Village of The Damned (1960 Film) - Production

Production

The film was originally an American picture when preproduction began in 1957. Ronald Colman was contracted for the leading role, but MGM shelved the project, deeming it inflammatory and controversial because of the sinister depiction of virgin birth. Colman died in May 1958—by coincidence, his widow, actress Benita Hume, married actor George Sanders in 1959, and Sanders took the role meant for Colman.

The film was shot on location in the village of Letchmore Heath, near Watford, approximately 12 miles (20 kilometres) north of London. Local buildings such as The Three Horseshoes Pub and Aldenham School, were used during filming.

The blonde wigs that the children wore were padded to give the impression that they had abnormally large heads.

The children were lit in such a way as to cause the iris and pupils of their eyes to merge into a large black disc against the whites of their eyes in order to give them an eerie look.

The glowing-eye effect, when the children used their mental powers, was achieved by creating animated overlays of a bright white iris; this created a bright glowing iris with a black pupil when optically printed into the film. This technique was used mostly on freeze frames to create the required effect, the only sequence of live motion processed in this way being the scene where David tells Alan Bernard to "leave us alone," where the eye effect appears as David speaks. The other time David's eyes go from normal to glowing on screen (after one of the girl children is nearly run down by a car), a two shot of the girl and David, is in fact a composite shot split by a slightly jagged black line; the half with the girl is live motion, and you can see her hair moving in the breeze, whereas the half with David is a freeze frame with the eye effect added.

A similar split screen effect is used during the first scene of a boy and girl using their powers to stop their 'brother' stealing a puzzle box; the close ups of the Mother holding the boy as his eyes begin to glow and she turns to look at him are achieved as above this time without a black line separating the freeze frames of the boy from the live motion of the Mother. The final effect of the children's eyes zooming out of the flames of their burning school house utilized multiple exposures of a model head with glowing eyes which the camera zoomed in on.

Alternative UK prints without the 'glowing eyes' effects exist, which show that during the final sequence, in the close-ups, the kids widen their eyes as they 'attack' Zellaby's mind unlike the freeze frames with added glowing eyes used in the American prints. Another example is a slight smile that David makes after setting one of the villagers on fire in the UK print; the freeze frames of the American print obviously do not contain such subtle detail. This print also has a credit for being filmed at MGM's British studios, that is not on the American prints. According to Peter Preidel who played one of the children in the film the initial UK release in June 1960 had no glowing eyes; they were added for the American release in December 1960. The Guardian newspaper claimed in an article in 2003 that the British censors precluded the use of glowing eye effects in the initial UK release as being too horrific.

"And now we come to the nitty-gritty: why didn't the Children's eyes glow in the recent BBC screening? When I originally saw the film back in Australia as a kid I was particularly taken (i.e. scared witless) by the way the Children's eyes glowed whenever they used their mind powers. I'm sure I've seen the same version since but, as with the last BBC screening, I've also seen the movie sans glowing eyes. Why two versions?" from a review by John Brosnan, Starburst Magazine No.173 January 1993, after a screening of the film on BBC2 during 1992.