DAY THE WORLD ENDED-1956–My two favorite Roger Corman Sci-Fi movies of the ‘50’s are NOT OF THIS EARTH and this one whose “story begins with The End”. Jim Maddison (Paul Burich; NOTE’s alien) has a house in a valley fortified against a H-Bomb drop. He and his daughter Louise (Lori Nelson) await the arrival of her fiancée. He never gets there but 5 others do. A geologist named Rick (Richard Denning), Tony, a gun toting thug (Mike “Touch” Connors) and his abused stripper “moll” Ruby (Adele Jurgens), a prospector (Jonathan Hale) and his donkey Diablo (no credit listed) and the radiation scarred Radek (Paul Dubov).
Trouble starts almost immediately when Tony takes a liking to Louise. This makes Rudy jealous. Tony plans to make Louise his “Eve” and eliminate everyone else. He and Rudy spit vicious dialogue at each other. Jim and Rick discuss “The Matsuo Project” and look at sketches of animals with fangs and claws. Jim thinks the women should bear children as soon as possible. The prospector bemoans his lost gold strike, makes moonshine and talks to his mule. When Louise goes swimming she hears “something” calling her name…
Meanwhile, Radek makes nightly rounds out in the woods eating contaminated animal meat. He has some great eerie dialogue, telling Rick about ‘the wonderful things going on” above the radiation line and declaring, “I have an enemy. He wants to kill me”.
The enemy turns out to be an armor-plated mutant with claws and a third eye! After Tony kills Ruby and throws her (very phony) body over a cliff, Radek decides make a meal out of Diablo but never gets to munch as he’s killed by his “enemy”. Heartbroken, the prospector decides to go get his gold and is killed by the radiation. Unfortunately Jim tries to save him and gets infected.
Through what seems to be a telepathic link the mutant monster gets Louise in a trance and kidnaps her as it begins to rain. Rick goes after her. When Jim discovers the rain is not contaminated Tony figures it’s time to make his move. Meanwhile Rick and Louise encounter the monster but the rainfall kills it. Tony zeros in his gun on Rick but Jim shoots and kills him (the look on Connors' face when he dies is priceless).
Jim dies but not before offering some philosophical wisdom and Rick and Louise go off to become the new Adam and Eve (although Jim hears some voices on the radio before he shoots Tony).
DTWE is a great claustrophobic little sci-fi film. Although a few parts are unintentionally funny Corman keeps it fairly serious and creepy. The mutant as played by it’s creator AIP SFX specialist Paul Blaisdell is cool but a little bit “rubbery” as all of his monsters tended to be but hell, this was the ‘50s! It’s also interesting to note that the monster was probably Louise’s now mutated fiancée, which would sort of explain his telepathic link to her.
Another unusual touch occurs near the beginning when all the survivors are assembled and Jim reads them the riot act. He mentions that “the women” will sleep in Louise’s room and “the men” will sleep in his room. Tony’s reaction, a glance at Ruby, says he's pissed.
Since this was an American International Picture many of the cast and crew made numerous appearances together in other projects around the same time. Paul Burich was in another interesting AIP cheapie in 1956, THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES. He delivers much of his dialogue stiffly but seriously. My favorite line is what he says about Tony: “I know his kind. Spawned in bilge water”. Richard Denning may have seemed a little old to play the heroic love interest lead but after all this was “the end of the world”. How choosy could you be! DTWE was one of two Roger Corman movies Denning made in 1956. The other was THE OKLAHOMA WOMAN (also written by DAY’s scripter Lou Rusoff). He also starred in Edward L. Cahn’s GIRLS IN PRISON with Adele Jurgens. It too was written by Rusoff. Denning’s other well known Sci-Fi films include CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN, TARGET: EARTH, THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and UNKNOWN ISLAND.
Lori Nelson herself was terrorized by “The Gill Man” in THE REVENGE OF THE CREATURE. Her other AIP movies include HOT ROD GIRL and UNTAMED YOUTH. Adele Jergens known for playing hard-boiled “floozy” types made only two more pictures then retired. Her husband was Glenn Langan, The Amazing Colossal Man himself! Mike “Touch” Connors was actually an AIP movie vet but would go on to TV stardom in the shows TIGHTROPE and MANNIX. He was also in THE OKLAHOMA WOMAN as well as SHAKE RATTLE AND ROCK (with Jonathan Hale & Paul Dubov) and THE 10 COMMANMENTS in 1956! AIP veteran player Jonathan Haze appears briefly as a hungry radiation victim that Radek winds up eating!
DAY THE WORLD ENDED was one of a bunch of movies remade in the early ‘60’s by the recently departed Larry Buchanan for AIP-TV. That version used the same plot and some of the dialogue and featured former teen idol Paul Peterson (from THE DONNA REED SHOW) in the Richard Denning role.
A made for HBO movie starring Randy Quaid is a remake in name only!
Hey! Look What I Found!
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