FANTASIA OBSCURA: H.G. Wells’ Chilling – But Thankfully Wrong – Prediction of the Future
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, though, even the best of writers forget the old adage: Show, don’t tell…
Things to Come (1936)
Distributed by: London Films
Directed by: William Cameron Menzies
There is probably no more famous science fiction writer than H. G. Wells. Considered the father of the genre, his works have inspired countless readers for over a century. Many of his pieces have created tropes that form the bedrock of genre work, such as the alien invasion of Earth and travel through time. In addition, his works have seen countless adaptations, resulting in films that are considered classics not only by genre film fans but all movie fans.
Which makes a film where he himself wrote the original screenplay all the more interesting:
Based on Well’s book from 1933, The Shape of Things to Come, the film lives up to the title, providing a set of predictions as to what would happen over a one hundred year span. The film opens in 1940 during the run-up to Christmas, in Everytown, a city in England that shares a lot of characteristics with London:
Like other films set around this time of the year (think Die Hard), there’s palatable tension in the air. Here, we find prominent citizen John Cabal (Raymond Massey) worried that the talk of rising tensions with an unnamed enemy will soon lead to war, which his friend Pippa Passworthy (Edward Chapman) dismisses.
Thankfully, Passworthy didn’t have money riding on things staying calm, as soon the enemy launches a sneak attack, including a bombing of Everytown that feels remarkably close to the action seen a few years later in the London Blitz. War finds Cabal in the RAF, engaging in combat against enemies that drop poison gas on civilians, before we segue into a montage that shows this act as being part of an extended escalation that drags on through the next few decades, until one side employs germ warfare that brings down civilization as its victims wander like zombies.
The film’s frenetic pace slows down when we get to 1970, when Everytown is a burned out husk ruled by a local strongman who calls himself “the Boss’ (Ralph Richardson). This petty warlord has committed his army, a rabble with rifles and horses, to conquer the nearby hills people, from whom he hopes to get coal to get his barely-working fleet of biplanes into the air, to meet his greater ambitions of conquest.
Unfortunately for the Boss, into his kingdom flies Cabal, who not only survived the horror but became a prominent member in “Wings Over the World,” a society of engineers and scientists who banded together like aggressive Irish monks to not only save science but to use it to unify the world into one state. The Boss, of course, would rather not give way to the future, but going up against progress proves disastrous for him…
This leads to another montage sequence, where Cabal spearheads the rebuilding of Everytown by 2036 into a sleek underground metropolis where everyone’s needs are cared for and all people live in comfort and contentment:
…unless you’re worried about too much progress coming too fast, like the artist Theotocopulos (Cedric Hardwicke), who feels that the upcoming use of the “moon gun” to shoot people to the lunar surface is an affront of nature. The manager of Everytown, John Cabal’s descendent Oswald (also played by Massey), is willing to let him rant on the open-access jumbotrons in the city, not realizing that the crowd is sympathetic to the artists, forcing Cabal’s hand…
In terms of ranting and declaring, there’s quite a bit in the film. There are segments of the picture that it feels like Wells wrote scripts for people to recite, to get across the writer’s message as plainly as possible. This should probably have been expected; by the 1930s Wells had gotten deeply involved in promoting causes, such as the Fabian Society and calling for a world government in the name of peace, and he spent more time doing advocacy than writing. As a result, there are passages in the film when characters major and minor aren’t so much talking to other cast members as they are appealing to the audience.
That said, while the dialog may be anything but, the grand sweep and boldness of the story itself draws the viewer in. There are very few films that are willing to give you a one-hundred-year sweep covering the lows and highs of civilization, and that act of audacity alone is worth interest in the film.
But the story doesn’t do all the lifting alone; the cast and crew producer Alexander Korda assembled for the film, including Constructivist artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy as designer for the special effects sequences and composer Arthur Bliss for the soundtrack to support Menzies’ bold direction, bring some of their best work to the project. The strong visuals enrobed in the rich score convey Wells’ themes and points far more eloquently than any of the pronouncements read here and there; it’s through their work that the real power of the screenplay manifests.
Even in the midst of giving speeches, though, the actors still find enough of a core in the characters to make them more than just mouthpieces. Performances by all the principals manage to find life in what might have just been a set of talking heads, especially Richardson as the Boss and Margueretta Scott as his scheming consort Roxana during the middle section of the film.
The film would become both a hallmark of science fiction cinema (supposedly Arthur C. Clarke suggested Stanley Kubrick screen this before starting on 2001) and a staple on US television when the film temporarily went into the public domain in 1964. Much like the other works of its screenwriter, the motion picture became a major contributor to the foundation of genre film, and to our culture in general.
Which says a lot for a film where people make speeches every few minutes…
NEXT TIME: This next film doesn’t need you to be a genius to appreciate it. A SubGenius, maybe, but otherwise…
