffid).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
Most plants thrive on animal waste, but I’m afraid this mutation possesses an appetite for the animal itself.
MR. COKER TO BILL MASEN
A member of the merchant marine, Bill Masen has undergone surgery in hopes that his temporary blindness may be remedied. His head bandaged, Masen cannot see the fascinating meteor shower witnessed by most everyone else in London. The next morning, when Masen removes the bandage, he learns that almost every other citizen has gone blind as a result of watching the natural light show. In the company of a sighted child, he heads for France, where an aristocratic Frenchwoman oversees a colony of survivors.
Meanwhile, monster plants called “Triffids,” which are able to move, attempt to kill off humankind. The only hope is a team of married scientists, stranded in an isolated lighthouse, who attempt to figure out the flaw in these invaders’ plan.
THE FILM
The screenplay was credited to Philip Yordan (1914–2003), a prolific writer known primarily for his work on Westerns: Johnny Guitar (1954), The Man from Laramie (1955), The Bravados (1958). His association with this project derived from a wish to help old friends, blacklisted during the McCarthy era, by fronting for them. In fact, Bernard Gordon (1918–2007), who had scripted Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), wrote the screenplay for The Day of the Triffids. Though the F/X appear dated today, they were state of the art at the time, created after considerable research as to how a highly developed plant (the Triffids were largely derived from asparagus) might solve such problems as mobility.
With the prestigious J. Arthur Rank organization behind the project, a budget that allowed for widescreen and color, and a nominal Hollywood star in Howard Keel, the producers hoped that a major director might helm the piece. Steve Sekely (1899–1979), however, was associated with lowbrow horror movies, such as Revenge of the Zombies (1943); his association with the project caused some observers to write this off as a B movie. The Triffid attack on a lighthouse, notably different in style and tone from the main plot, was added when the finished film proved not to be long enough for release. This section was directed by Freddie Francis (1917–2007) of Hammer Films fame. Francis brought a sense of creepiness to that sequence otherwise lacking in the primary narrative. His later thriller Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) also includes a menacing man-eating plant.
THEME
Wyndham’s theme had to be re-thought owing to changing times. The book ranked among the first Cold War apocalyptic pieces, but after the release of On the Beach in 1959, that approach seemed dated. The writers eliminated Wyndham’s suggestion that the meteor shower may have been a Cold War ploy. His ambiguous ending, in which the survivors hold out and possibly repopulate the world, was dropped in favor of a conclusion similar to that of The War of the Worlds (1953): once more, humankind survives by relying on old-time religion, by this time a staple of sci-fi films.
TRIVIA
Mervyn Johns brought to the project a connection to the great English horror films, having played the character in Dead of Night (1945) who arrives at the chateau in the opening sequence.
Steven Spielberg includes an homage to The Day of the Triffids in E.T. (1982): when the aliens rush back to their spaceship with Earth plants, a Triffid is among them.