Peter Stenning (Edward Judd) is a reporter for the Daily Express who, due to his divorce, spends a lot of his time drinking. As a result, Peter has been given stories that are not exactly Earth shattering. Peter also has a son that he can only see with supervision. His best friend is a fellow newspaperman, Bill Maguire (Leo McKern) and the only reason that Peter hasn’t yet been fired. Peter hasn’t yet fallen into the gutter, but he is headed in that direction if he doesn’t snap out of it.
One of the bigger stories of the day is that the Americans were testing an atomic bomb and detonated their biggest yet near the South Pole. The testing has raised concerns from citizens everywhere who have begun sending letters protesting the tests. There have also been reports of sunspots that are interfering with radio communications. Some believe they have been responsible for recent changes in the weather.
Later it is revealed that the Soviet Union was also doing some testing and detonated bombs in Siberia at the same time the U.S. did. Not long after that the world begins to experience massive climate changes. An eclipse occurs that was not predicted. Peter goes to the Met offices to get the latest weather predictions. At the Met is where Peter meets and flirts with Jeannie Craig (Janet Munro), a young woman who works in the typing pool. They become attracted to each other.
Scientists figure out that the explosions have knocked the Earth off its axis and that the Earth’s nutation has been altered by eleven degrees. Areas that were cold are becoming tropical and areas that had been at the equator are now cooling down. Freak weather phenomena are happening all over the globe. In addition, it appears that the Earth has also been dislodged from its orbit and is working its way directly toward the sun. Unless something can be done to alter this new reality, the Earth will burn up.
“The Day the Earth Caught Fire” was released in 1961 and was directed by Val Guest. It is a British science fiction disaster movie. It took Guest eight years to get the movie done. No one wanted to finance the film. Guest eventually had to front the money himself.
The movie was made in black and white; however, for the American market the opening and closing sequences were tinted in sepia colors to enhance the image of intense heat that the characters were experiencing. There’s also some nice stock footage of a newspaper printing office. For a low budget movie, it’s done quite well. The special effects include miniatures and some nice matte paintings. The film is a bit of a slow mover, but the intensity doesn’t let up. The dialogue is quick and smart. It’s a very good judgment day movie without all the religious overtones. It’s more thought provoking than action oriented.
A nutation is basically a slight wobble. It is the swaying or oscillation of the axis of a rotating body like the Earth. It is also like the action of a plant wavering as it grows. The action on the planet is caused by the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon on the Earth. This affects the Earth’s precessional motion (slower movement). The Earth wobbles along its axis which affects the apparent movement of the stars. In essence, nutation is the short-term variation in the tilt of the Earth. Precession is the long-term motion of the Earth. The main difference between the two is that the precession is a smooth and more continuous change in the direction of the planet and the nutation is a smaller wobbly change in the tilt of the planet. At least to my understanding of the physics.