The Damned

(THESE ARE) THE DAMNED is now being seen in the U.S. in a restored print that has been making the rounds (I caught up with it at the 27th Annual Boston Science Fiction Film Marathon & Festival (for info go to: www.sf.theboard.net) on February 17th.

After having seen it only in edited form on late night TV decades ago, it was fascinating to see the exquisite B&W photography on the big screen (with footage not in the TV prints). Although it was made under the Hammer Films banner, THE DAMNED is not a typical SF picture by any means. Expatriate director Joseph Losey set out to make a social parable more than an SF thriller. He succeeds in showing how society's increasing violence and callousness on the streets could lead to the horrible thought of "breeding" radioactive children in the government in order to survive an inevitable (?) nuclear war. The moral is both, of the time & time-less. Of course, modern audiences may feel that the end of the Cold War makes such a tale outdated and even silly - but are we only fooling ourselves?

"Black Leather, Black Leather....."