MovieChat Forums > The Damned (1965) Discussion > YA GOTTA BE KIDDING!!!!

YA GOTTA BE KIDDING!!!!

posted 14 years ago by BG43214
18 replies | jump to latest

I rented this from Netflix; it was paired with "Never take candy from a stranger" and that was one good movie!!
But this one? really???

After about the first 1/2 hr., I couldnt take it any longer and started fast-forwarding in short spurts; enough to see that the plot changed considerably from the opening story line, and that it just goes WAY downhill after that!!! so I don't see what all of you see in this awful thing!!!
By the way, does this have anything to do with the "Children of the Damned" and "Village of the Damned"? those were masterpieces, also!! I'M BEING SARCASTIC!!!!!!!!

Oh well, I'm just one man...........

[–] Enrique-8 14 years ago

no relation to them at all

Enrique Sanchez

[–] danielscissorhands 14 years ago

I don't blame you for hating the opening of this movie. But by fast forwarding, you didn't give yourself to get into the film. If you watch the whole film, you will see that it is worth watching. And the end is chilling.

[–] classics_guy 9 years ago

It is really a good film. with a chilling/tragic ending.

[–] Weazer666 14 years ago

I have to agree with you. This is a terrible movie. This could have only been a "B" movie and second feature back when they still had double features. The main "gang" song should have been a warning that this was going to be a stinker.

[–] eliz7212-1 14 years ago

Black Leather, Black Leather, smash smash.

Can't get that stupid song out of my head. Just saw this film today. What a bomb. And who on earth wrote this plot that mixes gangs in England with radioactive children, and Vivica Lindfors as a sculptress (with no plotline whatsoever).

Horrible movie.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] WarNerve626 13 years ago

You guys are crazy, this movie is utterly brilliant in just about every way.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] WarNerve626 13 years ago

You're right, its so moronic that a guy named Anthony Burgess used it as inspiration for A Clockwork Orange.

[–] zorplo 13 years ago

Alas, you are wrong, as Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962 (a year before this film was released). The fact that there is no similarity in the stories is also kinda relevant. I doubt whether Burgess was inspired by ANY films to write his books.

[–] WarNerve626 13 years ago

These Are The Damned was made a year before the publication of Clockwork Orange.

[–] essex9999 9 years ago

These Are The Damned was made a year before the publication of Clockwork Orange.

But not released until 1963. It is just barely possible that more than one person in the early 1960s thought social alienation and rising unrest among youth were worth telling a story about.

[–] lamoza-786-44667 8 years ago

yes, but the film of Clockwork Orange wasn't released until 1971. I don't think any of the storyline was lifted from this film, but it is more than plausible that Kubrick saw it. The teddy boys' MO was incredibly similar, down to the offhand remarks.

[–] anordall 9 years ago

Yes, brilliant is the word to describe it. It is a work of art, not a commercial thriller, and it has some of the most sophisticated dialogues I´ve heard in movies. Knox's acting is simply great, as is Reed's. The problem is that you must look at this movie as a bitter irony at the nuclear armagedon paranoia.

[–] verbusen 13 years ago

You made the smart move by fast forwarding it after only 30 minutes. I waited until over an hour....my mistake. Horrible movie, putting a sci fi label on it is misleading.

It's a social commentary film made by a guy who left America due to the 50's HUAAC investigations and was black listed. I have not seen his other works but this film has preachy themes to it that really turned me off. If thats your thing then this is good but I was looking for a straight Hammer Sci Fi film, not social commentary.

[–] Owlwise 13 years ago

Why can't it be both?

The beauty of this film is that it's continually in flux -- just as you think you've got it pegged as one genre of film, it becomes another. And yet all those different genres are woven together by the end.

Consider the title ... everyone is this film is damned in some way. The social alienation of King & his gang is mirrored by the physical alienation of the innocent children. The pragmatic bureaucrats running the program are so sure of coming nuclear destruction that they're practically wishing for it, and perhaps even forcing it to occur; they've lost their humanity already; they're the living dead, far more than the children.

The overwhelming feeling of "sickness unto death" drives the gang, drives the sculptor to create those statues looking like carbonized corpse after the Bomb, drives the government agents, drives everything. It's a world locked into death, with everything a negation of life. Here you have the emotional template for so much of the British New Wave of science fiction in the 1960s.

And it IS science fiction -- true science fiction, in that it's about ideas, and a commentary on current culture, and where that culture may be leading. In other words, science fiction for adults, not adolescents with power fantasies, gleefully waving their lightsabers & laser guns.

[–] hockeyhrs 10 years ago

Really well put.

[–] rave195 9 years ago

Owlwise I couldn't agree more.

At first I could not figure out what kind of movie it was. Once I saw Oliver Reed and the wild bunch of hoodlums assaulting someone at the beginning, I thought it was like another Reed film called "The System" aka "The Girl Getters".

Then when they stumbled upon the hidden secret operation below the cliffs by waters edge run by a bunch of suits, the SCI FI label definitely took hold. Never mind the cold to touch children hidden away. (Funny sound they associated in those days for geiger counters, heh?)

By the chilling end of the movie, I concluded that it was definitely a social parable type of
offering, as you explained. A blend of what you aptly termed "emotional template" of the early 1960's and the rising social alienation of the rough beach crowd violence or just teen violence in general mashed together with social commentary on current culture.

To hear the children's voices at the end sent a chill up and down my spine.

A very early odd marriage of genres no doubt, British yet!

I thoroughly enjoyed it, although confused at first. Have to hang in there and see the whole thing before passing judgement, I say! As with anything else worth your time...
:>