I'm afraid this film of John Wyndham's 1951 novel has little to recommend it. It starts off well enough with Bill Masen (Howard Keel) waking up in hospital in London the morning after a spectacular meteorite show, taking off his eye bandages to discover almost everyone has gone blind watching it. The consequences of this are well indicated in an understated, British, sort of way. When the End does come, the Brits will patiently queue up for their turn to die. Then the film deviates sharply from the book and adds in a parallel plot which never intersects with the main one about an alcoholic marine scientist Tom Goodwin (Kieran Moore) and his despairing wife Karen (Janette Scott) who are stuck in a lighthouse surrounded by triffids, a flesh-eating plant energized and turned very nasty by the meteorite shower.
Bill and Susan (Janina Faye) the young girl he rescues from a train wreck dodge a few triffids and head off to France (the book stays in England). A nice French lady Christine Durrant (Nicole Maurey) has opened up her elegant château to victims, but the bad guys (escaped convicts) arrive and Bill, Susan and Mme Durrant head off for Spain where they meet another nice, but blind couple in an elegant hacienda about to have a child and discover a way of dealing with the triffids. Meanwhile, back at the lighthouse, the triffids invade, Janette Scott does some really impressive screaming (immortalized in the Rocky Horror Show song) and hubby finds another use for seawater (cheaper than Scotch I guess).
I feel for John Wyndham who lived long enough to see this travesty produced. His story received some justice in a BBC series with John Duttine in 1981. PD James's "Children of Men", filmed excellently by Alphonse Cuaron in 2006, owes something to the Wyndham novel. There are some improbabilities, but like PD James he starts off from a perfectly reasonable premise what would happen if 99% of the population were struck blind.
The talented Moore who did the cinematography on several of the early Bond films does not get much opportunity here (though he wisely keeps the triffids in the shadows) ; the acting is wooden, except for Janette Scott, and the direction by Steve Sekely mostly unimaginative. The script, by the blacklisted Bernard Gordon, does have its moments but, no, sorry, this film is pretty well a total write-off; watch the BBC version instead. Or, or course, read the book.
Bill and Susan (Janina Faye) the young girl he rescues from a train wreck dodge a few triffids and head off to France (the book stays in England). A nice French lady Christine Durrant (Nicole Maurey) has opened up her elegant château to victims, but the bad guys (escaped convicts) arrive and Bill, Susan and Mme Durrant head off for Spain where they meet another nice, but blind couple in an elegant hacienda about to have a child and discover a way of dealing with the triffids. Meanwhile, back at the lighthouse, the triffids invade, Janette Scott does some really impressive screaming (immortalized in the Rocky Horror Show song) and hubby finds another use for seawater (cheaper than Scotch I guess).
I feel for John Wyndham who lived long enough to see this travesty produced. His story received some justice in a BBC series with John Duttine in 1981. PD James's "Children of Men", filmed excellently by Alphonse Cuaron in 2006, owes something to the Wyndham novel. There are some improbabilities, but like PD James he starts off from a perfectly reasonable premise what would happen if 99% of the population were struck blind.
The talented Moore who did the cinematography on several of the early Bond films does not get much opportunity here (though he wisely keeps the triffids in the shadows) ; the acting is wooden, except for Janette Scott, and the direction by Steve Sekely mostly unimaginative. The script, by the blacklisted Bernard Gordon, does have its moments but, no, sorry, this film is pretty well a total write-off; watch the BBC version instead. Or, or course, read the book.