The Day the Earth Moved

When the film begins, Steve and Harley (Jackie Cooper and Cleavon Little) are up in an airplane photographing in rural California. They have some weird and totally untested theories about earthquake prediction...but more about that later. Soon after they land, Steve is arrested in a crappy, tiny speed trap town and jailed for a few days. But a kid feels sorry for him and helps him escape. Later, when Steve looks through his photos he is confident (HOW?!?!) that an earthquake is about to strike that same town! Wow....what a coincidence.

The plot just meandered too much and the film never kept my interest. In many ways, it was disappointing and slow. I would say more but the film just never held my interest and there wasn't much to say about this installment of "The ABC Movie of the Week".

I can't tell exactly why but I kinda liked it. I half wonder if the movie Cars might have gotten a little inspiration from the storyline. Without giving anything away, I think those who who have seen both will know what I mean.

Even though this could be seen as a typical movie of the week. It was a pretty interesting one, especially for a combination disaster/science fiction pic. I especially loved the humor that Cleavon Little inserted in what could have been just another disaster pic. This definitely is a decent if not good movie of the week.

What an absolutely, totally boring film. Basically, two aerial photographers spot changes in the ground from the photos they have taken. This leads them to believe that there is going to be an earthquake in a sleepy town that the pilot knows.

Far too much time is spent on non-events, so the action is thin on the ground (and up in the air!) They went up three times to take those photos and it felt like we saw every single moment of all three flights.

The viewer is always one step ahead of the plot; not that there is much to be one step ahead of.

Don't watch it. Look at some aerial photographs from Google Earth. They will be more intersting than this film.

If IMDb existed when I was eight years old and the first time I watched this made for TV movie of the week, I would have rated it a 9 or a 10.

This story HAD such a profound affect on me, I remembered it and for the past few years, I searched for it on VHS, Usenet, Bittorrents, etc... without success. A week ago I brought this story up in a conversation and it dawned on me to see if Youtube had a trailer or clip available. What did I find? The *entire* movie! I was thrilled! So, thirty years later, I finally watch it again on Youtube.

Unfortunately, it failed to captivate me in the same way as it did when I was eight years old. I found the dialog was simplistic and the acting was rather wooden. I was disappointed to find a little bit of racism (intentional or not?) in the script.

On a positive note, as a sci-fi'ish disaster story, The Day the Earth Moved, is actually much better than many of the more modern disaster flicks. At least, this story doesn't insult one's intelligence.