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Poster for The Day the Earth Caught Fire
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The Day the Earth Caught Fire

Director: Val Guest Run Time: 98 min. Format: Digital Rating: NR Release Year: 1961

Starring:  Michael Goodliffe,  Renée Asherson, Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern

A London reporter has the scoop on the end of the world in the British science-fiction classic THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE.

Peter Stenning is a depressed British reporter who gets by with the help of his friend, veteran journalist Bill Maguire. Along with weather forecaster Jeannie Craig, they discover that the simultaneous nuclear explosions set off by the United States and Russia have drastically altered the earth’s rotation. Fires and earthquakes ravage cities all over the world, and chaos and sickness descend upon the frightened survivors as they try to put the planet back on its axis. Directed and co-written by Val Guest (The Quatermass Experiment), The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a clever work of speculative fiction that, like the other films in our series, reveals a terrifyingly real post-apocalyptic existence.

Part of Nitehawk’s May THE WASTE LAND brunch and midnite series.

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