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Village of the Damned (1960 film)
Encyclopedia
Village of the Damned is a 1960 British science fiction film
by German
director Wolf Rilla
. The film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel The Midwich Cuckoos
by John Wyndham. The lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby was played by George Sanders
. This film was #92 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. A sequel, Children of the Damned
, followed in 1963, as well as a remake in 1995
.
About two months later, all women and girls of childbearing age who were in the affected area are discovered to be pregnant, sparking many accusations of infidelity and premarital sex. The accusations fade as the extraordinary nature of the pregnancies is discovered with three-month fetuses appearing to be developed to a stage of five months. All of the women give birth on the same day, and the doctor doing the bulk of the deliveries reports on the unusual appearance of the children, who all have unusual scalp hair texture and colour (pale blond, almost white), striking eyes and unusual finger nails. As they grow, and develop at impossible speed, it becomes clear that they also have a powerful telepathic bond with one another. They can tell each other anything that they see from great distances. As one learns something, so do the others.
Three years later village resident Professor Gordon Zellaby (Sanders), who is connected to the military via his brother-in-law (Gwynn), attends a meeting with British Intelligence to discuss the children. There he learns that Midwich was not the only place affected, and followup investigations had revealed similar phenomena in other areas of the world.
Although only three years old, they are physically the equivalent of children four times their age. Their behaviour has become increasingly unusual and striking. They dress impeccably, always walk as a group, speak in a very adult way, are very well-behaved...but they show no conscience
or love
and demonstrate a coldness to others. All of this has had the effect of most of the villagers fearing and being repulsed by them.
They begin to exhibit the power to read minds when expedient, or to force people to do things against their will. The latter is accompanied by an alien glow in the children's eyes. There have been a number of villagers' deaths since they were born, many of which considered unusual (such as the drowning of an expert child swimmer), and it is the opinion of some that the children are responsible. This is later confirmed when they are shown making a man crash his car into a wall, killing him and then forcing his suspicious brother to shoot himself.
Gordon, whose 'son' David is one of the children, at first is eager to work with the children. With government agreement, he attempts to teach the children while hoping to learn from them, and the children are all placed in a separate building where they will learn and live. While the children continue to exert their will, Gordon learns that the Soviet government has used an atomic cannon to destroy the village containing their own spawn of mutant children.
Gordon compares the children's resistance to reasoning with a brick wall, and uses this motif as self-protection after the children's inhuman nature becomes obvious to him. He takes a hidden time-bomb to what he expects to be a session with the children, and tries to block their awareness of the bomb by visualizing the brick wall. David scans his mind - showing an emotion (astonishment) for the first time - "You're not thinking of atomic energy, you're thinking of...a brick wall!" The children exert force to try to break down Gordon's mental wall to learn what he is hiding from them. They discover his actions just a moment before the bomb detonates.
In the final shot the glowing eyes of the children appear against the background of the burning building, then move out of shot.
was contracted for the leading role, but MGM shelved the project, deeming it inflammatory and controversial because of the sinister depiction of virgin birth. Colman died in May 1958—by coincidence, his widow, actress Benita Hume
, married actor George Sanders
in 1959, and Sanders took the role meant for Colman.
The film was shot on location in the village of Letchmore Heath
, near Watford
, approximately 12 miles (20 kilometres) north of London. Local buildings such as The Three Horseshoes Pub and Aldenham School, were used during filming.
The blonde wigs that the children wore were padded to give the impression that they had abnormally large heads.
The children were lit in such a way as to cause the iris and pupils of their eyes to merge into a large black disc against the whites of their eyes in order to give them an eerie look.
The glowing-eye effect, when the children used their mental powers, was achieved by creating animated overlays of a bright white iris; this created a bright glowing iris with a black pupil when optically printed into the film. This technique was used mostly on freeze frames to create the required effect, the only sequence of live motion processed in this way being the scene where David tells Alan Bernard to "leave us alone," where the eye effect appears as David speaks. The other time David's eyes go from normal to glowing on screen (after one of the girl children is nearly run down by a car), a two shot of the girl and David, is in fact a composite shot split by a slightly jagged black line; the half with the girl is live motion, and you can see her hair moving in the breeze, whereas the half with David is freeze frames with the eye effect added.
A similar split screen effect is used during the first scene of a boy and girl using their powers to stop their 'brother' stealing a puzzle box; the close ups of the Mother holding the boy as his eyes begin to glow and she turns to look at him are achieved as above this time without a black line separating the freeze frames of the boy from the live motion of the Mother. The final effect of the children's eyes zooming out of the flames of their burning school house utilized multiple exposures of a model head with glowing eyes which the camera zoomed in on.
Alternative UK prints without the 'glowing eyes' effects exist, which show that during the final sequence, in the close-ups, the kids widen their eyes as they 'attack' Zellaby's mind unlike the freeze frames with added glowing eyes used in the American prints. Another example is a slight smile that David makes after setting one of the villagers on fire in the UK print; the freeze frames of the American print obviously do not contain such subtle detail. This print also has a credit for being filmed at MGM's British studios, that is not on the American prints. According to Peter Preidel who played one of the children in the film the initial UK release in June 1960 had no glowing eyes; they were added for the American release in December 1960. The Guardian newspaper claimed in an article in 2003 that the British censors precluded the use of glowing eye effects in the initial UK release as being too horrific.
"And now we come to the nitty-gritty: why didn't the Children's eyes glow in the recent BBC screening? When I originally saw the film back in Australia as a kid I was particularly taken (i.e. scared witless) by the way the Children's eyes glowed whenever they used their mind powers. I'm sure I've seen the same version since but, as with the last BBC screening, I've also seen the movie sans glowing eyes. Why two versions?" from a review by John Brosnan, Starburst Magazine No.173 January 1993, after a screening of the film on BBC2 during 1992.
by the British censors the film opened in June 1960 at The Ritz cinema in Leicester Square
, London
, according to director Wolf Rilla
(interviewed in 2003 by the BBC), it soon attracted audiences, with cinema goers queueing round the block to see it. The 18 June 1960 edition of The Guardian
had this to say:
Positive reviews also appeared in The Observer
(by C.A. Lejeune): "The further you have moved away from fantasy, the more you will understand its chill"; The People (by Ernest Betts), "As a horror film with a difference it'll give you the creeps for 77 minutes"; and Dilys Powell in The Sunday Times
on 20 June 1960:
The American critics were also in favour of the film. Time magazine, December 1960:
Positive reviews also appeared in the New York Times (by Howard Thompson) "as a quietly civilized exercise in the fear and power of the unknown this picture is one of the trimmest, most original and serenely unnerving little chillers in a long time" and Saturday Review (by Hollis Alpert) in January 1961: "An absorbing little picture that you may yet be able to find on some double-feature bill."
Pittsburgh's Loew Penn Theatre ran Village of the Damned from 18 January 1961, even in the UK the film was still playing in cinemas such as the ABC Regal in Levenshulme
, Manchester
in March 1961, on a double bill with The Hand (1959) starring Derek Bond
.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
by German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
director Wolf Rilla
Wolf Rilla
Wolf Rilla was a film director and writer of German background, although he worked mainly in English.He worked on both versions of Village of the Damned, in the first as director and in the second as a writer....
. The film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel The Midwich Cuckoos
The Midwich Cuckoos
The Midwich Cuckoos is a science fiction novel written by English author John Wyndham, published in 1957. It has been filmed twice as Village of the Damned in 1960 and 1995.-Plot summary:...
by John Wyndham. The lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby was played by George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
. This film was #92 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. A sequel, Children of the Damned
Children of the Damned
Children of the Damned is a 1963 science fiction film, a thematic sequel to the 1960 version of Village of the Damned. It is about a group of children, with similar psi-powers to the original seeding, but without the obvious 'alien' differences in the earlier film.-Plot:Six children are identified...
, followed in 1963, as well as a remake in 1995
Village of the Damned (1995 film)
John Carpenter's Village of the Damned is a 1995 science fiction-horror film directed by John Carpenter. It is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name which is based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. The 1995 remake is set in the United States, while the book and original film...
.
Plot
All of the inhabitants (including the animals) of the British village of Midwich suddenly fall unconscious, and anyone entering the village also loses consciousness. The military arrives and establishes a cordon. The pilot of an observation aircraft goes below 5,000 feet, loses consciousness, and the plane crashes. A five mile exclusion zone around the village is established for all aircraft. The military send in a man wearing a gas mask, but he too falls unconscious and is pulled back by a safety rope. The man awakens, reporting a cold sensation just before passing out. At nearly that very moment, the villagers regain consciousness, seeming otherwise unaffected. The incident is referred to as a "time-out," and no cause is determined.About two months later, all women and girls of childbearing age who were in the affected area are discovered to be pregnant, sparking many accusations of infidelity and premarital sex. The accusations fade as the extraordinary nature of the pregnancies is discovered with three-month fetuses appearing to be developed to a stage of five months. All of the women give birth on the same day, and the doctor doing the bulk of the deliveries reports on the unusual appearance of the children, who all have unusual scalp hair texture and colour (pale blond, almost white), striking eyes and unusual finger nails. As they grow, and develop at impossible speed, it becomes clear that they also have a powerful telepathic bond with one another. They can tell each other anything that they see from great distances. As one learns something, so do the others.
Three years later village resident Professor Gordon Zellaby (Sanders), who is connected to the military via his brother-in-law (Gwynn), attends a meeting with British Intelligence to discuss the children. There he learns that Midwich was not the only place affected, and followup investigations had revealed similar phenomena in other areas of the world.
- In a township in northern AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, thirty infants were born in one day but all died within 10 hours of birth. - In an InuitInuitThe Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
community in CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, there were ten children born. Fair-haired children born to their kind violated their tabooTabooA taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
s, and all of them were killed. - In IrkutskIrkutskIrkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...
, RSFSRRussian Soviet Federative Socialist RepublicThe Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
, the men murdered all of the children and their mothers. - In the mountains of the north-western Soviet UnionSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, the children survived and were being educated to the highest possible level by the state.
Conscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
or love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
and demonstrate a coldness to others. All of this has had the effect of most of the villagers fearing and being repulsed by them.
They begin to exhibit the power to read minds when expedient, or to force people to do things against their will. The latter is accompanied by an alien glow in the children's eyes. There have been a number of villagers' deaths since they were born, many of which considered unusual (such as the drowning of an expert child swimmer), and it is the opinion of some that the children are responsible. This is later confirmed when they are shown making a man crash his car into a wall, killing him and then forcing his suspicious brother to shoot himself.
Gordon, whose 'son' David is one of the children, at first is eager to work with the children. With government agreement, he attempts to teach the children while hoping to learn from them, and the children are all placed in a separate building where they will learn and live. While the children continue to exert their will, Gordon learns that the Soviet government has used an atomic cannon to destroy the village containing their own spawn of mutant children.
Gordon compares the children's resistance to reasoning with a brick wall, and uses this motif as self-protection after the children's inhuman nature becomes obvious to him. He takes a hidden time-bomb to what he expects to be a session with the children, and tries to block their awareness of the bomb by visualizing the brick wall. David scans his mind - showing an emotion (astonishment) for the first time - "You're not thinking of atomic energy, you're thinking of...a brick wall!" The children exert force to try to break down Gordon's mental wall to learn what he is hiding from them. They discover his actions just a moment before the bomb detonates.
In the final shot the glowing eyes of the children appear against the background of the burning building, then move out of shot.
Cast
- George SandersGeorge SandersGeorge Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
as Gordon Zellaby - Barbara ShelleyBarbara ShelleyBarbara Shelley is an English film and television actress.She is now retired, but was at her busiest in the late 1950s and 1960s when she became Hammer Horror's number one female star, with The Gorgon , Dracula, Prince of Darkness , Rasputin, the Mad Monk , andQuatermass and the Pit among her...
as Anthea Zellaby - Martin StephensMartin Stephens (actor)Martin Stephens is an English former child actor, best known for his performances in the films Village of the Damned and The Innocents...
as David Zellaby - Michael GwynnMichael GwynnMichael Gwynn was an English actor. He attended Mayfield College near Mayfield, East Sussex. During the Second World War he served in East Africa as a major and was adjutant to the 2nd Battalion of the King's African Rifles.He is perhaps best remembered in contemporary culture as the shyster Lord...
as Alan Bernard - Laurence NaismithLaurence NaismithLaurence Naismith was an English actor.Naismith appeared in films such as Carrington VC , Richard III , Sink the Bismarck! , Jason and the Argonauts , and Diamonds Are Forever . He also starred in a children's ghost film The Amazing Mr Blunden...
as Doctor Willers - Richard Warner as Harrington
- Jenny LairdJenny LairdJenny Laird was a British film and television actress.-Selected filmography:* Passenger to London * Black Eyes * Just William * The Lamp Still Burns...
as Mrs. Harrington - Sarah LongSarah LongSarah Long was a British actor and television presenter.Born in London, she is best known for her long run as a presenter on the preschool children's television series Play School from the 1960s until the 1980s...
as Evelyn Harrington - Thomas HeathcoteThomas HeathcoteThomas Heathcote was a British character actor.He was educated at Bradfield College, near Reading in Berkshire, England. His films included A Night to Remember , Village of the Damned , Billy Budd , A Man for All Seasons , Night of the Big Heat and Quatermass and the Pit...
as James Pawle - Charlotte MitchellCharlotte MitchellCharlotte Mitchell is an English actress and poet.She was once the girlfriend of Peter Sellers, hence her occasional appearances on The Goon Show in the 1950s. Charlotte Mitchell was married to actor Philip Guard and is the mother of 3 children, actors Christopher Guard and Dominic Guard and...
as Janet Pawle - Pamela Buck as Milly Hughes
- Rosamund GreenwoodRosamund GreenwoodRosamund Greenwood was a British actress who was active on screen from 1935 until 1990.In a career stretching more than 50 years, Greenwood appeared in productions including The Prince and the Showgirl, Night of the Demon, Upstairs, Downstairs, Angels, Crown Court and A Perfect Spy...
as Miss Ogle - Susan Richards as Mrs. Plumpton
- Bernard ArchardBernard ArchardBernard Joseph Archard was an English actor.Born in Fulham, London, he was a tall, imposing actor with a distinctive face. He was a conscientious objector in the Second World War and worked on the land...
as Vicar - Peter VaughanPeter VaughanPeter Vaughan is an English character actor, known for many supporting roles in a variety of British film and television productions. He has worked extensively on the stage, becoming known for roles such as police inspectors, Soviet agents and similar parts...
as P.C. Gobby - John PhillipsJohn Phillips (actor)William John Phillips MC, was a British actor. He is best remembered for the role of Chief Superintendent Robins, in the television series Z-Cars and for his work as a Shakespearean stage actor.-Early life:...
as General Leighton - Richard VernonRichard VernonRichard Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles...
as Sir Edgar Hargraves - John StuartJohn Stuart (actor)John Stuart, born John Alfred Louden Croall , was a Scottish actor, and a very popular leading man in British silent films in the 1920s. He appeared in two films directed by Alfred Hitchcock....
as Professor Smith - Keith PyottKeith PyottKeith Pyott was a British actor.He transferred from stage to screen and was a regular face in drama in the early days of television, appearing in The Prisoner, Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, and the Doctor Who story The Aztecs.He also appeared in over twenty feature films, including Orson...
as Dr. Carlisle
Production
The film was originally an American picture when preproduction began in 1957. Ronald ColmanRonald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
was contracted for the leading role, but MGM shelved the project, deeming it inflammatory and controversial because of the sinister depiction of virgin birth. Colman died in May 1958—by coincidence, his widow, actress Benita Hume
Benita Hume
Benita Hume was an English film actress. She appeared in 44 films between 1925 and 1955.She was married to actor Ronald Colman from 1938 to his death in 1958; they were the parents of a daughter, Juliet...
, married actor George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
in 1959, and Sanders took the role meant for Colman.
The film was shot on location in the village of Letchmore Heath
Letchmore Heath
Letchmore Heath is a village in Hertfordshire in England, situated about three miles east of Watford.-Locality:Letchmore Heath lies to the east of Watford, west of Radlett and south west of Aldenham. It is a pretty village of around 150 houses that due to its proximity to Elstree Studios has been...
, near Watford
Watford
Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District.Watford was created as an urban...
, approximately 12 miles (20 kilometres) north of London. Local buildings such as The Three Horseshoes Pub and Aldenham School, were used during filming.
The blonde wigs that the children wore were padded to give the impression that they had abnormally large heads.
The children were lit in such a way as to cause the iris and pupils of their eyes to merge into a large black disc against the whites of their eyes in order to give them an eerie look.
The glowing-eye effect, when the children used their mental powers, was achieved by creating animated overlays of a bright white iris; this created a bright glowing iris with a black pupil when optically printed into the film. This technique was used mostly on freeze frames to create the required effect, the only sequence of live motion processed in this way being the scene where David tells Alan Bernard to "leave us alone," where the eye effect appears as David speaks. The other time David's eyes go from normal to glowing on screen (after one of the girl children is nearly run down by a car), a two shot of the girl and David, is in fact a composite shot split by a slightly jagged black line; the half with the girl is live motion, and you can see her hair moving in the breeze, whereas the half with David is freeze frames with the eye effect added.
A similar split screen effect is used during the first scene of a boy and girl using their powers to stop their 'brother' stealing a puzzle box; the close ups of the Mother holding the boy as his eyes begin to glow and she turns to look at him are achieved as above this time without a black line separating the freeze frames of the boy from the live motion of the Mother. The final effect of the children's eyes zooming out of the flames of their burning school house utilized multiple exposures of a model head with glowing eyes which the camera zoomed in on.
Alternative UK prints without the 'glowing eyes' effects exist, which show that during the final sequence, in the close-ups, the kids widen their eyes as they 'attack' Zellaby's mind unlike the freeze frames with added glowing eyes used in the American prints. Another example is a slight smile that David makes after setting one of the villagers on fire in the UK print; the freeze frames of the American print obviously do not contain such subtle detail. This print also has a credit for being filmed at MGM's British studios, that is not on the American prints. According to Peter Preidel who played one of the children in the film the initial UK release in June 1960 had no glowing eyes; they were added for the American release in December 1960. The Guardian newspaper claimed in an article in 2003 that the British censors precluded the use of glowing eye effects in the initial UK release as being too horrific.
"And now we come to the nitty-gritty: why didn't the Children's eyes glow in the recent BBC screening? When I originally saw the film back in Australia as a kid I was particularly taken (i.e. scared witless) by the way the Children's eyes glowed whenever they used their mind powers. I'm sure I've seen the same version since but, as with the last BBC screening, I've also seen the movie sans glowing eyes. Why two versions?" from a review by John Brosnan, Starburst Magazine No.173 January 1993, after a screening of the film on BBC2 during 1992.
Reactions
Given an 'A' certificateHistory of British film certificates
-Overview:The UK's film ratings are decided by the British Board of Film Classification and have been since 1912. Previously, there were no agreed rating standards, and local councils imposed their own - often differing - conditions or restrictions...
by the British censors the film opened in June 1960 at The Ritz cinema in Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, according to director Wolf Rilla
Wolf Rilla
Wolf Rilla was a film director and writer of German background, although he worked mainly in English.He worked on both versions of Village of the Damned, in the first as director and in the second as a writer....
(interviewed in 2003 by the BBC), it soon attracted audiences, with cinema goers queueing round the block to see it. The 18 June 1960 edition of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
had this to say:
Positive reviews also appeared in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
(by C.A. Lejeune): "The further you have moved away from fantasy, the more you will understand its chill"; The People (by Ernest Betts), "As a horror film with a difference it'll give you the creeps for 77 minutes"; and Dilys Powell in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
on 20 June 1960:
The American critics were also in favour of the film. Time magazine, December 1960:
Positive reviews also appeared in the New York Times (by Howard Thompson) "as a quietly civilized exercise in the fear and power of the unknown this picture is one of the trimmest, most original and serenely unnerving little chillers in a long time" and Saturday Review (by Hollis Alpert) in January 1961: "An absorbing little picture that you may yet be able to find on some double-feature bill."
Pittsburgh's Loew Penn Theatre ran Village of the Damned from 18 January 1961, even in the UK the film was still playing in cinemas such as the ABC Regal in Levenshulme
Levenshulme
Levenshulme is an urban area of the City of Manchester, in North West England. It borders Longsight, Gorton, Burnage, Heaton Chapel and Reddish, and is approximately halfway between Stockport and Manchester City Centre on the A6 road. The A6 bisects Levenshulme. The Manchester to London railway...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
in March 1961, on a double bill with The Hand (1959) starring Derek Bond
Derek Bond
Derek William Douglas Bond MC was a British actor.-Life and career:Derek Bond was born 26 January 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland. He attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hampstead, London. He saw active service with the Grenadier Guards in North Africa during the Second World War, for which he...
.
Home media release
- MGM/UA video released the film on NTSC VHSVHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
in the US in 1995, there was also a German VHS release. It has also been released in the US on VCDVCDVCD is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, as described below:* VCD Athletic, semi-professional football team* Video CD* Voice command device* Value change dump * Vocal cord dysfunction* Visual Communication and Design...
and with the sequel on LaserdiscLaserdiscLaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
. - Warner Home Video released the film on DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
as a 2 Disc NTSCNTSCNTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
Region 1 set under the Horror Double Feature title with 'The Children of the Damned' in August 2004. both films were 16:9 ratio, original Trailers for both films were also included. A UK Region 2 PALPALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
DVD release, initially exclusive to HMVHMVHis Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
, of this 2 Disc set was released in 2006. - Village of the Damned - Den Fortabte By, was released on DVD in Denmark in October 2006, a single Disc without the 'sequel'. The original Danish title of the film (released on 13th Nov 1961) was 'Raedslen fra Himmelrummet' which can be translated as 'Horrors of Celestial Space', the Danes also originally gave it the subtitle 'Satan Eyes'. The subtitle used for this DVD release means 'The Lost City' and was also the title given to John Carpenter's 1995 remake in Denmark.
Sources
- 'Beware the Stare' (2003) BBC Radio 4 Documentary (11/12/03) (Wolf Rilla interview).
- 'Return of the Cuckoos' (2003) Guardian newspaper article (5/12/03). retrieved (25/05/09)
- Cinema, TV and personalities from the Levenshulme Area website (newspaper clipping of cinema listing March 17th 1961 ABC Regal.) retrieved (28/05/09)
- Cinema Treasures website (list of films that played at the Pittsburgh Loew Penn theater from June 1958 - September 1964) retrieved (28/05/09)
- Skyrack Newsletter No.20 dated (20/06/60) bottom of page this note - *** Ritz, Leicester Sq. showing VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (Midwich Cuckoos)(Archive website of Skyrack newsletter published between April 1959 and July 1971) also No.10 dated (01/12/59) this note# MGM-British are to make the Midwich Cuckoos with George Sanders. And a short positive review of the film in No.21 dated (25/07/60)by George Locke.
- The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television website (original 1960/61 press reviews) retrieved 28/05/09)
- The New York Times website (Harry Thompson review December 8, 1960, page 43)
- Exclamation Mark website (comment posted by Peter Preidel April 30, 2009) retrieved (25/05/09)
- Starburst Magazine No.173 (Vol.15/No.5) January 1993 issue, page 50. (John Brosnan review of 1992 BBC2 screening sans glowing eyes.)
- Off air VHS of BBC2 1992 screening without glowing eyes.
- Off air recording of TCM 2009 screening (in 4:3 ratio) with glowing eyes.
- BBFC website VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED rated A by the BBFC, 2 May 1960. retrieved (16/06/09)
- www.uncut.dk//Videoteket, Danish website - details of Danish DVD and original Danish film titles. retrieved (17/06/09)