The Damned (released in the United States as These Are the Damned) is a 1962 British science-fiction horror film directed by Joseph Losey and produced by Anthony Hinds for Hammer Film Productions.Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 160: FilmographyHirsch, 1980 p. 237-238: Filmography It stars Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Viveca Lindfors, Oliver Reed, and Alexander Knox. The screenplay by Evan Jones is based on H. L. Lawrence's 1960 novel The Children of Light. The plot is about a vacationing American (Carey) who stumbles across a mysterious group of children who reside in an underground compound in Dorset, that are monitored constantly by military scientists.
Director Losey and producer Hinds clashed during production over the film’s bleak, cerebral tone, and the runtime was reduced from its initial 95 minutes to 87 minutes. It was not released in Britain until May 1963, where it received positive reviews from critics. Losey’s original 95-minute cut was later released on home video. The British Film Institute described it as "among Hammer's finest and most haunting productions."
Plot Simon Wells, a middle-aged American tourist, is on a boating holiday off the south coast of England. He has recently divorced and left his career as an insurance executive. In Weymouth, he meets 20-year-old Joan, who lures him into a brutal mugging at the hands of her brother King and his motorbike gang.
The next day Joan joins Simon on his boat, and defies her overprotective brother who attempts to keep her from leaving.
Simon is willing to forgive and forget; Joan implies that the beating was inevitable after Simon attempted to pick up Joan in a bar. She describes the abuse she suffers from King whenever men show interest in her. Simon urges her to run away with him but she insists upon returning to shore. Their time on the water is observed by a member of King's gang.
Meanwhile, within the caves of the nearby coast live nine children, all aged 11, whose skin is cold to the touch. They appear healthy, well-dressed and intelligent but know little about the outside world. Their home is under continuous video surveillance and they are educated via closed circuit television by Bernard, who deflects questions about their purpose and their isolation with promises that they will learn the answers someday. The children are regularly visited by men in radiation protection suits.
That night, Joan and Simon meet at a cliff-top house where they have sex. The house is surrounded by King's gang but the couple escape and reach the relative safety of a nearby military base. The couple descend the cliff to the beach, pursued by King. They find a network of caves leading to an underground bunker attached to the military base, where they meet the children.
Although Bernard is forced to keep the children under watch, he allows them one chamber in the caves without cameras. The children are unaware that their "secret hideout" is known to their captors and they keep their mementos of people that they believe are their parents. The children host Joan, Simon and King in this "secret" room and smuggle food to them. Joan and Simon plan to rescue the children and they pressure King into helping them; the visitors soon feel unwell.
Bernard urges the children to give up their new friends and reveals his knowledge of their secret place. The children refuse and destroy the surveillance cameras. Bernard sends men in radiation suits but King and Simon overpower them. Simon uses one of their Geiger counters and discovers that the children are radioactive. The intruders lead the children out of the caves but they are ambushed by more men in radiation suits and most of the children are taken back to the bunker.
King grabs one of the boys and escapes in a stolen car. He is overcome by radiation sickness and orders the boy out of the car. The boy is immediately recaptured. King is pursued by a helicopter, loses control of the car and is killed. Joan and Simon escape by boat but they are also overcome by sickness. A helicopter hovers above as their boat drifts off course; the pilot has orders to destroy it once the occupants are confirmed dead.
Bernard confides in his mistress Freya that he regrets the children now know they are prisoners. They were born radioactive, the result of a nuclear accident. This enables them to be resistant to nuclear fallout and so they will survive the "inevitable" nuclear war to come, according to Bernard. When Freya rejects him and his plan, he kills her.
The final scene depicts holidaymakers enjoying the beach, unable to hear the desperate cries of the imprisoned children nearby.Sanjek 2002: Plot synopsis
Cast
Themes Film historians James Palmer and Michael Riley call The Damned "an effective polemic against the horrors of nuclear warfare."Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 10
Writing in Senses of Cinema, critic Dan Callahan, places the film only incidentally in the sci-fi genre, and more so as warning of approaching Armageddon: “The Damned is a sincere and outraged portrait of a world on the verge of apocalypse, only partially compromised by a science fiction plot involving radioactive kids.”Callahan, 2003:
Production
Development Hammer Productions boss Anthony Hinds obtained the film rights to H. L. Lawrence's 1960 novel The Children of Light, wanting to create a movie similar to MGM's Village of the Damned, which had been a marked success.
Expat American director Joseph LoseySanjek, 2002: Losey’s career “tainted…by the [Hollywood] blacklist...The blacklist loomed large as did the need to hide under pseudonyms when he arrived in England…Part of the deal of his work in Britain was that he would be paid very little and would work anonymously.”Dixon, 2014: “Though some, like Losey, managed to completely reinvent themselves, and create work of lasting worth and brilliance, numerous others were plowed under by the effects of the Blacklist, and never really regained their footing either in Hollywood or abroad.”Maris, 2012: “Losey’s left-wing views made him an obvious target of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and when summoned to appear before it in 1951, he refused and went into exile in England.”Callahan, 2003: “Losey was forced to leave America after refusing to inform on his friends to the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a sign of his ultimate integrity. Thus began a long exile in England; he never shot another film in the USA. was hesitant to accept a directorial assignment from Hammer, a studio “internationally associated with the horror genre and work of a deliberately provocative nature.” Sanjek, 2002: “...the required violence in the company’s material repelled Losey…” Losey had previously been attached to direct Hammer's X the Unknown (1956), but left during pre-production because actor Dean Jagger refused to work with him over political differences.Stafford, Jeff. "X the Unknown" (article) on TCM.com Losey's 1960 film The Criminal (1960), a “box office failure” limited Losey’s options, and he accepted the offer despite objecting to screenplays requiring “explicit physical violence.”Sanjek, 2002
Writing A script was originally written by Ben Barzman, Losey's frequent screenwriting collaborator, which was reasonably faithful to the original novel. Losey disliked it and had it completely rewritten by Evan Jones two weeks prior to filming.Bruce G. Hallenbeck, British Cult Cinema: Hammer Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Hemlock Books 2011 p. 115 Jones would subsequently become a regular Losey collaborator.
Losey originally wanted Freya the sculptor to be killed by one of the helicopters but the studio insisted that Bernard kill her. The studio also wished to tone down the incestuous references between King and Joan.British Cinema and the Cold War by Tony Shaw, p.185, 2006 I.B. Tauris Publishers
Casting Distributor Columbia Pictures requested an American lead actor to help the film's overseas prospects. Losey hired Macdonald Carey, who had previously starred in his 1950 film The Lawless. Losey also brought in actors Alexander Knox and Kenneth Cope, whom he'd previously worked with. Knox, like Losey, was a Hollywood blacklistee and the two were frequent collaborators.
The Damned was one of several roles Oliver Reed had for Hammer during the early 1960s, the same year he also starred in Captain Clegg and The Pirates of Blood River.
Filming The film was shot in May–June 1961, at Hammer's Bray Studios and on location around Weymouth, the Isle of Portland and nearby Chesil Beach. Oliver Reed recalled that Losey, "used to take the cast out to dinner and preach anti-Bomb stuff to them." The film went over budget by £25,000.Marcus Hearn & Alan Barnes, The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films, Titan Books, 2007 p 67
The sculptures featured were all by British artist Elisabeth Frink. Frink not only lent these but also was on location for their shooting, and coached Lindfors on performing the sculptor's method of building up plaster, which was then ferociously worked and carved.
Editing The film was reviewed by the BBFC on 20 December 1961, who gave it an X certificate without any cuts. However, producer Anthony Hinds demanded re-edits, fearing the film's bleak and cerebral tone would hurt its commercial prospects. Losey eventually relented, cutting approximately eight minutes. The film was also retitled from Losey's preferred The Brink to The Damned, to better link it to Village of the Damned.
Release The film was first released in Australia on November 16, 1962. It was not released in Britain until 20 May 1963, when it was shown at the London Pavilion as the second half of a double bill of X-rated horror films.The Times, classified Advertising, page 2, 20 May 1963: Picture Theatres, London Pavilion, "Maniac" (X) and "The Damned" (X) Retrieved 10 October 2018
When it was released in the United States in 1965, as These Are the Damned, it had been cut further to 77 minutes.Fantastic Cinema by Peter Nicholls It was originally shown as part of a double bill with Genghis Khan. A complete print was released in US art house cinemas in 2007.
Home media On 15 January 2010, it was released on DVD as part of the Icons of Suspense Collection from Hammer Films. The Damned was called "the highpoint of the first wave of the British postwar Science Fiction films".Phil Hardy (editor). The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction, Aurum Press, 1984. Reprinted as The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction, Overlook Press, 1995,
Losey's original 95-minute version has since been restored and released on Blu-Ray.
Reception
Critical response In spite of the discreet release, The Damned was noticed by a film critic from The Times, who gave it a very positive review, stating that "Joseph Losey is one of the most intelligent, ambitious and constantly exciting film-makers now working in this country, if not indeed in the world—The Damned is very much a film to be seen, for at its best it hits with a certainty of aim which is as exciting as it is devastating, and hits perhaps in a place where it is important we should be hurt.""An Exciting Director: Joseph Losey's Latest Film." The Times, page 6, 20 May 1963 Retrieved 10 October 2018