By Sara Reineke
First things first; it’s obvious from 1966 through 1972
the seemingly idyllic small islands dotting the UK were no place to summer
vacation. In 1966 poor Peter Cushing
lost his left hand to a rampaging horde of flesh-eating silicates on the isle
of Petrie (aka the Island of Terror), a few miles east off of Ireland’s
coastline. In 1973, Hammer Horror icon
turned Celtic pagan Christopher Lee sacrificed an investigating Christian
martyr to the flames on the bonny banks of Summerisle in Robin Hardy’s 1973 grim
thriller-mystery, The Wicker Man. One year before The Wicker Man would have its
theatrical debut, Tigon-British Film Productions would release the
environmental-thriller Doomwatch (1972). Set on the isle of Balfe (actually Cornwall), Doomwatch tells the tale
of still another plagued and isolated island off the English coast. This time the inhabitants are desperately
trying to hide a seemingly monstrous secret from the prying eyes of outsiders. It goes without saying that the production of
these three films was likely not bankrolled by anyone from the British Tourist
Board.
Director Peter Sasdy’s 1972 sci-fi mystery, Doomwatch
recounts the story of Dr. Del Shaw (Scottish actor Ian Bannen), who teams up
with the island’s imported schoolteacher Victoria Brown (Judy Geeson) to
unravel the mystery behind the closeted deformities of the island’s native
inhabitants. Dr. Shaw, who works for a government-funded anti-pollution
campaign, somewhat pessimistically coded Doomwatch, soon finds out that British
navy - through an unscrupulous intermediary - had used the bay surrounding the
island of Balfe to secretly and illegally dump sealed canisters of radioactive
waste. Time and the sea have since
caused these seals to give way, with the resulting leakage infecting the
village’s fishing industry. As seafood
is the primary diet of the islanders, the exposure to toxins and unnatural
growth hormones has unleashed an outbreak of acromegaly. This disfiguring
disease is not an invention of screenwriter Clive Exton. As any scholar of classic horror can tell
you, this is the all-to-real growth-hormone aberration was suffered (and
tastelessly exploited) by Universal Studios in their casting of horror actor
Rondo Hatton as The Creeper. Though this
pituitary gland disease is a result of radioactive elements contaminating the
island’s fish supply, the natives are unaware of the Navy’s polluting of their
waters. The insular and deeply religious
community believes the island’s plague is simply God’s punishment for their
immorality and inbreeding. It’s this
deep-seated shame that has long prevented them from getting help from the
mainland.
Sasdy’s film was loosely based off a BBC television
series of the same name (1970-1972) which featured a team of
activist-scientists fighting new, mysterious environmental and health threats
in the post-Atomic age. These television threats would include such plights as
enlarged radioactive rats, plastic-eating viruses, and chemical toxins that
could destroy all of Earth’s plant life. This fear of manmade and unchecked
environmental calamity was carried on in Doomwatch the film; the storyline
centers on the dangers of radioactive elements and the consequences of improper
storage and disposal methods of such harmful toxins. These issues were of
course, not uncommon during the time, as in the early 1970s environmental issues
were at the forefront of global public consciousness. Not coincidentally, in 1972, the year the
film was first released, the United States would pass the Clean Water Act with
the aim of eliminating toxic waste from global waters.
Though Bannen and Geeson are the film’s principal
players, the film sports a strong supporting cast of familiar faces. Geoffrey Keen, who plays Sir Henry, the man
responsible for the illegal radioactive dumping, will be recognizable to
filmgoers for his tenure as the Minister of Defence in six James Bond films
(beginning with Roger Moore’s The Spy Who Loved Me through Timothy Dalton’s The
Living Daylights). Another recognizable face is that of George Sanders, who
enjoyed a legendary long career in film and television and pop-culture (he
portrayed Leslie Charteris’ The Saint in no fewer than five films (1939-1941)
and even as the chilling Mister Freeze in TV’s Batman series of 1966.
Kino Lorber’s new Blu-Ray release of Doomwatch is of
definitely interest to film enthusiasts. Special features include an “On Camera
Interview†with actress Judy Geeson, audio commentary and introduction to the
film courtesy of director Peter Sasdy, and a gallery of film trailers for other
recent Blu-Ray releases of Kino-Lorber.
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