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U.K.
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1964
Directed by Terence Fisher
Starring
Willard Parker
Virginia Field
Dennis Price
B&W
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62 Minutes
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Not Rated
Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC |
2-disc set)
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
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8
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8 |
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10
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
A
mysterious gas attack immobilizes much of the
population, and it's up to a band of disparate
survivors to fight an alien invasion...
Following
the commercial and critical drubbing of his romantic
take on Phantom
Of The Opera (1962), director Terence Fisher
found himself somewhat out of favor at Hammer
Studios. In truth, his tenure at Hammer was on
rocky terrain for some time —
while his full blooded approach to the early Hammer
triumphs like The
Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror
Of Dracula (1958) were met with enthusiasm
by audiences, his more unorthodox, character-driven
approach to genre standbys like the werewolf (1960's
Curse
Of The Werewolf) and Jekyll and Hyde (the
same year's Two
Faces Of Dr. Jekyll) didn't go over well with
juvenile audiences. The Hammer horrors, despite
their adult content, were principally aimed at
younger audiences and Fisher's preference for
romanticism and drama over blood and thunder shock
effects didn't sell tickets. It seems unlikely
that the studio brass sent Fisher packing, but
they weren't in a rush to offer him further work,
either — in light
of his recent commercial failures, other directors
like Freddie Francis (Paranoiac)
and Don Sharp (Kiss
Of The Vampire) were brought in to fill the
breach. His career at a virtual standstill just
as he had found his true artistic voice (this
after years of toiling on mostly pedestrian melodramas
and B noirs), Fisher tried his hand at projects
for other producers, projects he often approached
with supreme professionalism but little of the
fire and imagination afforded to his beloved Gothic
pictures. The Earth Dies
Screaming is typical of the kind of fare
he had little affinity for —
an avowed non-fan of science fiction, he must
have approached Harry Cross' screenplay with lukewarm
trepidation. Given threadbare materials with which
to realize the apocalyptic scenario, he contented
himself by focusing on the emotional dynamics
of the characters —
and in this respect, he is most successful. Fisher's
flair for building suspense is also in evidence
in several sustained set pieces, notably a scene
depicting leading lady Virginia Field as she hides
from the alien menace in a tight closet, a scene
that surely inspired future Halloween
(1978) writer/composer/director (and Fisher fan)
John Carpenter. Alas, as with his other forays
into the genre (Island Of
Terror, 1965, Night
Of The Big Heat, 1967), the film falls
down badly whenever it ventures into sci-fi territory
— one can sense the
director's flagging interest as he does a serviceable
job of getting the pesky plot material out of
the way, all the while biding time until the next
character-driven interlude. The end result is
certainly uneven, but one is left admiring the
sheer skill and economy of its execution. The
direction is a model of simplicity, without so
much as a wasted foot of film, and while the running
time is short at just two minutes over an hour,
only the finale feels a bit rushed and half-baked.
The film was produced
by American exploitation maven Robert L. Lippert,
who set up camp in England making "quota quickies"
by aiding his British colleagues in securing the
services of washed up (but still somewhat bankable)
American talent and access to stock shots. Lippert's
contribution is felt in both departments, but
in Fisher's capable hands the film doesn't feel
nearly as threadbare as it should. The imported
leads this time included B western star Willard
Parker and Virgina Field — neither were exactly
A-List material, but in casting middle aged performers
in the central roles, Lippert inadvertently leant
the film a stately, almost elegiac quality. In
place of the usual pretty but vacant juvenile
leads, Parker and Field invest their budding (and
admirably understated) romance with weight and
conviction, and if Parker seems a bit past it
to be playing a test pilot (the script, or more
likely a bit of improvisation, takes care of this
by noting that he was being forced into retirement)
he is quite an able interpreter of the typically
dynamic Fisher hero: a man of equal parts brains
and action. The real standouts, however, are in
the supporting cast. The brilliant character actor
Dennis Price, already on a professional downslide
that would culminate in several Jess Franco films
before his premature death in 1973, steals the
film as the duplicitous Taggert. He makes for
a wonderfully sardonic antagonist for Parker's
resolved man of action, and one gets the sense
that the actor (who would work for Fisher in his
next assignment for Lippert, the unfortunate horror-comedy
The Horror of It All!,
1964) was thoroughly enjoying himself playing
such a slimy character. Equally impressive is
Fisher's dear friend Thorley Walters, previously
seen in Phantom Of The Opera
and later memorable for the director in Frankenstein
Created Woman (1966) and Frankenstein
Must Be Destroyed (1969), who plays the stock
character of the frightened alcoholic with an
air of damaged dignity that is decidedly poignant.
Lippert's predilection for stock footage mars
the film's opening sequence, however — anybody
familiar with Wolf Rilla's classic Village
Of The Damned (1960) will be jarred to
see so much footage from it comprising the film's
opening 'disaster' montage. Nevertheless, for
much of the film, Fisher and cinematographer Arthur
Lavis manage to maintain an air of gloom and claustrophobia
(even while in the bucolic English countryside
— it helps that it's so overcast) that looks forward
to the aesthetic of George A. Romero's own tale
of apocalyptic horror, Night
Of The Living Dead (1968).
Though compromised by some
questionable special effects (the radioactive
robots never convince) and Fisher's own lack of
commitment to the genre, much of The
Earth Dies Screaming is very effective
indeed. Fans of British fantasy of the period
are sure to have fun with it.
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Fox's release of The
Earth Dies Screaming, as part of the new
series of Midnite Movies (formerly an MGM
commodity, with Fox now "presenting" the series
themselves), finds the movie paired with Chosen
Survivors (1974). Fisher fans have previously
had to endure very poor bootlegs of this particular
title — for whatever
reason (likely its short running time and lack
of star names) the film has never been released
to VHS and never seems to crop up on late night
TV. My own previous exposure to the film was via
a literally out of focus, green tinted (!) bootleg
that did little to preserve its cinematographic
qualities. Seeing the film in this new 1.66/16x9
transfer is literally like seeing it for the first
time. The print is in very good condition, with
only some minor speckling typical of a film of
this vintage. The framing looks correct throughout,
retaining the balanced group shots and thus enabling
all the actors to have their due on screen. Black
levels are appropriately dark, and whites are
clean. The mono English soundtrack is in good
shape — while the
higher notes of Elizabeth Lutyens' frantic score
sometimes seem a bit warbly, this is likely a
defect in the recording of the score; dialogue
is clean and easy to discern throughout. The film
has been given closed captioning treatment, and
extras include a nicely lurid theatrical trailer
and a gallery of stills, including some rare shots
of Fisher working with his actors. (NOTE: The
DVD Rating of "8" factors in the total
value of this two-film/two-disc set, which is
currently selling for under $11.)
9/21/07
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