MovieChat Forums > The Damned (1965) Discussion > A troubled production

A troubled production

posted 17 years ago by poxyzad
3 replies | jump to latest

I agree with all the comments about this being a memorable movie and if things had worked out better it could have been a masterpiece. Unfortunately from what I have read about the production dear old Hammer somewhat lost their nerve about what Joseph Losey had served up to them. Rather like the distributers of The Wicker Man lost their nerve later.
The question that caused Hammer problems is the same question that plagued the Wicker Man - namely "what was it?!" Its not quite a scifi but its not quite a horror - is it a "message" movie about nuclear disarmament - is it a tale of disaffected youth?
Hammer apparently cut the film about something terrible before releasing it as the support half of a double bill in 1963 - the big film was Maniac. And if you watch the film carefully you can see some awkward chop and changes - the film story "lurches" about quite a bit which presumably where the cuts occurred.
One final point the statues created by Vivica Lindfors were specially sculpted by one of Britains leading sculpters of the time - Elizabeth Frink.
Somebody should go back and research the making of this neglected fim in depth - such has been done with movies like Wicker Man and Django. It deserves it.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] babettegillette 15 years ago

The message I got from the movie was not only about a resignation that there would be a nuclear war(and the children were an attempt to ensure human survival), but also the gang and the dropout Simon character were an admission that society was disintegrating. Which begs the question, if it is not possible to overcome/evolve human nature than would the children do any better than previous attempts at civilization?

[–] 35541m 14 years ago

Some of the production history is covered in Wayne Kinsey's Hammer Films: the Bray Studio years. The "cutting" done by Hammer for the UK release was only 8m and does not seriously harm the film. It was cut a further 10m by Columbia for the US release.

The problem is that the film is a bit of a mess. The first half an hour is awful and you have to wade through that to get to the better stuff. This opening section also gave Losey the most problems and was significantly re-written very close to the start of the shoot. The original script was written by Ben Barzman (uncredited in the film for reasons either related to the blacklist or because Losey fell out with him depending on who you believe) and then re-written by Euan Jones who gets sole writing credit.