The Day of the Triffids (film): Difference between revisions
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==Plot summary== |
==Plot summary== |
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[[Triffid]]s are strange [[List of fictional plants|fictional plants]], capable of rudimentary animal-like behavior: they are able to uproot themselves and walk, possess a deadly whip-like poisonous [[sting (biology)|sting]], and may even have the ability to communicate with each other. On screen they vaguely resemble gigantic [[asparagus]] shoots. |
[[Triffid]]s are strange [[List of fictional plants|fictional plants]], capable of rudimentary animal-like behavior: they are able to uproot themselves and walk, possess a deadly whip-like poisonous [[sting (biology)|sting]], and may even have the ability to communicate with each other. On screen they vaguely resemble gigantic [[asparagus]] shoots. |
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Bill Masen begins the story in hospital, with his eyes bandaged. He discovers that while he has been blindfolded, an unusual [[meteor shower]] has blinded most people on Earth. Masen finds people in [[London]] struggling to stay alive in the face of their new, instantly-acquired affliction, some cooperating, some fighting: after just a few days society is collapsing. |
Bill Masen begins the story in hospital, with his eyes bandaged. He discovers that while he has been blindfolded, an unusual [[meteor shower]] has blinded most people on Earth. Masen finds people in [[London]] struggling to stay alive in the face of their new, instantly-acquired affliction, some cooperating, some fighting: after just a few days society is collapsing. |
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Not to be mistaken for the later TV series of the same name, this movie features such scenes as: a plane full of panicking, rioting blind people crashes and explodes; a train crashes in the station spilling mobs of frightened blind people from its side; London is engulfed in flames; our hero fights a forest of triffids with a flamethrower made out of a gas tanker hose; and our other hero, backed up to the top floor of an island lighthouse by an overwhelming force of triffids, blasts them down with a seawater fire hose, wading through triffid sludge and green triffid gas as his wife, in her high pants and bouffant do, screams in utterly Grecian helplessness. |
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Though very rare to find, it is a sterling representative of early 60's apocalyptic sci-fi in that it titillates the imagination and makes the unthinkable exciting. Its sins actually work for it rather than against it- for example, the comparatively low budget means that it relies on the human factor to immerse the audience in the world of the movie, and the primitive technicolor contributes to the surreal mood and murky monsters. |
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==Relationship to novel== |
==Relationship to novel== |
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Revision as of 05:41, 7 February 2009
 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (February 2009) |
| The Day of the Triffids | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Steve Sekely |
| Written by | Bernard Gordon Philip Yordan |
| Produced by | George Pitcher Philip Yordan |
| Starring | Howard Keel Kieron Moore Janette Scott Nicole Maurey Mervyn Johns |
| Cinematography | Ted Moore |
| Edited by | Spencer Reeve |
| Music by | Ron Goodwin |
| Distributed by | Allied Artists |
| Country | UK |
The Day of the Triffids is a 1962 British film adaptation of the science fiction novel of the same name by John Wyndham.
It was directed by Steve Sekely, and Howard Keel played the central character, Bill Masen. The movie was filmed in colour with monaural sound and ran for 93 minutes.
Plot summary
Triffids are strange fictional plants, capable of rudimentary animal-like behavior: they are able to uproot themselves and walk, possess a deadly whip-like poisonous sting, and may even have the ability to communicate with each other. On screen they vaguely resemble gigantic asparagus shoots.
Bill Masen begins the story in hospital, with his eyes bandaged. He discovers that while he has been blindfolded, an unusual meteor shower has blinded most people on Earth. Masen finds people in London struggling to stay alive in the face of their new, instantly-acquired affliction, some cooperating, some fighting: after just a few days society is collapsing.
Relationship to novel
The film retained some basic plot elements from Wyndham's novel, but it was not a particularly faithful adaptation. "It strays significantly and unnecessarily from the book and is less well regarded than the BBC's intelligent (if dated) 1981 TV serial." [1]
Unlike the novel, the Triffids arrive as spores in an earlier meteor shower, and some of the action is moved to Spain. Most seriously, it supplies a simplistic solution to the Triffid problem: salt water dissolves them, and "the world was saved". This alternate ending (including the religious tone) appears to be closer to the ending of The War of the Worlds than Wyndham's novel, as the invading aliens succumb to a common product of Earth (as the Martians died of bacteria) and both end with a religious tone to them (quite unlike Wyndham). This ending was also used to similar effect in Shyamalan's Signs.
References in popular culture
It is this version of the film to which the song "Science Fiction Double Feature", from The Rocky Horror Show, refers, in the line: "And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott fight a triffid that spits poison and kills..."
A Triffid appears as one of the aliens in Area 52 in Looney Tunes: Back in Action.