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Village of the Damned (1960)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 4:43 pm    Post subject: Village of the Damned (1960) Reply with quote




This unique British production is an excellent, well-regarded sci-fi film about twelve super-intelligent and emotionless children.

Even the opening scenes are original and fascinating. The entire population of a small English village inexplicably falls unconscious one day, and the authorities move in to determine what has caused the alarming phenomenon.

The methods for investigating the mystery are admirably logical and practical. Even so, the mystery proves unsolvable, and several months pass while both the authorities and the worried populace of the village ponder the problem.

And then things really get weird. Every woman in the village who is capable of bearing a child finds herself pregnant — even the women who are virgins! They all go into labor several months prematurely, but the babies turn out healthy, and they begin to mature very rapidly.

After they're born, the children are similar in appearance (pale, blond, and strangely emotionless), and they possess unearthly powers such as telekensis and telepathy. Whenever they use these powers, their eyes glow. The FX for these scenes are simple but extremely effective.






Barbara Shelley ("Five Million Years to Earth") stars as the mother of one of the children, and George Sanders ("From the Earth to the Moon") is the husband who realizes he's not really the father. Sanders specu??lates that the children are a strange kind of surrogate invasion force, a group of unnaturally created bodies which are possessed by alien life forms. He learns that similar groups of children have been born in other places around the world.





The screenplay is by Sterling Silliphant, George Barclay, and director Wolf Rilla.

Many reviewers mistakenly dub "Children of the Damned" (1964) a sequel to "Village of the Damned". Compare the plots and find out why it isn't.

In 1995, director John Carpenter took a crack at a remake. The cast was excellent, but the script and the editing defeated the effort. The story omits crucial concepts and rushes through others which made the original story interesting, despite its vagueness. The end result was insulting and laughable.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Danilo
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 9:38 am    Post subject: A very good movie Reply with quote

This is a very good movie. A real classic.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 2:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________

A first-rate trailer for a first-rate movie, with a remarkable premise that could be expanded into a terrific sequel.

However, a clever studio willing to do the job really well could start with a powerful and intelligent remake and then do the sequel with the same cast, screenwriter, and director.

Enjoy the trailer! Cool
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________ Village of the Damned (1960) - trailer


__________

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:17 am; edited 1 time in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 11:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

IMDB has a wealth of trivia items for this movie! Very Happy
________________________________

Originally begun in 1957 as an American picture to star Ronald Colman, MGM shelved the project, because it was deemed potentially inflammatory and controversial, specifically due to its sinister depiction of virgin birth. Colman had passed away by the time this film was slated for production in 1959; in an odd twist, his replacement was George Sanders, who had recently married Benita Hume, Colman's widow.

Note from me: Ronald Coleman would have been good, but I really like George Sanders' performance.

The blond wigs the children wear had a built-in dome to give the impression they had a larger-than-normal cranium size.

Note from me: I'd never noticed the alteration in the sizes of the children's heads!

The novel this film was based on was called "The Midwich Cuckoos". The title refers to the fact that when cuckoo birds lay eggs, they deposit them in the nests of other (unsuspecting) birds, who then raise the cuckoo chicks as their own. Compounding the insidious nature of this process, the cuckoo chicks often kill their nestmates in competition for food and parental attention.

Note from me: I've always wondered why the novel had such an odd name. But the explanation makes perfect sense — and those are some weird little birds! Shocked

The baby children were all played by Kim Clarke Champniss, who as an adult would become a very popular Canadian music journalist and television personality, especially familiar as one the original MuchMusic veejays.

Note from me: They fooled me! I never suspected that all the kids were played by the same child actress.

When little David opens the Chinese box for the chocolate, his father allows a blonde girl to also open the box. In the meantime, her mother is standing off to the side with another blonde boy in her arms. It's obvious looking at all three children that they're played by the same actor. The little girl is wearing a very obvious wig, and their faces are identical.

Note from me: Wow, the next time I watch this movie I'm going to have a lot of interesting things to watch for!

The original British release of the film, several months prior to the US release in December of the same year, showed the children's powerful gaze as a deep black-eyed penetrating visage. The US version was altered to give them the frightening, powerful glowing images seen in this version.

Note from me: Good golly Miss Molly, I would sure like to see the British version of this, just for fun! Very Happy

The eerie effect of the children's glowing eyes was created by matting a negative (reversed) image of their eyes over the pupils when they used their powers.

Note from me: I'm not sure this statement is true. If negative images of the eyes were placed over a normal photo, the highlight would turn into a black spot, and the pupil would be white. The dark ring around the iris would become the brightest part, and the inner part of the iris would actually be darker instead of lighter!








As shown in the photo below, however, what we actually see is a dark ring around the iris, with a brighter area inside it, and a normal white highlight and black pupil.





Since a negative image would require so many alterations to look the way it should, I'm more inclined to believe that photographs that had normal eyes were simply doctored with paint and brush.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Custer
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 12:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It is strange that, on the poster, "based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham" was in such small print. As the author also of Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes (or Out of the Deeps), and some other top quality novels, he did a lot to bring believable science fiction to a wider audience.
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Krel
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2017 9:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the novel, it is mentioned that the Military took high altitude photos of the area. Some photos showed a large spoon-shaped object on the ground, that was not there after the people woke up.

I love the scene where the kids were breaking down George Sanders mental wall, showing a brick wall being torn apart brick-by-brick. Perfect imagery.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
In the novel, it is mentioned that the Military took high altitude photos of the area. Some photos showed a large spoon-shaped object on the ground, that was not there after the people woke up.

The method by which the aliens impregnated the females is delightfully mysterious in this filmed version, and since the movie offers no evidence that a ship landed and aliens dashed around artificially inseminating the ladies, I'm prone to reject that explanation.

Plus, the film reveals that several other villages around the world experienced the same strange event (without evidence that aliens landed and did kinky things to the unconscious women), I'm inclined to prefer an explanation which involves something like a ship in orbit which "beamed" semen into the women.

On second thought, that sounds kinda dumb. Wow, I don't know how "they" did it. This movie poses some wonderful questions for us to ponder. Shocked

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It has been decades since I read the book, so I don't remember if there were other villages around the world. I have no problems with the mystery of the movie.

David.
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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______________________

________ Village of the Damned (1960) TRAILER


__________


This an adaptation of John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos. One day all the inhabitants of the township of Midwich suddenly keel over unconscious. The entire area is inside some alien null field. Any person who enters this field instantly loses consciousness.

This lasts for several hours, then everyone inside the field wakes up, none the worse for wear, though there is this feeling of cold (a pilot does die when he is directed to fly too low over the area).

Months later, all women and girls of child-bearing age are found to be pregnant, and they all giving birth on the same day, several months ahead of the normal nine months. The new children also grow at a rate of about twice as quickly as normal Earth children and soon exhibit uncanny powers of the mind. The famous visual is their glowing eyes.


___________Scenes from Village of the Damned


__________


It's also revealed that there were several other spots on our globe that were affected in the same manner — in Australia, Canada, and the Soviet Union.

The children in those areas were quickly killed for various reasons. In one affected area in the Soviet Union, the children were actually educated for a time, but then the area was nuked after the children's agenda of world conquest was found out. So, that leaves just the British area of Midwich.

This is a unique and chilling depiction of alien invasion. We never see the actual aliens, just their hybrid offspring. The children all have striking blonde hair and behave like a group mind, devoid of human emotion. They are obviously more intelligent than most humans, but this intelligence appears to sacrifice aspects of humanity, like compassion.

Children of the Damned (1963) is erroneously called a sequel, but the only similarity is the kids' glowing eyes. Otherwise the premise is very different. However, this movie was remade in 1995 by John Carpenter.

BoG's Score: 7.5 out of 10



__________


BoG
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 26, 2020 4:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
________________________________

~ A Question for the Members: In view of the fact that unseen aliens nearly succeeded in introducing "teams" of alien/human hybrids with superpowers who had a built-in awareness of why they were on Earth, doesn't it seem likely that the aliens would learn from their failure, perfect their strange method, and try again?

~ My Theory: The short answer is; hell yes! Shocked

The children demonstrated mental telepathy during the movie, both between members of the "team" and with the humans. We can assume that they've been reporting their progress to the aliens which caused their births. So, the aliens would be aware of what caused the failure of their plan in both England and Russia.

Knowing what went wrong, the aliens would modify their strategy and make adjustments.

For example, they would try again — but this time they would pick females who were not all living in one small community, thus avoiding the odd arrival of a group of unnatural infants who matured at an accelerated rate and had the same disturbingly similar appearance.

Since these unseen aliens appear to need subject females who can be rendered unconscious for a few hours while they're impregnated, perhaps the best subjects would be several rural families on isolated farms.

After the alien/human hybrid children reach a certain age (which happens quickly for these little monsters . . . ) they could murder their parents with fake "accidents" (such as house fires) and then allow themselves to be sent to different orphanages and foster homes.

Once they've grown to be the apparent age of teenagers, they could easily join up and live on the streets of some big city while they carried out whatever plan their alien creators had for them at that stage of their development.

If we assume that the above scenario has played out in different countries, the various groups around the world could eventually unite in some remote location which is largely isolated from normal human beings while they developed the next stage of their world conquest.

Wow . . . this is a creepy concept. Shocked

Come on, guys! Jump in here and add a few brilliant ideas or your own!

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Krel
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 26, 2020 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's assuming that they could be separated. They appeared to have a linked consciousness, which may have a limited range, or require the children to be in close proximity.

I think it safe to assume that the worlds governments will be on the watch for another such event, and would take actions to prevent the births. They could try in isolated areas with primitive cultures. But then there is the risk that such radically different offspring would be killed at birth.

It is possible that there was no guiding intelligence doing this. It could have been an automated ship that was sent out to roam the galaxy. When it found a planet with potential, it would impregnate some locals and move on. Sort of like a Von Neuman machine, but with living creatures.

You wouldn't need FTL travel, just robot ships wandering the universe with it's deadly (at least to the locals) cargo.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Valid statements, one and all. Bravo, David!

You've really stimulated more speculation on the subject. Very Happy

Your comment about the teams of "children" needing to be in close proximity is certainly valid. We do know that they can be as far apart as their individual homes in the village, because Sanders uses a Chinese puzzle box to demonstrate to his friend that his own one-year-old son can figure it our fairly quickly.

Then Sanders and his friend go to the house of another child and Sanders gives it to her. She opens it even faster than Sander's son did. Sanders says that he's used experiments like that to show that anything one of them learns, they all know immediately.

By the way, I wonder if I misunderstood this statement.

Krel wrote:
It is possible that there was no guiding intelligence doing this. It could have been an automated ship that was sent out to roam the galaxy. When it found a planet with potential, it would impregnate some locals and move on. Sort of like a Von Neuman machine, but with living creatures.

In that case, wouldn't the "guiding intelligence" be the builders of the automated ship? It would just the tool or surrogate that accomplished the deed on the aliens' behalf.

However, that does raise an interesting point. If the births were instigated by an automated ship which moved on, at least we wouldn't have to worry about a second attempt. Very Happy

But if there were additional attempts, your statement below caused to me give that problem a closer look.


Krel wrote:
I think it safe to assume that the worlds' governments will be on the watch for another such event, and would take actions to prevent the births. They could try in isolated areas with primitive cultures. But then there is the risk that such radically different offspring would be killed at birth.

If there were aliens who monitored their experiment on Earth and learned from the mistakes made in the first attempt, it would be difficult to safeguard against another event, simply because there are so many remote areas in the world that would have to be watched closely . . . for years! Shocked

With that in mind, we should consider the possibility that the aliens might try something very sly . . . like causing only two super-babies to be born at a time in a given location. And if they did this only in Scandinavian regions such as Finland, Sweden and Norway, the blond super-babies would seem less unusual.

Finally, the aliens could arrange for each birth to be twins, which would produce a "two-member team" of super-babies who would be raised together.

As soon as the very first set of twins matured enough to become self reliant (which wouldn't take long for these beings) they could leave home, change their names, and stay hidden in a large city.

These two would quietly get in touch with the next oldest twins (born a few months later than the first pair) when they too had matured enough to join them. Eventually they would joined by the third oldest, the fourth oldest, etc.

All of them would, of course, dye their hair different colors to avoid the dead giveaway which that blond hair would cause. Laughing

In about ten years the group would be fairly large, with adults and juveniles of various ages, along with younger ones which the alien adults could either kidnap or adopt. At some point they could form a sort of "communion" in a remote location and carry out the next stage of the invasion . . . whatever that might be.

Then again, perhaps the aliens would just gradually inhabit a single apartment building in a city like New York, using their powers to cause the normal humans to vacate the units a few at a time whenever the aliens needed more room.

Eventually the entire community of alien beings would occupy all the rented rooms, free to do whatever they needed to within their "hive"!

What a great idea for a sequel! I can just see the poster. Very Happy




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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Krel
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud, what I meant by no guiding intelligence is that the ships were autonomous robot ships with no active oversite. They were just released on the galaxy to do their damage.

The ships wouldn't need any embryos, just a supply of DNA to be bonded to the victim. That way they could adapt to a wide range of humanoid species. Very likely what happened in Midwich.

The problem with doing it in small groups, is that the world would still be looking for instances of people loosing consciousness, then the women becoming pregnant. Doctors would be on the lookout for virgin pregnancies, and women who were previously unable to get pregnant, who suddenly are pregnant.

David.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

David, please forgive me if I offend you with my frank statement below concerning our differing opinions about this. I'm just having fun sparring with a fellow intellectual with whom I sometimes disagree. Cool

Just for the record, I don't really buy the idea of an automated ship that seeds planets with hybrids and moves on. I mean, what would be the point? What do the builders of the automated ship have to gain?

My main complaint is that story wise it's not real exciting. But maybe that's just me. Sad

As for my original concept, the problem is that I thought I'd already made it clear with my prior comments (including my funny poster for the sequel) that the last thing I expected was for the aliens to screw up their invasion the same way twice! Shocked

That said, I'll try to clear things up . . . again.

Sir, I simply refuse to believe that alien beings who are intelligent enough to "invade our planet" in such a novel way are too damn dumb to learn from their mistakes after their first attempt, and fail to make modifications in their plan before they tried again.

You seem convinced these aliens would foolishly repeat all the boners they'd already committed! If that was true, then this discussion proves that I'm a lot smarter than THEY are! Shocked

No sir, I'd rather believe they're smart enough (and interesting enough, story wise) to FIX those mistakes and do a better job the next time around!

Exactly what mistakes am I talking about? Let's review them, shall we? Very Happy

~ The aliens knocked out all the people in an English village for a significant period of time, causing the authorities to immediately rush in and investigate! (So much for being secretive . . . )

~ The aliens impregnated every female in the village who was capable of bearing children — again causing the authorities to investigate, and alarming the entire population with this unnatural event! (So much for being subtle . . . )

~ The aliens created human/alien hybrids which were all born on the same day — and several month earlier than normal! Add to this the fact that the babies were all physically abnormal in several ways, as stated in the movie. (So much for not alarming the indigenous species).

~ The aliens didn't seem to realize that the abnormal growth rate and the superior mental abilities of these human/alien hybrids would alert the authorities to the obvious fact that the children were created by an alien species! (So much for not revealing the true nature of the threat. Rolling Eyes)

~ The aliens allowed the children to use their powers to cause several deaths in ways that defied explanation! (This made sure that mankind knew the aliens were hostile! Shocked)

David, if these aliens are so freakin' stupid they'd allow all those things to happen — and yet not figure out just how badly they'd botched their invasion — you're right in suggesting we don't need to worry about these bozos trying it again!

But as a science fiction writer and the site admin of a message board which is dedicated to presenting interesting and intelligent concepts — both in science and sci-fi — I'm not real keen on the idea of dumb-ass aliens making a mess of their first attempt to invade us . . . and then trying the same plan all over again!

In short, sir, lets give these aliens credit for a little sense and figure out what their Plan B might be. Very Happy

However, if you're not interested in doing that . . . well, I've got 12,258 posts which you might like better, and I'd be extremely honored if you replied to any of them. Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Krel
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Just for the record, I don't really buy the idea of an automated ship that seeds planets with hybrids and moves on. I mean, what would be the point? What do the builders of the automated ship have to gain?

My main complaint is that story wise it's not real exciting. But maybe that's just me. Sad

Not offended at all. And you are correct my idea isn't very exciting. It was intended to provide a different view.

My idea is you have an advanced race, that has the technology and ability to build spacecraft, but does not possess faster than light travel. Maybe there is a problem in their star system, on their world, or maybe they are physically incapable of*, or just have no desire to travel themselves. BUT! They do want to colonize other worlds. To spread their kind. So they start building automated, slower than light interstellar spacecraft to go out and seed other worlds. The ship finds a likely world, commits its crime, then moves on looking for another world to infect.

Besides, who's to say that they didn't seed other places on Earth, which were not found. It could have been in an area isolated enough that the children were able to take over before the humans could figure out the danger. But the children did have enough difficulties that they realized they had to hide until their numbers were large enough.

It would only take one initial group. They could be in an isolated location, unknown to the rest of the world. Quietly building their numbers so they can eventually push out the natives.

Just like a cuckoo does in another bird's nest.

David.

*If they are for some reason unable to travel themselves, then the ships could be FTL.
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