The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) on Netflix
NR19611h 38mDramaRomanceSci-Fi
After simultaneous nuclear tests by the Soviet Union and the United States, strange weather spreads worldwide. Daily Express reporter Peter Stenning chases the story and meets Jeannie Craig.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.2/107,108 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Peter Stenning had been a rising reporter at the London Daily Express, but a divorce left him drinking heavily and his editor handing him poor assignments. His friend Bill Maguire, a veteran Fleet Street journalist, occasionally writes his copy for him. Meanwhile the Soviet Union and the United States carry out nuclear tests at almost the same moment, and freak weather begins striking around the world: floods, blizzards and tornadoes. Stenning is sent to the British Met Office for temperature figures and meets Jeannie Craig, a young typist filling in as telephonist. The scientists there offer no explanation, and the paper's editor grows suspicious. He orders Stenning and Maguire to dig, and Stenning turns to Jeannie for help.
Cast
- Arthur Christiansenas 'Jeff' Jefferson - Editor
- Ian Ellisas Michael Stenning
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The production used the real Daily Express newspaper's own Fleet Street headquarters as a filming location, and cast the paper's actual editor, Arthur Christiansen, to play the same job he held in real life.
SPOILER
Director Val Guest said the sound of church bells in the American version had been added by distributor Universal, to suggest that the emergency detonation had succeeded and Earth had been saved, though Guest always intended an ambiguous ending.- Guest cast the real Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen in a support part, but the poor guy could not remember a line, so they finally did it almost line by line; by the time he realized what he had bitten off it was too late to recast.
- Guest had tried to make the film for eight years but could not get finance, saying "Nobody would ever let me make it"; British Lion, Minter, Rank and Columbia had all turned it down.
- Christiansen's real-world connections also helped the production, since he secured cooperation from press baron Lord Beaverbrook to let the crew film on Fleet Street and gave technical advice on the newsroom scenes.
