There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, though, it’s not quite the same the second time around…
Children of the Damned (1964)
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Directed by: Anton M. Leader
Years ago, before “tent poles” and obvious if unnecessary “trilogies,” Hollywood used different measures to exploit the hell out of a hot property:
When MGM got the film rights to the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, they rushed to make a version of the film that was set in the US. Thankfully, cooler heads and frozen budgets prevailed, which forced them going forward to move the setting back to the UK and gave us 1961’s Village of the Damned:
The response to the film was so positive, that the studio immediately green-lit… a kinda-sorta remake:
We open in a British school in London where four young boys are given a 3D puzzle, to assemble a cube out of numerous randomly-cut pieces. The test is being conducted by Dr. Tom Llewellyn (Ian Hendry), a psychologist who uses a stopwatch to time how long it takes them to solve the test.
We watch a wide range of responses; one of the young men chucks all the pieces off the table in frustration, while another, Paul (Clive Powell), finishes assembling the cube in 35.7 seconds.
As Paul leaves the classroom, in comes Dr. David Neville (Alan Badel) whom we discover is both a geneticist and David’s flat mate. (These two men have their own bedrooms in the apartment, probably at the insistence of the British Film Board’s censors, which means you can read what you want into their relationship to taste.) They discuss how extraordinary Paul is, and decide to pay a visit together to his home to see what role genetics may play in his development.
When they get there, they find Paul’s mom, Diana (Sheila Allen in her first theatrical role). She’s a “model” who welcomes the gents in for a “session,” ifyouknowwhatImean, before the vibe is killed by Tom and David as they ask about Paul’s father. She claims she’d “never even been touched” by anyone as she throws them out, before she turns to Paul to let him know how she feels about him.
Paul, in turn, stares at his mom, and makes her play in traffic to get back at her:
We are soon informed that Paul is one of six children of extraordinary intelligence being brought together in London by UNESCO to be studied. Among the little geniuses are the USSR’s Nina (Roberta Rex), the USA’s Mark (Frank Summerscale), India’s Rashid (Mahdu Mathen), Nigeria’s Aga (Gerald Delsol), and China’s Mi (Yoke-Moon Lee). All six of the kids share a lot in common: No dad in the picture, stiff upright gaits, creepy piercing eyes; any intelligent viewer would know right away that there’s something unsettling going on.
(Of the kids, only Rex, Summerscale, and Delsol would appear in any other roles beyond this film. As we never hear any of these six’s names come up as examples of the trials of child actors, it’s probably safe to assume that they avoided many of the pitfalls in that profession…)
And indeed, someone in intelligence notes this right away: Paul and David get a visit from Colin Webster (Alfred Burke), who works for HM’s secret service. Tom discovers that Colin had a past relationship with David before Tom came along, ifyouknowwhatImean. But there’s no time to mull over the past as Colin tells the two doctors why he’s in town: He has orders to secure Paul in case the government wants to make use of this super-genius, or in case some other power wants him for their own purposes.
The kids, though, have their own idea: As one (as interconnected telepaths are wont), they decide to run away from their embassies and homes and hole up in an abandoned church in Southwark, along with Mark’s dog and Paul’s aunt, Susan (Barbara Ferris), because they decide they need an adult on hand.
Soon it’s a contest between the different powers of the world to get one up over the other states as they try to best exploit utilize their children. It’s also a contest between all the adults and the six kids, who have their own plans…
Speaking of plots, screenwriter John Briley was under no compunction to do more than necessary to come up with what the opening credits claims is “[a] sequel to John Wyndham’s ‘The Midwich Cuckoos'”. There are a lot of elements that are used whole scale from prior film and novel, and had he just filed off the serial numbers and plugged them in, it would have been a serviceable effort.
Briley, though, adds fresh elements that gives the property room to breathe on its own. Giving a few good zingers to Badel’s David as he snidely comments on things on screen at random, Briley sets up a few scenes that catch everyone’s interests, scenes that could have made the movie stand out better were it not beholden to its pedigree.
In moving the main action from out in the countryside to London, and allowing us to see the offspring that sprang from other places on the planet, the scope of the film expands over the original’s, but having the original exist to compare it to keeps the film from being able to thrive on its own. Unfortunately, by adding aspects to the story that reflect on the arms race, the film manages to raise the stakes in terms of the threat posed at the expense of the cozy personalized horror the children in the other film radiated.
The rest of the talent on the project does its best within the limits that being in a remake imposes. This was Leader’s first of two films he directed, the rest of his career being spent on episodes of American television series, and he turns in a workmanlike unspectacular result. The cast as a whole give in decent performances and make the lines written for them pop. And rather than just re-use the score he did for Village of the Damned, Ron Goodwin provided a new soundtrack that brilliantly serves the picture.
All the good efforts on behalf of the pic, though, could not keep the film from being eclipsed by its predecessor. Audiences looked at the movie and could not stop comparing it with Village of the Damned. The fact that the film leaned heavily into its arms race-superior beings plot meant that audiences couldn’t stop comparing it with The Day the Earth Stood Still, either, and in both cases Children of the Damned would be found wanting.
In later years, the original story would be remade as a film in 1995, three radio play adaptations by the BBC between 1982 and 2017, and a TV series in 2022. At no point has anyone even mentioned the “sequel” made in 1964.
Suffer the little children…
