Day of the Triffids

[Andy H]

Yes, strange casting. Howard Keel and Janette Scott are very odd choices for a film like this. Not a masterpiece by any standards.

[Gerald Lovell]

The whole thing has a disjointed quality to me. Maybe most of the money went on Howard Keel and everything else was neglected

The disjointedness may arise from the film having been made in two "goes". The main storyline came in too short, so the lighthouse sequences were filmed later under the direction of Freddie Francis.

The music is also a patchwork of material composed by Ron Goodwin and Johnny Douglas.

[Bernardo]

Good film, bit short but well padded with the irrelevant 15 minutes in the lighthouse added later, so I understand from informed members.

Has the look of a Hammer Horror don't you think?

Easy to criticise films but I watched it right to the end and that it is all about, even got one star in my ancient copy of Halliwell.

[orpheum]

When Keel walks across Lincolns Inn Fields he starts walking West across the Fields then in the next shot he is entering the square from the South side,chasing his tail if you see what i mean.The next shot he is entering Marlybone Station which is about 4 miles North West of Lincolns Inn Fields..Americans grasp of the geography of London is a bit thin.

[Hugo]

From time to time the Sci-Fi Channel, or SyFy as they now call themselves have shown a decent wide-screen print of Day of the Triffids so there must be one about somewhere.

[julian_craster]

Agree with the comments so far....



Perhaps unfair to judge a film by the print quality........Imagine if The Red Shoes could only be seen in a print of this quality - it

would probably be dismissed as a minor work and not worth bothering about !



I thought the director handled the first 20 minutes very well, and the train crash was very well suggested - it kept moving at a lively pace and I was never bored as the Triffids appeared every 5 minutes.....and Janette Scott (acting maturely and really well I thought) made an excellent 'scream queen'......



Here is the UK Rank trailer for the film...I think Tim Turner supplies the voiceover

[bobsterkent]

I remember seeing this as a kid many decades ago, of course the trouble was that I saw it in Black and white and it scared the pants off me, what a shock to see it this time to see that the show of sparks at the beginning were actually red and green!

[markrgv]

I really like this film as it has a nice eerie feel to it. I know it's not brilliant overall - but an enjoyable watch.



Yes it's a shame that the print is so poor. The rare dvd release is in 2.35:1 ratio so worth tracking down.



Agree about Howard keel - typical of casting an American to give the film appeal in the US.



Janina Faye is good as always - and i could never tire of watching Janette Scott

[earlb]

Don't forget to watch out for the Spanish Village (Pueblo Espanol) in Barcelona where HK drives his truck around.

[icetorch]

I was recently sitting in the herb garden in our local park when I saw some very tall plants start to sway in the breeze. They briefly looked alive, and I thought, someone more talented than me could make a story out of that. Then it occurred to me that they had. The trouble is, plants can't move very fast, so the idea of their taking over the country is unrealistic. It was the same back in the 1960s with that other public menace - if a Dalek came up to you in the street, all you had to do was sneak behind it and unscrew its head; game over! But then they learnt to fly, of course...

[GRAEME]

The trouble is, plants can't move very fast, so the idea of their taking over the country is unrealistic...

That's exactly why Wyndham had the majority of the population blinded - only then were they a real threat.

[icetorch]

As it happens, I'd actually forgotten about the blindness bit. I watched the BBC remake last Xmas or New Year. It was far better than their very wooden one of circa 1980, but I still wasn't greatly taken with it. I was surprised to see Vannessa Redgrave playing a goodly nun (given the portrayal of a very bitter and twisted nun in the film "The Devils"), but then the nun turned out to be a quisling who was feeding the Triffids to save herself - so Vanessa the actress saved her revolutionary cred. Interesting to see that John Wyndham was somewhat ahead of his time in raising worries about genetic engineering. I much preferred his novel "Kraken Wakes", in which a technologically advanced aquatic race from another planet invades our oceans with its craft and starts downing our ships in mid-ocean. Eventually they deliberately cause global warming, which gradually floods the world, but at the last minute Earth's scientists find a fix. Would make a much more spectacular film than the Triffids, I think.

[Bernardo]

Those interested, The 1962 film version is available as a free download at an archive site (google will find it). However good the remake is, if set in the US it is not The Day Of The Triffids. I realise that it is a sincere form of flattery but I can dispense with it. These films were made as stand alone products typifying the style and culture of their day and should be allowed to rest in peace.

[Mortdecai]

Those interested, The 1962 film version is available as a free download at an archive site (google will find it). However good the remake is, if set in the US it is not The Day Of The Triffids. I realise that it is a sincere form of flattery but I can dispense with it. These films were made as stand alone products typifying the style and culture of their day and should be allowed to rest in peace.

Its also currently available free to watch for anyone who subscribes to LoveFilm