EDITOR’S NOTE: Village of the Damned on the CBS Late Movie on February 25 and August 17, 1972; January 11, 1974 and January 17, 1975.

Based on The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, this movie was delayed by two years when MGM gave into pressure from the Catholic Legion of Decency, who objected to the depiction of virgin birth and other blasphemous implications of this story. It was sent to MGM-British Studio where director Wolf Rilla and producer Ronald Kinnoch punched up — and made more English — the script by Stirling Silliphant.

The population of Midwich was asleep for four hours. No one knows why. But two months later, all women of childbearing age are pregnant, giving birth at just seven months old to children who communicate with their minds, have platinum hair and the brightest eyes.

Professor Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) and his wife Anthea (Barbara Shelley) are parents to David, one of those special children. Midwich is not alone, as other parts of the world have had similar births. The town lives in fear of these boys and girls who all walk together, all dressed the same and who can force people to do things.

After trying to work with the kids, he learns what the Russians did. There is no controlling them. For humanity to survive, they must be destroyed. He visualizes a brick wall in his mind and uses that distraction to plant a bomb in their school, detonating it so that they are all killed, as well as himself.

This is a happy ending in 1960.

British censors were worried that the glowing eyes of the children would scar people who saw it — many of whom survived the Blitz, mind you — and demanded another version without the effect.