VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960), Director: Wolf Rilla. Colorized. 

All of a sudden everyone in the town of Midwich collapses into unconsciousness, and remains that way for several hours. Months later virtually every woman in the village is pregnant, and they all give birth to strange, emotionless children with the same blond hair and uncertain stare. One of the fathers, Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders of Jupiter's Darling), tries to get through to the children and become their friend, while his wife, Anthea (Barbara Shelley of Dracula Prince of Darkness), can only love her beautiful if essentially unresponsive son as best she can. It isn't long before the children demonstrate frightening mind-control powers that they use against perceived enemies, including a man who accidentally hits one of the girls but doesn't injure her. Zellaby, his brother-in-law Alan (Michael Gwynn of Never Take Candy from a Stranger), and others in authority such as Dr. Willers (Laurence Naismith of Jason and the Argonauts), learn that other weird children have been born elsewhere in the world, with terrible results. Little David Zellaby (Martin Stephens of Another Time, Another Place) wants his father to arrange for him and the other children to go away, infiltrate other societies, and in essence, take over the world, but Gordon comes up with another scheme that just might mean the death of him. 

"Beware Their Stare:" Martin Stephens and pals 

Village of the Damned is based on John Wyndham's sci fi classic "The Midwich Cukoos," which undoubtedly goes into more detail about these extra-terrestrial babies, their origins, abilities and so on, as well as the moral implications of the story and the notion of killing children, no matter how malevolent or bizarre they may be. Gordon does his best to mentor the children, and talks about teaching them morality as they grow, but these sequences are not shown. The performances in this are quite good, and little Martin Stephens with his angelic, dispassionate face makes an impression despite being dubbed to give him an "otherworldly" voice. The film was a very big hit, and a sequel, Children of the Damned, soon followed. Remade in 1995 with Christopher Reeve.( If memory serves me right, it was decent.) Ronald Colman was penciled in to play the lead but died -- he was replaced by Sanders, who also married Colman's widow!

Verdict: Classic, creepy science fiction. ***.