cult film freak: VAL GUEST DIRECTS DISASTER IN 'THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE'

THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE Released in 1961

A rat-a-tat dialog hybrid of THE FRONT PAGE and the doomsday-anticipation of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, Val Guest's disaster opus THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE has ice caps melting decades before the standard trend...

And there's a fair amount of preaching (albeit far ahead of its time) like any cautionary science-fiction... but everything flows not only with the dire situation at hand but the hustle and bustle of a hustling/bustling newspaper office...

Where boozy yet intellectual veteran reporter Leo McKern and tattered, has-been, single father Edward Judd are in the nervy dilemma of figuring exactly what to write about — despite the fact both America and Russia tested nuclear weapons not only one day apart, but an entire week earlier, so, with that important game-changing aspect out of the way, the story begins as if the viewer arrived fifteen-minutes late as Judd's snarky, sarcastic reporter is a bit much to take so soon, all at once: Yet his obnoxious persona makes more sense the closer the slow-burn, possibly-apocalyptic future nears...

Top Half of The Day BLU RAY Rating: ****

That director Val Guest initially progresses with mild catastrophes, from a heat wave to a dense fog, ultimately leading to the primary flaw, which, in 1961, couldn't be helped... although, mainly set in a press-room, the starkly contrasting/randomly inserted film-aesthetic of actual storms, fires and floods could be attributed to news footage as opposed to stock footage...

And like any Disaster tale there needs a human angle... and Judd's romance with gorgeous and assertive Janet Munro, coinciding with each of nature's setbacks, is the true mainline...

Since, as a government secretary, she picks up on important information first, their heated chemistry... along with various eruptions of newsroom politics and deadlines... flows smoothly yet frantically, making DAY a counterpart to Val Guest's police procedural HELL IS A CITY: the underrated auteur (usually employed by Hammer) is key at moving an intense, suspenseful film's pace neatly in-step with the all-too-human characters, desperately trapped in-between.