Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

unbrokenmetal Dr. David Conway (William Leslie) develops a method to predict earthquakes, and promptly one occurs within 24 hours. But the worst is yet to come, he declares. A 'new element 112' is going to cause much stronger earthquakes soon, they may even make the Earth explode. 28 days are left to prevent that, therefore scientists all over the planet get to work.It's fun to compare 50s disaster movies to the productions we get nowadays. The scientists in the 50s arrived clean shaven in the morning to continue their job of saving the world, bringing the kids into a high security area for a little play during lunch break - apparently saving the world was a much more relaxed job in those days. In the 2010s, they find hardly enough time to breathe, let alone shave. Also a sign of the times is a remarkably misogynistic scene when Laura Hutchinson (Kathryn Grant, known for 'The 7th Voyage of Sinbad') climbs down into a cave and the guys ridicule her fear, being so weak like all females. They wouldn't say that to Lara Croft nowadays. Anyway, it's a mild entertaining sci-fi flick of its times, with a running time of just over an hour it doesn't have any lengths to sit through, I give it 5 of 10.

Michael_Elliott The Night the World Exploded (1957) ** (out of 4) This science-fiction film has pretty much been forgotten because director Fred F. Sears and producer Sam Katzman would follow it up with THE GIANT CLAW, which of course would find a major cult following. This film here has a couple scientists trying to discover the cause for a recent outbreak of earthquakes that are causing major destruction around the world. With the help of a machine, the two realize that the really big one is coming and they must come up with a way to stop it. THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED runs a quick 64-minutes and is pretty entertaining throughout but at the same time there's just no way for the film to tackle all the important issues brought up in it and especially with such a small budget. The budget is without question one of the smallest I've seen from a Katzman production and there's really no evidence that any money was spent on this thing. Right from the start we're greeted with non-stop stock footage, which shows the destruction of the earthquakes, the mass problems that followed and even the flooding. All of these things have an impact on the story and when we cut away to the stock footage it's just so obvious and it does take away from what you're seeing. I will give the filmmakers a lot of credit for coming up with a pretty good explanation as to why the earthquakes are happening and what it's going to take to stop them. The film is mostly dialogue driven so extra credit has to go to the fact that it really never gets boring. Yes, some of the scenes are dragged out a bit but not to the point where you get bored. Kathryn Grant and William Leslie play the leads and offer up fine performances. If you're looking for a film with ground-breaking effects then you're certainly not going to find it here but fans of the 50's sci-fi should be mildly entertained.

SanteeFats Okay this is a fifty plus year old movie. So scientific knowledge was very lacking by today's standards. The unknown element that explodes when taken out of water is a different scenario for a movie this old. Usually it seems to be some unknown monster, parasite, or some other unknown substance or some alien presence or matter. Kathryn Grant was in a lot of early movies, as eye candy I assume since she typically plays a secretary or some other subordinate to a man's position. Of course she gets the man she has fallen for by the end.Thankfully women are much more accepted and valued in today's world, even in the movies, usually. The scene where the sample in the globe hanging on the tree shows an explosion from the ground and not from the globe. The machine that predicts an up coming earthquake is a nice touch but when the girl is trapped in the cavern the gauges do not correspond to the messages. All in all though this movie is entertaining enough to watch but not to own, art least in my opinion.

wayne.godbehere Entertaining typical 50's sci-fi low budget offering with slightly above average plot line for the time.However, particularly amusing are scenes in the military command aircraft which used card tables and folding chairs in front of mock-up aircraft porthole windows.