The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a British science fiction disaster film starring Edward Judd, Leo McKern and Janet Munro. It was directed by Val Guest and released in 1961, and is one of the classic apocalyptic films of its era. The film opened at the Odeon Marble Arch in London onNovember 1961.
A lone man walks through the sweltering streets of a deserted London. The film then goes back several months. Peter Stenning Judd was an upandcoming journalist with the Daily Express, but a messy divorce has thrown his life into disarray. Stenning begins drinking too much One of his lines is, Alcoholics of the press, unite. His Editor Christiansen has begun giving him lousy assignments. Stennings only friend, Bill Maguire McKern, is a veteran Fleet Street reporter who offers him encouragement and occasionally covers for him by writing his copy.Meanwhile, after the Soviet Union and the United States detonate simultaneous nuclear bomb tests, strange meteorological events begin to affect the globe. Stenning is sent to the British Met Office to obtain mean temperature data. While there he meets Jeanie Munro, a young typist who is temporarily acting as telephonist. They meet cute, trading insults later, they fall in love. ........
Source: Wikipedia