Night of the Big Heat [Island of the Burning Damned] ** (1967, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Patrick Allen, Sarah Lawson, Jane Merrow, William Lucas, Kenneth Cope, Percy Herbert) – Classic Movie Review 3,993

Terence Fisher’s 1967 British sci-fi film Night of the Big Heat is based on John Lymington’s novel, and stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, husband and wife Patrick Allen and Sarah Lawson, and Jane Merrow.

Director Terence Fisher’s fairly invigorating 1967 chunk of British sci-fi hokum Night of the Big Heat focuses on the extra-terrestrials who take over the remote Scottish island of Fara and cause an unbearable heatwave in the nineties so that they can survive the winter in an early case of the greenhouse effect. The men at the Met office just can’t fathom it because mainland Britain is shivering in deepest winter, but a visiting scientist suspects aliens.

The chatty screenplay by Ronald Liles, Jane Baker and Pip Baker fails to get full mileage out of an amusing idea, based on John Lymington’s 1959 novel. And the usually reliable Terence Fisher’s direction seems surprisingly slack and unfocused this time. But husband and wife writing team Pip and Jane Baker are credited with additional scenes and dialogue, working over the original script at the last minute. So if the original script was actually ‘unworkable’ as it was judged at the last minute, Fisher’s direction is probably not to blame for the film’s problems, as he was probably actually doing a rescue job.

The novel was adapted by ITV for British TV in 1960 and the producers intended to use the TV script with a bit of tweaking, but it proved problematic, and they thought the reworked film screenplay wasn’t working, so considerable changes were made by Pip and Jane Baker.

In any case, the notable cast comes to the rescue. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are on good form as scientist Godfrey Hanson and local doctor Dr Vernon Stone, and there is a rare chance to see husband and wife Patrick Allen and Sarah Lawson working together, as Jeff and Frankie Callum, as well as the young Jane Merrow as Angela Roberts just before her success in The Lion in Winter. Allen and Lawson play married inn owners on the island, whose marriage is threatened by the arrival of the husband’s former lover.

Also in the cast are William Lucas, Kenneth Cope, Percy Herbert, Thomas Heathcote, Anna Turner, Jack Bligh, Sydney Bromley and Barry Halliday.

Lee recalled that the heat wave scenes were shot in the middle of winter so the actors were covered with glycerine to simulate heavy sweating and had to wear light clothes in freezing temperatures.

It is not a Hammer Films productions but instead comes from Planet Film Productions.

Sarah Lawson then starred as Richleau (Christopher Lee)’s niece Marie Eaton, hypnotised by Mocata and possessed by the spirit of Tanith, in Terence Fisher’s thrilling and scary 1968 Hammer Films occult horror film The Devil Rides Out. Patrick Allen did not appear but dubbed one of the main actors also did the voiceover for the UK trailer.

French distributors added graphic sex scenes for La Nuit de la Grande Chaleur on the adult film circuit, with doubles for Merrow and Lawson in the new scenes.

The US title of Island of the Burning Damned sounds a whole lot more exciting than the original Night of the Big Heat. It played in the US in 1971 in a double bill with Godzilla’s Revenge [All Monsters Attack].

The cast are Christopher Lee as Professor Godfrey Hanson, Patrick Allen as Jeff Callum, Peter Cushing as Dr Vernon Stone, Sarah Lawson as Frankie Callum, Jane Merrow as Angela Roberts, William Lucas as Ken Stanley, Percy Herbert as Gerald Foster, Kenneth Cope as Tinker Mason, Thomas Heathcote as Bob Hayward, Anna Turner as Stella Hayward, Jack Bligh as Ben Siddle, Sydney Bromley as Old Tramp, and Barry Halliday.

It was shot at Pinewood Studios, with exteriors at The Swan Inn in Milton Keynes Village and the transmitter station at Portland Bill, Dorset.

Sarah Lawson was born on 6 August 1928 and died on 18 August 2023, aged 95. She married actor Patrick Allen in 1960 and thy had two sons. They stayed married until he died on 28 July 2006. Lawson made her film debut in The Browning Version (1951). Allen made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954),

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