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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Monday, April 17, 2017

Children Of The Damned (1964)

Starring Ian Hendry, Alan Badel, Barbara Ferris, Alfred Burke, Sheila Allen
Directed by Anton M. Leader
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

After a pair of scientists discover a remarkably intelligent boy in England, similarly gifted children from across the world are brought to join him, where their dangerous psychic powers are discovered.

A follow-up to Village of The Damned, which itself was an adaptation of John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, the film is not a literal sequel, featuring no common characters or acknowledgement of earlier events, but could take place in a world sometime after the original story.  I've heard a number of people prefer this movie to the prior film, although I think that version had an eerier quality and a stronger cast.  However, this is still gripping entertainment, well-photographed and directed, and I liked Badel's performance as a geneticist who enjoys asking indelicate questions.  Although the filmmakers try to refocus the original story's themes to point out the evils of nations in an arms race, I think I would have preferred for them to peel back the layers of the mystery of the children, to unravel their origins and purpose rather than re-present the same puzzle we've seen before.

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