This sounds to me like it could be THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE(1961 d. Val Guest) except for the SoCal part. -Sanchez NP: Ennio Morricone - "Jona che visse nella balena" OMPS ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maurice Rickard" <maurice@mac.com> To: <zorn-list@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 10:04 PM Subject: Re: can't figure out a movie (post-apocalyptic a la PANIC IN YEAR ZERO)
I don't know the name of it, but I have a memory of a similar film from the 70s, and I dunno, maybe some of these details fit. As I remember, it was obviously filmed in Southern California. The premise seemed to have something to with a natural disaster--something happening to the sun. I recall a lot of lens flare shots of the sun, with this string section glissando on the soundtrack; any character caught outside during one of those scenes died in some fashion--dehydration? Fatal sunburn? One of the conceits seemed to be that the fleeing protagonists a) had to flee the people chasing them, but b) there movements were impeded by that sun constraint. And I seem to recall that the climax happened around an abandoned ranch.
Does any of this seem to match your memories of this film? I went through a similar experience with a half-remembered Saturday TV movie which must have been done in the 60s; fortunately I remembered enough to (over several Web searches) figure out that it was the low-budget film _The Time Travellers_. Haven't seen it again yet, though.
HTH, M -- Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/