THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS - 1963 USA Release: April 27, 1963 Security Pictures Ltd., Allied Artists Pictures Rating: N/A

First off -

It's important to remember that there is no plant that is called a Triffid and no, they didn't come from space years ago and take root as part of our natural landscape so none of that, "'These' Triffids are a different breed." stuff.

Convincing way to tell a story though, and in its time, it had some people actually believing that there were plants called Triffids.

No. No they're not.

Like too many Creature Features of the 1950s and 60s, THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS begins with important newsreel seriousness about life on earth and our place in it all.

Yuck!

Fortunately its briefer than most.

We begin with meteor showers all over the earth. This is a unique experience for 20th century folks and radio and television are encouraging everyone to enjoy this once in a lifetime event. People everywhere are watching the cosmic spectacle.

People like the Greenhouse watchman (Ian Wilson: MY SON THE VAMPIRE, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA [1962], THE WICKERMAN) at the Royal Botanical Gardens in London who is making his rounds. Break time comes and he has his evening snack. Funny, he never felt nervous around the plants before. Merry mishaps occur.

Speaking of the cosmic spectacle, not everyone can watch it. American sailor, Bill Masen (Howard Keel), is in an English hospital recovering from eye surgery. He has another 10 hours left to go before the bandages can be removed and his surgeon, Dr. Soames (Ewan Roberts: NIGHT OF THE DEMON, THE TRAITORS, THE INTERNECINE PROJECT), is adamant about that. So Bill sits there knowing that he is missing the greatest natural spectacle humanity has probably ever witnessed.

He's kinda grouchy about the whole thing.

Speaking of grouches, far away on a lonely desert rocky outcrop island hosting a lone lighthouse (because really, who needs two lighthouses on a single piece of rock?), Tom Goodwin (Kieron Moore: SATELLITE IN THE SKY, THE GREEN SCARF, DOCTOR BLOOD'S COFFIN, CRACK IN THE WORLD), an oceanographer, signed up for six months at the lighthouse so he could study Stingrays in peace. Three months in, he never wants to see another stingray and can't stop being an unrelenting pain in the ass to his more than understanding wife, Karen (Janette Scott: PARANOIAC, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, CRACK IN THE EARTH). As quiet and submissive as Karen is, she's ready to throw in the towel when they get back to shore. Tom makes it plain that the only thing he wants on shore is an endless amount of liquor. Since there's no romance, only misery, neither feels like cuddling up outside and watching the lovely meteor shower.

The next day Big Ben dongs and Bill Masen, woke by the sound, is surprised to hear it chime 9 times. 9 times? Well his 10 hours were up hours ago! Where is his doctor? His nurse?

Bill calls out for help but no one answers. Then he hears a woman scream. Risking his eyesight, he removes his bandages. While he waits for his eyes to adjust to vision again, he notices how quiet everything is. Where is the noisy traffic outside he's heard all of this time?

Eyes still adjusting to focus, he makes his way through the hospital, which is trashed but devoid of life, and that includes the dead body on the floor.

Soon we're treated to the old (even old for its time) hand reaching out behind our hero to grab his shoulder.

In this case it makes sense as it is the hand of Doctor Soames. It makes sense because Dr. Soames is blind. Everyone who watched the meteorite shower last night is. London is a city of millions of blind people and it's not just London.

Streets packed with debris, wrecked vehicles, and blind people wandering among the wreckage, Bill is forced to travel on foot, looking for help from somewhere but he doesn't know where. The newly blind are everywhere, harming themselves as they wander the streets crying out for help. There are too many people who all need different kinds of help (I have to get home! I have to find my daughter! I have to pee!) for Bill to do anything, so he makes his way to the train station. There's no help there either.

In fact, a train pulls in, whistle blaring, and smashes into the breakwall of its own train stop, injuring many onboard. They fall out in agony, begging for help that will never come. Bill winds up helping a little girl named Susan (Janina Faye: HORROR OF DRACULA, THE HEADLESS GHOST, NEVER TAKE CANDY FROM A STRANGER, JEKYLL'S INFERNO, THE HANDS OF ORLAC) who slept through the meteor shower and so is able to see, but her parents are dead.

At a loss, all Bill can do now is try to make it back to his ship and hope his fellow sailors are safe.

Thus begins the odyssey of Bill and Susan. As passenger planes fall out of the sky, ships smash into ports, and various utilities are left to explode because no one is there to mind the pressures and fuel, we are treated to original author, John Wyndham's view of what London looked like during World War II and under the onslaught of Hitler's V2 bombs.

Despite being based on a best selling novel, THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS was made for cheap and the blue screens and back projections are obvious. Many of the outdoor shots were done on indoor stages and it looks it.

Directed by veteran director, Steve Sekely (REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES, LADY IN THE DEATH HOUSE), the entire production was troubled enough, and script changes were so plentiful, that Sekely left the production with only 57 minutes worth of usable footage. Running out of budget, but with Security Pictures needing to deliver a feature length movie to their distributors, Allied Artists, the producers had to hire the more expensive, Oscar winning Cinematographer and newbie director Freddie Francis to finish the picture.

Unfortunately, the movie was actually complete as the constant near daily fiddling changes to the script only amounted to around 60 pages.

Sekely had given them what they paid for!

The original actors were gone to other projects and the alloted time on the sets were gone and being used by other productions. A whole new additional story or subplot that didn't need to match anything that Sekely shot, had to be written. New actors, new crew, new sets, same old varmints! That's where the lighthouse - which never existed in the book or original screenplay - came in. The fact that it is a wholly separate story, making little sense within the context of the rest of the movie, is obvious.

That said, Freddie also commanded final cut, allowing him to direct from the Editor's chair and, while his name didn't carry the audience cache of Sekely at that moment in time, THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS became his first in a long string of successful creature features.

Freddie was able to bring the two different stories together. While fans can see the obvious flaws, after nearly 60 years no one has done it better.

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is Ripe for Remake, but until then,

Three Shriek Girls.

This review copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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