Director Val Guest Dies at Age 94
May 22, 5:51 AM (ET)
PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) - Val Guest, the versatile British director
and screenwriter best known for directing science-fiction classics "The
Quatermass Xperiment" and "The Day the Earth Caught Fire," has died. He was
94. Guest died of prostate cancer on May 10 in a Palm Desert hospice, said
his wife, actress Yolande Donlan. He "brought a lot of intelligence to a
genre that is often sorely in need of it," said director Joe Dante, a
longtime fan of his films. "Every single one of his pictures is thoughtful
and well-done." After becoming a director in the 1940s, Guest made
comedies, thrillers and musicals, but he was best known for his
science-fiction works. "The Quatermass Xperiment" was a 1955
science-fiction horror thriller with a semi-documentary feel about an
experimental rocket ship that crashes in rural England with only one
surviving crew member. An invisible force gradually transforms him into a
monstrous creature as he
consumes plants, animals and humans. In the 1961 film "The Day the Earth
Caught Fire," simultaneous nuclear explosions by the United States and the
Soviet Union knock Earth off its axis and send it hurtling toward the sun. The
picture earned Guest and co-writer Wolf Mankowitz best British screenplay
awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Guest also was
one of the five credited directors on the 1967 James Bond spoof "Casino
Royale." "He was a jack-of-all-trades," Dante said. "But there are a lot of
little gems in his output that, hopefully, will come to light now."
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