announced as a possible star. By December, the title had been changed to Village of the Damned and Russ Tamblyn, who appeared as the lead in MGM's Tom Thumb (1958), was named as a possible star. In January 1958, MGM president Joseph R. Vogel announced the film would be among the movies made by the studio that year. Robert Stevens signed to direct. The film was originally intended as an American picture, to be filmed at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Culver City. Stirling Silliphant wrote a script and Ronald Colman was contracted for the leading role, but MGM delayed the project, bowing to pressure from religious groups, including the Catholic Legion of Decency, who objected to the depiction of virgin birth and the plot's blasphemous implications. Colman died in May 1958. (His widow, actress Benita Hume, married actor George Sanders in 1959, and Sanders took the role meant for Colman.) In September 1958, Michael Rennie said he was being considered for the lead. In October, Mel Dinelli was reportedly working on a script. In January 1959, Julia Meade signed to play a lead role. Move to UK The film was transferred to the MGM-British Studios. In November 1959, George Sanders was cast in the lead role. Six weeks before filming was to begin, the project was passed to television director Wolf Rilla. He thought the script by Stirling Silliphant "needed a lot of work to make it realistic. It was written by an American who had not gained a great deal of knowledge concerning English life; it just rang false." Rilla was told he had a weekend to make changes so he and Ronald Kinnoch, now the producer, collaborated. "I still don't think the script was as good as it could have been but there simply wasn't time," said Rilla. The film had a shooting schedule of six weeks and a budget of £82,000. Most filming took place at MGM's Borehamwood Studio but it was also shot on location in the village of Letchmore Heath, near Watford, approximately 12 miles (20 kilometres) north of London. Local buildings such as The Three Horseshoes Pub and Aldenham School were used during filming. Rilla used a "very low-key documentary manner. It made, I think, the strange happenings even stranger... the horrors were so much more horrible because they were so much more normal." The blonde wigs that the children wore were padded to