Day the World Ended

source: Day the World Ended

How come no one seems to worry when Ruby doesn't come back from her walk? OK, so she is a *, but strippers are people too! For God's sakes, I mean all the men went out on a search mission when Diablo, the burro, turned up missing, :-) And if they are running out of food, why didn't they butcher Diablo? After all, it was dead. And they could just pretend it was "deviled ham." Or would that have offended the SPCA? And what evolutionary advantage do the mutants gain by having useless small "arms" growing out of their shoulders. Or was that just a fashion statement?

I saw "The Day the World Ended" on its initial release. I was 13. The threat of nuclear Armageddon was never completely out of our thoughts during this period and the film's monster – especially when it was revealed that he was the radiation-altered husband of our heroine – was particularly frightening to me: the multiple eyes, the drippy horns, that awful row of teeth, its shambling walk... This was especially frightening when I realized, at the end, that this shuffling thing was an ordinary, caring, loving man trying to get back to his wife. My uncle managed the Lyric Theater in Chester, Pennsylvania where such movies were standard fare, so I got to see the thing for free and, of course, returned at least a half-dozen times to steep myself in the awfulness of what might happen if I got horribly irradiated during an atomic war. I never got over feeling a bit creepy as the creature crawled through that irradiated haze of post-world's end night. Come read the site: http://www.FeralFiction.com

Director Roger Corman's first sci-fi film effort in 1956, "The Day The World Ended", is a low-budget, marginal film. The story involves an older man(Paul Birch) and his lovely, grown daughter,(Lori Nelson) who are holed up in their house after a nuclear holocaust has decimated most of the worlds population; their home has been protected from radioactive fallout by the surrounding mountains. The setting is limited to the house and its immediate surrounding area; Corman makes some attempt at post-holocaustic atmosphere by using smoke-generators in the surrounding foothills. At the start of the film, Birch and Nelson are suddenly besieged by five survivors, including a burrow - who all inexplicably arrive within a short time of one another. One of the survivors has been affected by radiation and is horribly disfigured on one side of his face. It struck me as unusual that some of them appeared remarkably clean and well groomed for this sort of situation. The characters are varied and much of the conflict results from the contrasting personalities, especially in regard to the limited supplies and to geologist(Richard Denning's) and tough guy(Mike "Touch" Conner's, later TV's Mannix) heated competition over the young Nelson. Denning and Conners give the best performances in this film, Adele Jergens(Connor's girlfriend) also delivers an entertaining bit when reenacting her striptease dancing act. However, the interactive scenes within the house drag on and on for most of the movie without a glimmer of the "mutant monster" (Paul Blaisdell); the monster finally appears after some foreshadowing, but is remarkably inept in its attack on Denning and Nelson and quickly dies from exposure to the "pure rain" that comes just in time. Anti-climatic; with Denning delivering the cliche', "Man created him, God destroyed him". Not much comic relief except for the ridiculous looking monster, who wouldn't frighten anyone but the very young (I saw it at a local drive-in when aged 12 or 13, and although it appeared interesting at the time to my youthful eyes, it was certainly not scary), and a laughable scene where Conners sticks his exposed hand out a window to collect rainwater in a container to see if it's contaminated by radiation. Some of the dialogue is atrocious, for example, one of the characters suggests that human skin exposed to radiation could be called "atomic skin" - I rolled at that one. A one-time viewing of "The Day The World Ended" should be more than enough for most, except for perhaps the most ardent Corman fan.

This story starts at the end ! So the film's opening credits advise us. Unfortunately that's not true as we then are treated to around 70 minutes of a typical B science fiction movie of the 1950's. The story is dreary; the plot is very weak and has clearly been filmed on a low budget, as was often the case in those days. The story could have covered any situation where people are taking refuge in an isolated house and being threatened by someone outside. it just happened to be adapted to fit round a sci-fi story. The scenery consisted of a few rocks, bushes, and smoke. - Oh yes there was a pool of water as well. Someone wore a rubber mask with a beak like face and what looked like feathers. Written by Lou Rusoff, who penned several sci-fi stories around that time including The She Creature and It Conquered The World The filming was completed in a matter of days, not allowing the actors time to develop their characters to better advantage. The low budget restraints also prevented this film reaching its potential. It could have been a much better film than it turned out to be. Mike Connors and Richard Denning brought some life to the film, but even they could not lift this film into the category where you could say- 'I enjoyed that film' Richard Denning's acting career began in 1937. He starred with Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember and later became more well known on television in the series Hawaii Five-O and The Flying Doctor series. Directed by Roger Corman who has many films to his credit both as a director and producer. He has made some good films and is still making them. He became very well known for his direction of films from the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, often starring Vincent Price. He also made other low budget films; some were good and entertaining for one reason or another, and most were much better than this. I would not recommend this film to anyone. Darnmay 10th September 2007

Nuclear war has destroyed the world and a group of people congregate in Paul Birch's compound, created for such a disaster. He only has enough supplies for 3 people and is not thrilled about having others around even if his beautiful daughter (Lori Nelson) insists he help them. Among them are brawny and heroic Richard Denning, who seems to know what the disaster is capable of doing, the shifty Mike Connors, who sets his sights on Nelson while trying to get rid of his over-the-hill burlesque hall performer girlfriend (an overly made-up Adele Jergens), and an old man with a mule (Raymond Hatton). Jergens tries to pal around with Nelson (more to keep an eye on her and away from Connors than a desire for friendship), but Nelson becomes strangely aware of the presence of something watching them. Is it one of the men inside the compound or some menacing monster created by the nuclear explosion? Well, it's apparent that it's the later, because the shadows of some ugly creature are seen. And wait until you really see it. It's worthy of inclusion as one of the silliest looking creatures of the sci-fi craze of the 1950's. It's no wonder that young people today look back at the 50's sci-fi with reluctance and consider it all so silly because in many cases, it is. There are some genuine classics of the genre ("Them", "The Thing", "The Day the Earth Stood Still"), and a lot of dreck. This is one of the latter. Most of the performances are not worthy of criticism, but two in particular (Connors and Jergens) are filled with such humorous nuances that they can't go unmentioned. Jergens seems more like Connors' drunken Auntie Mame than his girlfriend, while Connors can't get a line out with a sneer. There is an outrageously funny finale to their pairing. Watch this with a comic frame of mind, and you will enjoy it much more and not feel like you've wasted 90 minutes of your time.

This movie's low budget gives it a rough, desperate, impoverished, almost documentary kind of feel, strangely anticipating the faux documentaries of the 21st Century and the gimmicks of 'Blair Witch Project' and 'Cloverfield'. This works to its advantage, along with a script and actors that somehow give an aire of verisimilitude to the somewhat far-fetched plot. There is perhaps an allegorical appeal to the scenario...diverse characters, thrown together by fate as society disintegrates, alternately waiting for the end and hoping for a miracle. The various characters form an imperfect microcosm for society, and it seems strangely plausible that a gangster and his moll would occupy the End Time with cheap thrills and attempts to seize power, while a dedicated father and military officer would cling desperately to authority and structure. There is a really great, understatedly bizarre scene that stands out: in this scene, Our Hero Richard Denning is talking with his brother, who, due to excessive exposure to atomic radiation, is slowly transforming into a cannibalistic monster. While Denning and the rest are confined to a small, radiation free valley, the brother, because he is mutating, goes in and out of the radiation zone at will. He tells Denning this: 'There's new things going on out there...exciting things!' One can only imagine what kind of new things in a post-apocalyptic world a cannibalistic atomic mutant would find 'exciting.' It's a moment of cinematic genius, that's for sure. The retired military officer who commands the survivors thumps the Bible a few times, and there are a number of overt Judeo-Christian references. The ending certainly contains a religious aspect. It would be interesting to know if Roger Corman had obtained funding from a religious group to make this film, or if the references were included simply for artistic reasons. Either way, this is the earliest example I have seen wherein the nuclear doomsday scenario is wedded to the Christian concept of end times. From the 1960's onward until now, believers in the Christian Rapture have had a field day borrowing nuclear End Times material for their tracts, sermons, and novels...this film might be seminal in that regard. Still, I won't fault Roger Corman for the gawdawful 'Left Behind' novels and movies. No one would produce that junk if there weren't fools who would buy it.

When you are a kid in the "atomic decade" (1950's), you grow up knowing that anything that will kill you and cause you a lot of pain and agony in the process, is a mutant monster caused by an overdose of atomic radiation. This movie added to the fear. The movie poster art for this film added to prep-fear. I have seen this movie again as an adult and thought the mutant monster was funny due to the crude costume. However, due to the impact that it had on me as a kid, I have to give it above average marks.

A 1957 Roger Corman non epic in which a sundry bunch of characters end up in a lead lined valley (sic) just as stock footage thermo-nuclear heck is unleashed. It's the end of the world. Four men with guns, two women, (one an unmarried virgin the other a Las Vegas show girl who drinks and smokes - guess which one makes it to the end of the movie?) Time passes, tensions develop (or are supposed to). Something is in the woods eating radioactive rabbits. A mutant monster! Seven weeks of radioactive dust has performed "a million years of evolution" (on an already living human) the result is a laughably bad, zip up the back, rubber monster who is strangely scared of their only source of fresh water. It rains. The monster dissolves. The remaining two characters, the Hunk and the Virgin. set out to repopulate the world as the caption 'The Beginning' fills the screen after it transpires that the brief shower of rain had washed all the radioactivity away and dissolved all the monsters running around 'out there'. The only thing of real note about this is the incredible amount of 'curtain acting' that goes on in it. One of the staple elements of bad and lo budget movie making of the period was the superabundant use of curtains in the set design. It was cheap. Finished with one set-up? Pull a curtain across, drop a different piece of furniture in front of it and you have a different location in minutes without having to move the camera or change the lighting. 'Curtain acting' is a skill in which the actor will get to comment on what's going on outside any building he happens to be in ("It looks like Rain", or "Here they come now, and it looks like they've got the sheriff with them!", that sort of stuff). He'll do this by standing to one side of the window - reaching across his body and lifting the curtain away from the window but along the axis of the shot - ie towards the camera - thus enabling him to pretend to look out and tell us what's happening off screen, without letting the audience see he's staring at the studio wall three inches away from his nose behind some cheap velvet curtains. There was a lot of that in this movie.

The film begins by telling the viewers that there was an all-out nuclear war and almost all the people on the planet are dead. However, a small number of survivors happen upon a home built in a perfect location to avoid nuclear contamination--and coincidentally, they all arrive one after the other within about two minutes! There are some serious problems, though, that hinder their survival. The most pressing is that there just isn't enough food for all of them. Also, there is a contaminated man who has somehow survived but has mutated into a vampire-like thing. But the worst are bizarro monsters--the sort of bug-eyed one that naturally were created by radiation! Will these folks somehow survive? And, given that several of them are complete idiots, do we even want them to?! Among the humans is a total sleaze-bag played by Mike "Touch" Connors (of "Mannix" fame). He constantly is threatening the others, acting like a thug and ogling the pretty young lady who wants nothing to do with him. My question, then, is why didn't they just shoot this guy?! At one point, he tries to take the leader's gun and then promises to kill them--yet they do nothing! So, he tries it again later--yet they do nothing! He even attempts to rape one of the women and murders another. You'd think that enough would be enough!! His character is simply a very broad caricature of a hoodlum--too broad. And, the rest of the folks are simply too stupid to live! In addition to Mr. Mannix, the contaminated guy develops a taste for fresh, raw meat and begins talking about the deaths of everyone there at his hand or those of his new 'friends'! Once again, you'd think they would just shoot this guy! In many ways, this plot is a lot like the plot from the Vincent Price film "The Last Man on Earth"--but with stupid bug-eyed monsters. It's the normal survivors versus the mutants. Now that I think about it, it's also a bit like the horrible "Robot Monster"! The end result is quite stupid, though considering the film was made in only nine days on a shoestring budget, it isn't too bad--plus it has a certain kitsch value. It also had a few cool scenes--such as when Connors tosses one of them off a cliff! The basic idea wasn't bad, but shabby writing and a dumb monster sink this film.