Film Review
The Damned is one of a series
of so-so genre films that Joseph Losey directed during his exile in
England, following his blacklisting in Hollywood for alleged ties with
the Communist Party. This film was produced by Hammer Film Productions, the
British company that would become renowned in the 1960s and '70s for
its flamboyant Gothic horror films. Losey was reluctant to direct
the film, mainly because he had next to no interest in science-fiction
and had difficulty making sense of the novel on which the film was to
be based. His fortunes would improve dramatically with his next
two films -
Eva (1962) and
The
Servant (1963) - which would earn him his credentials as a
serious film director.
Losey's evident disinterest in the sci-fi elements of
The Damned is, ironically, the
thing that prevents it from being just another nondescript British B
movie. The film embraces a wide range of social, political and
moral issues - the increasing level of violence in society, mounting
fears over nuclear war, the risks of unconstrained scientific research,
etc.
The Damned is more
than a bog standard piece of science-fiction drama; it is an insightful
reflection of the mores and concerns of 1960s Britain, made at a time
when the world was never closer to nuclear obliteration.
King's anthem (an ode to anarchy), "Black Leather, Black Leather, Kill Kill Kill!",
succinctly captures the pent-up anti-establishment youth anger that would
partly define this and the following decade.
There are some similarities with an earlier British sci-fi film,
Village of the Damned (1960),
although here the children are the innocent victims of human fear
rather than a malign threat from outer space. The plot, style and
chilling mood of the film also bring to mind the
Quatermass films that Hammer had
recently made, adaptations of a popular groundbreaking BBC television
series:
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
and
Quatermass 2 (1957).
In common with many of the films that Hammer made in the 1960s,
The Damned combines excellent production
values with a painfully mediocre screenplay. Visually, the
film is very strong, with its lush black and white photography and
atmospheric sets conveying a sense of growing anxiety and
oppression. Losey's use of wide-angle shots, which make the best
of the wide-screen aspect, capture the bleakness of the coastal
location, bringing a dark lyrical quality. The film is
particularly strong in its first half, and evokes the kind of subtle
doom-laden mood that we find in Hitchcock's
The
Birds (1963). Unfortunately, much of this dissipates
in the second half, as the plot takes over and realism gives way to
sci-fi cliché. Perhaps if Losey had had greater creative
control over the film, and certainly the services of a better
scriptwriter,
The Damned
could well have been one of his best works, rather than a curious
footnote in an impressive career.
© James Travers 2009
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Next Joseph Losey film:
The Go-Between (1970)
Film Synopsis
A retired American, Simon Wells, is enjoying a yachting holiday in a
small English seaside town when he is set upon by a group of teddy
boys, led by an aggressive young man named King. The latter is
not amused when his sister, Joan, takes a liking to Simon. As
Joan and Simon sail off in the latter's yacht, King vows to kill the
American. That night, Joan and Simon arrive at a remote part of
the coast where they find a deserted house in which they eat and make
love. When King appears with his gang, the couple beat a hasty
retreat, but fall over the edge of a cliff. They are rescued by a
group of children and taken to their subterranean shelter, in which
they have lived all their lives. When Joan and Simon learn that
the children are the subjects of some top secret military project, they
are appalled and resolve to help them escape. What they do not
know is that the children are radioactive mutants, the product of an
experiment to breed a race of humans that can survive the inevitable
nuclear holocaust...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.