Day of the Triffids (1962)

A meteor shower blankets the Earth, and with it comes a new plant, the Triffid.  While the plants are certainly ugly as sin, they also have the added benefit of being lumbering maneaters.  Bill Mason (Howard Keel) wakes after eye surgery to a world in chaos, as everyone who witnessed the celestial event is now blind.  Desperate to find a sanctuary, he crosses Europe, picking up travel mates like young Susan (Janina Faye) and French well-to-do Christine (Nicole Maurey).  Meanwhile, in a lighthouse off the coast of Cornwall, marine Biologist Tom Goodwin (Kieron Moore) and his long-suffering wife Karen (Janette Scott) race to find a way to stop the vicious plants from destroying all life on the planet (seeing as they’re carnivorous, this wouldn’t really benefit them).

Steve Sekely’s (with an assist from an uncredited Freddie Francis, who directed the lighthouse scenes, making the film feel like two films but still working despite this) The Day of the Triffids is an adaptation of the John Wyndham novel of the same name.  Of the novels he wrote, I would suggest that this one is only edged out in popularity by The Midwich Cuckoos (which was adapted for films under the title Village of the Damned).  Wyndham dealt in a style he called “logical fantasy,” one in which the descriptions and functioning of the normal world are integral to how the fantastic elements play.  This certainly is the case in this film.  Bill is a sailor and all-around handy man.  He is the Common Man hero that was the norm for many decades in genre cinema.  These are people who work for a living.  They are resourceful and pragmatic, and they care about their fellow man as much as is humanly possible to do without getting themselves killed.  For example, Bill knows how to get a car moving when it’s bogged in the mud.  He knows how to get the generator working at Christine’s chateau.  He knows how to repair a radio.  He knows how to electrify a fence.  He knows how to turn a gas truck into a makeshift flamethrower.  But he knows these things because he has a working knowledge of the world.  Necessity insists that he be able to do these sorts of things, so they are second nature to him, even if he doesn’t necessarily know a transistor from a transformer (in other words, general knowledge, not specific).  Tom is a specialist, and he and his wife are cut off from society (but not from the threat).  Tom is also an alcoholic, a condition that gives tension to the situation they are in and humanizes him.  He is further normalized by his inability to find a weakness in the Triffids.  As a scientist, he cannot succeed in this turmoil, but as a Common Man, working with his hands and wits, he discovers the ultimate weapon against the plants totally by accident.  In the modern film world, where every protagonist is either super-powered or super-sophisticated to the point of ennui, I always return to characters like the ones here as a respite.

Society in the film breaks down literally overnight.  It goes from business as usual to complete disarray in a matter of hours.  This is heralded by a fantastic sequence in the Royal Botanic Gardens.  A night watchman (Ian Wilson) sits alone at his desk as a Triffid sneaks up on him.  The man knows that there’s something wrong but doesn’t act, and the tension builds until the creature is upon him.  He is a representative of the world, its inability to prepare, and its fate for its inaction.  This is reinforced by several sequences of mass transit systems (a ship, a plane, a train) as they traipse over the proverbial cliff, the people in charge of them lying to the passengers in their last moments, trying to salvage some normalcy in the face of death.  But it doesn’t avert the inevitable, salvation being a wish that shall never be granted.  As Bill explores the hospital the next morning, the place looks like it was ransacked by Cossacks, trays strewn, glass scattered all over, and the building is like a ghost town, bereft of souls.  Only Dr. Soames (Ewan Roberts) remains, now blind, and his prognosis for the world is grim.  Discovering that Bill’s surgery was successful, he states, “I don’t envy you.”  Soames knows what comes next, knows that it won’t be pretty, and knows that Bill’s options for survival are limited (but not as limited as his own).  Throughout the major cities like London and Paris, the streets are littered with cars and blind people stumbling and pawing around like zombies in search of some fresh brains.  Bill learns that sight has become not only an asset but also a weakness.  At a train station, people hear that Bill can see, and they swarm over him with pleas for assistance.  After a train derails coming into the station, young Susan is almost kidnapped for her eyesight (there is a slight pedophilic air to this moment, as well).  People have become pathetic, desperate, and callous, yet maybe they were always that way.  

The bleak tone of the film is perhaps best displayed in the sequence at Christine’s chateau.  She is taking care of her friends who have gone blind, including the young Bettina (Carole Ann Ford, likely best known as Susan on the first few seasons of Dr. Who).  Bettina takes to Susan, and in a scene that’s positively heartbreaking, she guesses multiple things about the younger girl (hair and eye color, etcetera), all of which are wrong, and all of which Susan lies about to keep up Bettina’s spirits.  Bill suggests that Christine and those who can see should abandon the manse, as it makes them sitting ducks, but Christine can’t bear to leave her friends to die (which is most certainly what it would be).  This decision is taken away from her when a gang of convicts overrun the chateau and force the blind women to “dance” with them.  Bettina, stumbling outside after escaping being raped, is surrounded by Triffids and killed.  There is no mercy here, if there ever was before, and even that was illusory.  It if isn’t plant monsters, it’s human monsters.

Nevertheless, The Day of the Triffids contains elements of birth and rebirth.  Bill is reborn with his eyesight.  Susan is a sighted youth that must be protected and allowed to carry on the human race.  Tom and Karen are surrounded by water, the giver of life, and Bill and his companions spend a lot of time racing to sea ports in search of rescue (it doesn’t hurt that he’s a seaman).  Tom is forced to give up booze, and he finds a new purpose in dissecting a Triffid, looking for flaws.  His marriage is renewed in a way by this.  Bill comes upon a blind pregnant woman, and Christine assists in the birth.  Life will go on, just drastically changed.  Though the world is in apocalypse mode, the human will to survive remains, bloodied but unbowed.  The film tacks on a quasi-happy ending that speaks a little too bluntly of hope, but it also acknowledges that the world has a long way to go before it recovers from this situation.  As End of the World fictions go, that’s pretty much the best we can hope for, right?

MVT:  The foreboding wasteland that the world has become is effectively presented both visually and attitudinally.

Make or Break:  The greenhouse sequence is a standout in the horror genre, in my opinion.

Score:  7/10 

The League Of Gentlemen (1960)

Okay, guys, it’s cards on the table time.  I have been to a lot of gentlemen’s clubs.  I mean a lot.  I have probably spent more money in these sorts of places than I have on my education and wardrobe combined (and if you’ve ever met me, you would find this extremely easy to believe, I guarantee it).  The way these places are typically portrayed on film is slightly exaggerated, though.  They’re usually depicted as dens of inequity, where there are no boundaries, and any woman’s body can be bought, in total, if the price is right.  Not true.  Oh, I’m sure there are places like that out there (though they invite the nomenclature “brothel” rather than “strip club” or “gentlemen’s club”).  I haven’t been in them (or if I have, I never witnessed anything along the lines of illegality).  Yes, really.

The strippers I’ve met were generally nice women simply looking to make a living in a way they are both adept at and out of which they derive some small amount of pleasure (or at least don't entirely loathe).  And even if you did get friskier than you should (and no, I did not, thank you very much), there are ample muscle-bound bouncers around to put you (and the ladies) in check.  I haven’t been in one of these clubs in a long while, but the last time I was in one, the experience was different.  The atmosphere of fun there used to be fun was all but gone (or at the absolute minimum, vastly changed).  I can only assume this is me getting old, finding places and people I used to enjoy have become shrug-worthy rather than exciting.  Perhaps it’s because these places, which used to be avoided by most, have become not only culturally accepted, but just plain cool to visit (remember what Groucho Marx said about clubs and memberships?).  And this is why I come down in the middle if I were to be asked whether I would to like hang out in a gentlemen’s club or with Basil Dearden’s The League Of Gentlemen.  Sadly, either would reach about the same level of fun from my current outlook.      

Seven men, at various low points in their lives, receive a copy of John Seaton’s The Golden Fleece with one half of a five-pound note in each.  Heeding the call, they meet with one Mr. Hyde (Jack Hawkins) for a luncheon.  The enigmatic man reveals that they are all ex-military, and, like the characters in the novel he sent them (which, by all accounts [and like its writer], is a fiction invented by either the filmmakers or John Boland, the [real] author of the [real] novel on which this film is based), he would like to plan and execute a daring, daytime robbery with their support. 

Primarily, this is more of an Assemble The Team film than it is a Heist film.  The majority of the runtime deals with prepping for the heist and how the men come together to do just that.  The reason for this, to my thinking, is because of the nature of these men.  Being ex-military, these men know about following orders and about the need for efficiency in such an undertaking.  This supersedes the differences over which the men would likely have conflicts.  For example, Stevens (Kieron Moore) is a homosexual, and he winds up rooming with the most heterosexual of the group, Lexy (Sir Richard Attenborough).  However, after a brief offhand remark about keeping the lights on at night, the situation is dropped, and the men get along like a house on fire.  And that’s part of the problem.  The men have very little to overcome in order to become a team, and their pasts do not intrude much to cause complications.  Thus, we are left with a film where the only tension comes in the form of the work the men take on, rather than from issues they have with each other.  This would be all well and good, were more of the film focused on the job, but much of it is following the men around as they cheerfully perform their duties like clockwork (accompanied by an anthemic, march-style score from Philip Green).  It makes for a bit of dry viewing, though it needs to be said that there are also several genuinely funny moments (one of the best being a breezy comment in regards to the status of Hyde’s wife), and stylistically the film’s camerawork and editing performs with the military precision of its characters.  So, in that respect it clicks.

Each of the men has a reason why he is taking on this job.  Porthill (Bryan Forbes) wants the money to escape the life of being a low-rent gigolo.  Rutland-Smith (Terence Alexander) wants the money to escape an emasculating wife.  Lexy wants the money to buy into a lifestyle (and especially the women that come with it) which has eluded him.  As I stated above, however, these issues take a back seat once the training begins.  The reason for this is because it is not the money that these men truly crave.  It is the military lifestyle they used to share which each needs to fill the hole in his life.  All of them were drummed out of the military for one reason or another (and it’s not as if these discharges were unwarranted; one of them even got soldiers killed due to his alcoholism and gross negligence).  But the prepping and execution of the heist allows them to get back into and essentially complete a portion of their lives which had been cut short.  This is exemplified in the scene where the team pays a visit to a military training camp.  The men slide easily back into their military roles, and there is a facile confidence exuding from each of them which was not there when we first met them.  They may need the money, but they want to be military men again (or at least regain those aspects which gave their lives structure).  It’s a primal drive that fulfills their souls, not their wallets.   Without this they would be common criminals but with it, they are brothers-in-arms.

MVT:  The heist is not handled as if it is the most important element of the film, what with each portion of it being carried off with very little kerfuffle to it.  However, it looks exceptional, and the smoke-choked streets, combined with the team scurrying around with gas masks and machineguns, is reminiscent of the classic images we have in our cultural consciousness of scenes of trench warfare from World War Two.  These striking visuals carry the audience over the more pedantic aspects of the picture (though it can certainly be argued that meticulousness is one of the main, if not THE main, draw of a Heist film). 

Make Or Break:  The first meeting of The League is a classic of exposition and whetting the appetite.  We get more background information on the characters, while also raising some new questions about them and their motivations.  Further, the scene solidifies the plot, handily, and it does it in a visually interesting fashion (no small feat, since it all takes place in one room; not quite Twelve Angry Men, but still…).

Score:  7.25/10