Days of the Triffids

John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (aka “Revolt of the Triffids”) was a watershed moment in Science Fiction as well as in the career of Wyndham himself. Before 1951, John Beynon Harris had had a career as a Gernsbackian SF Pulp writer, followed by a second career as a detective story and British SF writer. As one of the White Hart crew that Arthur C. Clarke wrote about in that collection, he hung out with other Brits like Samuel Youd (John Christopher) and Art Clarke. These writers (along with J. G. Ballard, Brian W. Aldiss and Bob Shaw) produced an alternative style of SF from the American works of Heinlein and Asimov (and other Golden Agers like Lester Del Rey and L. Sprague de Camp).

John Wyndham in particular is credited by Aldiss with creating the concept of the “cozy catastrophe” novel. “It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine!” Now who am I to disagree with Brian W. Aldiss but Wyndham based his novels on the foundation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) though Wyndham did innovate. The Day of the Triffids is the best example of the post-Wellsian invasion novels. It is my favorite of all of Wyndham’s works, so no surprise, this post. What Wyndham did with the idea of a global disaster was to add more mainstream elements. Writers like Edmond Hamilton pumped out Pulp stories based on Wells’s format but they were short, Pulpy and in the domain of the SF Pulp reader. Wyndham used the same core material but wrote something anyone would read. Thus his huge success: a world invaded by plants with human characters and a final resolution that suggests hope is possible. (That’s the cozy part, I think.)

Now some might call this “romance” or “rose-colored glasses” but it was a brilliant move on Wyndham’s part. Science Fiction after the bomb had been getting grimmer and grimmer. To read of a group of people faced with terror and destruction, but ultimately surviving the disaster gave catharsis to an audience who needed hope. We get the roller-coaster of killer plants and hostile armies but end up at the finish in a community that will re-build the world. Having figured out the format, Wyndham went on to write other classics including The Midwich Cuckoos, The Chrysalids and Chocky.

BBC Radio 1957 starring Patrick Barr and Monica Gray was the first adaptation, six years after the book appeared.

Hollywood wasn’t far behind. The first film version of The Day of the Triffids appeared in 1962, five years later. The film starred Howard Kiel of Oklahoma fame. There was also British actor Janette Scott who was immortalized here. The film feels Wyndhamy, especially as Kiel and the little girl wander through a Wellsian landscape of destruction but all the best ideas are gone and replaced with typical B-Movie dreck. The worst is that the Triffids come from space, not made by humans. Audrey Three, I guess. We even get the quick fix ending, with salt water killing the plants.

The 1968 Radio version starred Gary Watson and Barbara Shelley.

Marvel Comics and Gerry Conway adapted the story for the first two issues of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction. The story is modernized and truncated and completely lacks any real charm. There are Triffids and that’s about all you can say for it.

BBC mini-series in 1981, starring John Duttine and Emma Relph, is my preferred version despite the murky BBC video. The adaptation is the most faithful. It has the blidning of humanity, that plays through the opening credits, to the blind making slaves of the sighted, all the way to the good guys sneaking off from the army men to create a new society on an island. (This is an idea Wyndham would use again in The Chrysalids.) Imagine that! Sticking to John Wyndham’s book works the best!

2001 BBC Radio version starring Jamie Glover and Tracy Ann Oberman

The 2009 miniseries starred Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson and Eddie Izzard and it could have been better than it was. Here was a chance to do a good adaptation with more budget and better special effects, but it fails. And I have to place the blame largely on Eddie Izzard, or his character anyway. This version feels more isolated and focused on the last part of the book where the survivors are dealing with the military men who don’t really have their best interests at heart. The 2009 version feels more like a zombie movie, with Izzard as a psycho ruining everything.

Now it might seem odd to mention zombie TV but let’s remember the opening sequence of The Walking Dead is cribbed from The Day of the Triffids. Robert Kirkman has Rick wake up in an abandoned hospital just as Bill Masen wakes up in Triffids. Of course, Rick encounters walkers not Triffids. It’s an iconic opener that Twenty Eight Days Later (2002) also cribbed. (Cillian Murphy wakes up to win an Oscar twenty-two years later.)

Conclusion

It should be no surprise that The Day of the Triffids is a favorite of mine. I love plant monsters, of course. In books or on the screen. But there is more. John Wyndham is also a favorite, whether it is early middle or late career. The two together is monster-lover bliss. Wyndham’s experiment to make Science Fiction more literary, to appeal to more people, was successful. The potential we saw in early novels like Stowaway to Mars (1935) blossoms (yes, a plant pun!) in the 1950s.

In terms of film adaptations, the producers so often have mistaken intentions. In 1962, the film-makers wanted another B-movie when they could have had so much more. In 2009, the influence of zombie films seems evident. Only the 1981 mini-series retains the best of Wyndham, with humans creating both the Triffids and the flashes in the sky that blind everyone. Wyndham was criticizing human technology and our misuse of it. It’s not about space seeds or zombies. Those can be worthy ideas but why wreck the Triffids with it?

Next time…more Wyndham on television!