Classic Horrors Club

As often as we see movies about disasters in big cities like Los Angeles and New York City, The Day the Earth Moved (1974) reminds us that earthquakes can also strike in small towns like Bates, Nevada. Sure, the stakes aren’t as high… there just aren’t as many people in danger. Plus, there aren’t many tall buildings that could fall on you.

There is, however, a big Santa Claus on a tall platform that could topple over and, if you were in the right spot, flatten you. You see, Bates, with a population of about nine people from what I can tell, is trying to make it a place for visitors again with their “Santa in the desert” tourist attraction. I don’t know why it stopped being one, but it is… Santa in the desert.

Time has sped away from Bates, literally leaving it in the dust, but the nine residents can’t agree on how to catch back up to it. Helen Backsler (Beverly Garland) notes that people are too afraid to leave. Officer Pat Ferguson (Kelly Thordsen) thinks maybe they aren’t being progressive enough. Soon they won’t have to worry about it.

In the meantime, Officer Pat and Judge Tom Backsler (William Windom) set a speed trap and force people to do community service to pay their fines. Such is the fate of Steve Barker (Jackie Cooper), the pilot of a puddle jumper that flies Harley Copeland (Cleavon Little) around the countryside taking pictures for real estate developers.

He’s the only one picking up trash in the old attraction and survives the blazing sun when someone sets a cold beer on a crate for him and rolls an apple out to him. His mysterious benefactor turns out to be young Angela (Tammy Harrington), a ward of the town who’s passed among the residents when it’s their time to do some child care.

Long story short… and it is an awfully long story stretched thin at 75 minutes… Barker and his ex-wife, Kate (Stella Stevens) figure out that the red smudges on their pictures means that the film is capturing heat signatures and they can predict earthquakes! With a big one headed right for Bates, Barker returns to warn the people and save Amanda.

In some ways, small towns are no different than big cities: people just don’t believe disaster is coming… until the ground starts shaking. And even then, Miss Virginia Porter (Lucille Benson) is committed to getting all the mail put into the slots at the post office. Poor thing must not realize that if the post office collapses and everyone leaves town, mail just won’t matter.

I will say that the two earthquake scenes are well done. The small one that comes first makes mincemeat of an abandoned farm and windmill. The big one in Bates leaves no spot unharmed as its few buildings suffer from explosions and demolition. Of course, the piece de resistance, big Santa on the tall platform, is the last thing to fall. 

You’ll have to watch to see if it flattens anyone. But you could also take a guess about any survivors and probably be right. I don’t know… it’s a good cast and there’s subtlety in the relationship between the Barkers. Technically, The Day the Earth Moved is a disaster movie, but it’s also a decent little drama. Like the earthquake to anyone in Bates, it’s harmless.