The Day of the Triffids (1962)

Steve Sekely

United Kingdom

93 min, color, English

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

Ostensibly based on John Wyndham's superb book by the same name, this film is a major disappointment, both as an adaptation of the novel (where it fails absolutely miserably on all counts), and as a standalone disaster epic, where it has some redeeming qualities but not enough to make it worth the time. Produced at the height of the Cold War just when tensions began to get ratcheted up with the Berlin Wall and Kennedy's first forays in foreign policy, the film is a misplaced pro-American propaganda that somehow manages to undo each and every one of the points that made Wyndham's novel such a beloved sci-fi classic. (And it is beloved, at least by me: it has remained one of my favorite books ever since I read it in Bulgarian translation when I was in high school).

The meteor shower as imagined by a shoestring artist	HMO care has long ways to go

There's nothing wrong with pro-American propaganda, of course, but turning the main character Bill Masen (Howard Keel) into an American sailor and then having the Yanks pull up their submarines to evacuate the survivors is almost as annoying as Bill sporting his navy hat all the way through, although it does not sink to the ludicrous ending with all grateful survivors filing into a church, presumably to give thanks to the very god that has just wiped out almost the entire human race. The touching faith in America is present in the original novel too, although there it was left as a hope that the Americans would come and rescue everyone eventually, even though said cavalry never materializes. Not so in the film, where everything breaks down except the US submarines. Whereas in the novel the lonely band of survivors were stranded on the Isle of Wright to attempt building a new society there, in the film they are all rescued, presumably to be taken to the New World for the same purpose. A seemingly small change, but one that changes the entire tone of the story.

Husband has not had gout in three days	Triffids claim first disco victim

The film is also marred by stupid generalizations of women. Now, it is quite normal for horror flicks to have tons of rampaging screaming females who lose their ability to perform simple tasks almost as quickly as they lose their clothes or their lives. This film is no exception. All, I repeat all, the women here are useless. Well, perhaps not entirely: they function well enough as portable sirens that serve to warn the men of any impending danger. But dealing with that danger? Fugedaboutit. Mrs Durrant (Nicole Maurey) just slips into complete denial of reality, and prefers to hole up with some survivors to wait for someone to come to their rescue. She only comes to life when a bunch of escaped convicts try to make her dance that cha-cha-cha, which she despises. She is promptly rescued by Bill with whom she immediately falls in seductive love, relinquishing all decisions to him.

Scary disembodied hand... not	Susan and Bill: eyewitnesses to dog abuse

The other woman, Karen (Janette Scott) is supposedly a scientist, or at least she knows how to use the microscope. She is stranded with her husband Tom (Kieron Moore) on a tiny islet where they are supposed to be studying something. The guy is depressed, drinks too much, and is somewhat abusive (at least verbally) toward Karen. She takes in everything with stoicism and eventually submits to his wishes to abandon their research (because he's lost interest in it, or something). At any rate, when danger comes, she runs around screaming (very piercing and convincing, the best shrieks I have heard in a horror film) until Tom swings some big gardening or fishing implement to protect her. I mean, she actually turns her face to the wall while he battles the vicious triffid.

Unnecessary scare in the foggy forest	What women do in this film

The film not only removed the strong female character of Josella (they did keep the little girl Susan, whose role is to give Bill someone to rescue until he finds a properly aged damsel in distress), but then degraded every female to an obnoxious degree. No wonder the two strong men ended up saving their ladies by swinging huge hoses (one spewing fire, the other salt water). The symbolism is unmistakable, even if it was unintended; the subconscious works wonders sometimes. The solution to the triffid problem, by the way is the most ridiculous copt-out since all these Martian invades died from the flu. Salt water? How long did it take them to come up with that plot twist? It may have been mildly entertaining that all that scientific inquiry (what else could it have been: they had all that sciency-looking lab stuff) ended with no result and the world was saved by simple serendipity. But that's all it was, a mild irony.

What brave men do in this film	Why don't you do the dishes while I sip my sherry

The film opens just like the book: Bill wakes up in his hospital bed on the day his eye bandages are supposed to get removed. The previous night has witnessed the spectacle of the largest ever meteorite shower the world has ever seen. And nearly everyone has seen it... and everyone who has seen it has gone blind. Permanently. Societal breakdown follows immediately, and it is complete. The film manages to capture some of them with a truly wonderful scene at the train station with people stumbling over each other, desperately trying to find someone who can help. The scene with Dr Soames (Ewan Roberts) throwing himself from his office window upon realizing that blindness is total and incurable was also very well done. At this point, I thought the film would be excellent and nothing suggested its nearly immediate descent into mediocrity.

This liquid triffid poison is expired!	Nothing like carpe the last diem

Some other deviations from the book were most welcome. For example, the doomed passenger plane with its crew flying blind made the anonymous disaster a bit more touching, as the stranded ship that would never reach port did. In a way, these small scenes were more effective than the shoddy special effects that were supposed to show London, Paris, and Tokyo burning. Unfortunately, that was it in terms of inspired improvisation on a theme. The entirely new subplot with the husband/wife team in the research station was peripheral, to say the least. Their story never connects with anything else (except, I suppose that perhaps their salt water discovery was then communicated to the rest of the survivors, although how that was done remains murky). Why introduce them, their convoluted relationship, and their struggle with the triffids, I have no idea. (I have heard that when they finished the film, it was too short, so they added these sequences to pad it to some watchable length. It sounds plausible enough.)

More macho triffid mayhem	The improvised family

Ah, the triffids. If one ignores the wires and the wheels (clearly visible in several scenes), they are not all that bad, considering the budget. I also liked the scenes with the plants massing to attack beyond the electrified fence, or how they turned toward sounds (they look like scary gas-masks). But the film never managed to convey the sense of implacable siege the blind humans have to withstand. It is very well done in the book but for some reason just does not feel right in the film. Characters shoot (shoot!) at the walking plants here, although without much of an effect. The plants also devour a few hapless individuals even though in the novel they were more sinister: killing people and then waiting for them to decompose so that they could digest them. The very basic idea that triffids now had the evolutionary advantage over people who could not see just did not make it into the film, which treats them as a plot nuisance.

And then there were five	Some dumb triffids getting electrocuted

The special effects, which I have already mentioned, are also a bit of a problem. Generally, I have a pretty high tolerance for bad SFX which are the norm in low-budget flicks, so that's not the issue. It's just that they could have done so much more even on a shoe-string. Since the point of the book is about survival and adaptation of one's value system in the face of extreme adversity, the story should have centered on human interaction with the occasional flash of horror to keep the suspense going. But here we have an entirely gratuitous scene in which a triffid devours a nameless night watchman for no other purpose than to show the triffid doing it. Bill is never forced to consider his behavior carefully, and in fact he seems quite heartless in his instant decision to abandon the blind people that Durrant wanted to care for. (And Durrant herself is quick to leave them to their gruesome fate when Bill saves her from the drunk convicts.) No moral dilemmas really, at least none that were explored in any depth.

Gratuitous shot of Nicole Maurey	Warning: flammable alien plant life

The acting was at least passable. Whereas Keel is too bland to be the unlikely hero of the story, the women were attractive enough to pull off the most unforgiving scenes the director threw at them. Maurey, for example, somehow contrived to remain dignified while clearing the table after dinner with the two man sitting, smoking, and pontificating on their prospects for survival. Scott is too pretty to be dismissed easily, and her intense screaming worked so well that one nearly forgot that horse-faced husband of her character who I nearly wished to see ingested by some triffid. Some critics have lambasted the young Janina Faye for her portrayal of Susan but I think she was great. Check out the scene where she says "Goodnight... daddy," to Bill after Durrant takes her for his daughter. In the end, the performers did the best they could with the vapid material they had to work with.

Gratuitous shot of Janette Scott	Appropriately, the MAN saves the day with his BIG HOSE

The BBC DVD presents the film in widescreen non-anamorphic transfer at 2.35:1, and is nothing to write home about. The colors appear somewhat muted but the worst offender is the smearing when there's fast action or when the camera pans around. There is also some visible damage to the print, although it still looks way better than a VHS tape. The sound is limited to a mono track but there are optional subtitles. The only extras are trailers. An unexceptional release of an average film. Only for fanatics who are into B (or perhaps even Z) grade schlock who do not mind sacrificing all the neat ideas from the book for puerile screaming-women kicks.

January 17, 2006