This post is brought to you by Monster and Monster 2 by G. W. Thomas. These two collections are filled with posts from Dark Worlds Quarterly. In fact, they are the only way to read some of the early pieces written by GWT. Volume 1 looks at subjects from Slime Monsters, Alien Space Bats, Vampires in old creepy castles, out in space and even in fantasy fiction. Volume 2 has posts about writers like S. P. Meek and Francis Flagg as well as L. Sprague de Camp’s Pusadian fantasy and the Cthulhu Mythos. Each book is a semi-connected weave of Pulp and even older SF/F/H.
John Wyndham began his career in the 1930 American Pulps but exploded as a master of SF after his publication of The Day of the Triffids in 1951. The 1950s were also the first decade to use his writing for productions of Radio, television and films. The 1960s would be even more fruitful with the first movie versions of his work. Things cooled in the 1970s but the 1980s began a renaissance of Wyndham that hasn’t really ended. Anyone who has seen the first episode of The Walking Dead (October 31, 2010) knows that Rick waking up in the hospital at the very beginning is pure John Wyndham. And earlier in Twenty Days Later (2002), Cilian Murphy wakes in a hospital and wanders around an empty London (long before any Academy Awards). This is the Wyndham legacy. Zombie disasters always begin with a little Wyndhamesque thrill.
1950s
The Day of the Triffids (BBC Radio) (1957)
1960s
Interviewed on Tonight (Sept 6, 1960) is a must-see for any Wyndham fan. Only only to hear and see him but you will want to listen to his explanation on how to develop an SF theme.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents “Maria” (October 24, 1961) was adapted by John Collier from “Jizzle”. A carnival man buys a young woman who pretends to be an ape that can draw. Unfortunately, he forgets she is a woman and can be jealous like any other.
Storyboard “The Long Spoon” (1961)
The Day of the Triffids (1962)
Armchair Theatre “Dumb Martian” (1962)
Out of This World “Dumb Martian” (1962)
Alfred Hitchcock Hour “Consider Her Ways” (December 28, 1964)
Out of the Unknown “Time to Rest” or “No Place Like Earth”(1965)
Out of the Unknown “Random Quest” (1969)
1970s
Quest For Love (1971) (based on “Random Quest”)
1980s
The Chrysalids (1981) BBC Radio
The Day of the Triffids (1981) is my favorite version of the book, grainy 1980s video aside. It is the closest to the book. It doesn’t feel like every other drive-in 1960s film, nor does it feel like the over-indulgent 2009 piece.
1990s
The Village of the Damned (1995) is John Carpenter’s unnecessary remake. He doesn’t really do much but reshoot in color. The casting for the film also hurt its over-all rating. Christopher Reeve, Kirsty Alley, Michael Pare and Linda Kozlowski from Crocodile Dundee, all underwhelming.
2000s
The Midwich Cuckoos (2003) BBC Radio
The Invisible Man of SF (2005) is a must-see if you are a John Wyndham fan. There is so little on the private lives of writers of Science Fiction. You will be surprised to find the top SF writer in England living like a student for decades. He does marry later in life and this might actually have caused him to die so young.
The Day of the Triffids (2009)
2020s
Conclusion
Despite four versions of The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham’s ouvre is largely untouched. Why hasn’t there been a good The Chrysalids movie? (The Kraken Wakes, Stowaway to Mars, The Secret People and Web all would work too.) Wyndham was a people writer. When asked as an early Pulpster to “write stories about airplanes” he said you can’t do that, you can only write about people. His big Wellsian ideas may not seem so big anymore after the 1950s drive-in B-movie craze but who doesn’t like a good disaster, especially in these dystopian times? We need John Wyndham to remind us the catastrophes are “cozy”. In other words, some of us may survive to see another world. I think that is the primary focus of any tale of destruction. After Godzilla, after the bombs, after the killer plants, there will be another chance to start over. This may be naive but I think it should be very appealing now, just as it was after the atomic bomb. John Wyndham is your man for the intelligent version. (Which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy the whacked out version, you know Jan Michael Vincent in a Road Warrior landscape filled with poison flying sharks and women with nuclear-sized busts. There’s that too, but it isn’t John Wyndham.)
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