The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)

(On TV, July 2022) As an unprecedented heat wave sweeps through Europe, breaking records (40c in London!) and killing thousands, it seems appropriate that movie channels would unearth Night of the Big Heat, a British “cozy catastrophe” film describing the global upheaval when temperatures rise and keep rising. Of course, part of the film’s comfort is in knowing that its version of climate change was caused by nuclear explosions, and that another series of explosions may fix the problem. The film takes place in those last days before the corrective explosions, as employees of a major London newspaper undergo personal crises and witness what may be the end of civilization. The coziness of this catastrophe film comes from the stiff upper lip of the British characters as they go about their business and their lives awaiting the end. The ending is strictly dignified as well, offering nothing more than interior shots of people reacting to the events rather than theatrics, and ending on a note of ambiguity that still allows for some hope. The cinematography is rather good (with special recognition of the film’s orange-red beginning and closing sequences) and the dialogue occasionally has some bite to it—crucial considering how much of the film focuses on interactions between characters rather than save-the-world heroics. I was pleasantly surprised by The Day the Earth Caught Fire—it’s an unusually adult end-of-the-world film, and it’s got plenty of good moments to make up for the very slow-paced nature of its story choices. Writer-director Val Guest clearly knows what he’s doing here, and the result still speaks for itself sixty years later as the planet continues to boil itself.