Director: William Cameron Menzies
Writer: H.G. Wells
Photography: Georges Perinal
Music: Arthur Bliss
Editors: Charles Crichton, Francis D. Lyon
Cast: Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson, Margaretta Scott, Cedric Hardwicke, Sophie Stewart, Derrick de Marney, John Clements, George Sanders
From the distance of nearly a century, the 1930s looks like a period of constant historical reckoning. Two of the most interesting movies in 1936 and one in 1937—Modern Times, Things to Come, and Make Way for Tomorrow—thought very hard about where things were going after most of a decade in a persistent economic depression and with fascism strutting around and acting ever more aggressive. None of them really "got it right" about the future (Make Way for Tomorrow comes closest by keeping its ambition in check), but getting it right happens so rarely in futuristic tales that we can't stop talking about it when they do. Consider Network. And remember there were still phonebooths in 2001: A Space Odyssey (just as there were in 2001, though they were gone by 2010, nor have we seen anything remotely like commercial space travel, the Musk & Bezos clown shows notwithstanding).
Thus, in Things to Come, a worthy science fiction heir of Metropolis, the coming war with fascism was seen quite clearly, and it starts in 1940, which is pretty dang accurate for a UK film although maybe not that hard to predict in 1936. Director William Cameron Menzies and writer H.G. Wells work it up as a 30-year grinding death-fest that makes the Great War look like a picnic with Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo. Pay attention, class! The war in Things to Come ends in the late '60s and is followed by an epidemic of "the wandering sickness," which weirdly looks like zombies without all the scabs or gore. It's certainly some kind of prescience. From that point it all becomes a figment of H.G. Wells's imagination, which was prodigious but also a little unfocused and wrong. The movie ends circa 2036 (so as yet still in the future for us) with the coming of space exploration that looks nothing like space exploration as we know it.
From the distance of nearly a century, the 1930s looks like a period of constant historical reckoning. Two of the most interesting movies in 1936 and one in 1937—Modern Times, Things to Come, and Make Way for Tomorrow—thought very hard about where things were going after most of a decade in a persistent economic depression and with fascism strutting around and acting ever more aggressive. None of them really "got it right" about the future (Make Way for Tomorrow comes closest by keeping its ambition in check), but getting it right happens so rarely in futuristic tales that we can't stop talking about it when they do. Consider Network. And remember there were still phonebooths in 2001: A Space Odyssey (just as there were in 2001, though they were gone by 2010, nor have we seen anything remotely like commercial space travel, the Musk & Bezos clown shows notwithstanding).
Thus, in Things to Come, a worthy science fiction heir of Metropolis, the coming war with fascism was seen quite clearly, and it starts in 1940, which is pretty dang accurate for a UK film although maybe not that hard to predict in 1936. Director William Cameron Menzies and writer H.G. Wells work it up as a 30-year grinding death-fest that makes the Great War look like a picnic with Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo. Pay attention, class! The war in Things to Come ends in the late '60s and is followed by an epidemic of "the wandering sickness," which weirdly looks like zombies without all the scabs or gore. It's certainly some kind of prescience. From that point it all becomes a figment of H.G. Wells's imagination, which was prodigious but also a little unfocused and wrong. The movie ends circa 2036 (so as yet still in the future for us) with the coming of space exploration that looks nothing like space exploration as we know it.
Well, recall that Wells's long story "The Time Machine" dared to imagine the year 30,001,897—that is, 30 million years into the future. I'm so bad at imagining it myself I can't even figure out whether to use commas or not in the numeral. But the point is Wells liked to let his imagination loose on great skeins of time. In this case it's "only" 100 years in the future but it still seems extravagantly conceptual. Try imagining 2121, for example, or the Zager & Evans ("In the Year 2525") scales. Wells's projections are mainly along the lines that we are beasts who don't deserve and will never be able to maintain civilization. It doesn't seem all that fanciful at the moment.
The match of Wells and director Menzies is fairly inspired too. Menzies was a Hollywood veteran and more of an art director / production designer kind of guy. On IMDb, he's director in only one of his "known for" movies (Invaders From Mars, 1953). He's otherwise noted as the production designer on Gone With the Wind (1939), producer on Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and art director on The Dove (1927). Other pictures he's associated with are Duel in the Sun, It's a Wonderful Life, The Pride of the Yankees, Rebecca, and The Thief of Bagdad (for some reason he was formally uncredited in many of them). In Things to Come it's plain from the titles forward that first and foremost the movie is a visual treat of modernist impulse. In fact, Menzies's assault of extravagant images, half-Roman and half-expressionist, is probably the best part of the whole thing. Arthur Bliss's score is pretty zingy too.
It's arguable Wells is not keeping up—his "space gun" of 2036 is a ridiculous cannon pointed straight up. Did they not have the basic concept or even the word for "rocket" in 1936? I didn't bother to check. Menzies and Wells are like a pro wrestling tag team. When one gets tired the other steps in. The war against fascism (which turned out not to be the war that ended fascism) was a relatively tidy six-year affair in our timestream, but the 30 years and extreme devastation of it in Things to Come still does not seem entirely unlikely (nor is it the war that ends fascism). The wandering sickness that follows is so strangely and randomly accurate, at least in terms of popular culture (from The Last Man on Earth in 1964 to Night of the Living Dead in 1968 to The Walking Dead in the 2010s), that you just have to give it to him for calling it at all in 1936. So what if he got space exploration completely wrong? Nice try!
Things to Come is more relentlessly grim about the near future, and if anything that is its essential position, like its peers Modern Times and Make Way for Tomorrow, warning us to get our house in order. It is trying to head off or perhaps ameliorate the coming war with fascism whereas Modern Times focused on labor disputes and dehumanization and Make Way for Tomorrow worried about prospects for elderly care in a swiftly changing world. The world is swiftly changing in Things to Come too, of course. Its fancy-font intertitles toll the years: 1966, 1970, 2036. Humans are fools practically no matter what they do. There will always be people eating expensive horse paste instead of getting free and effective vaccines which do not magnetize you. Things to Come gets the view of social conservatives exactly right and it's a lot of fun to look at too, if a little depressing overall.
Top 10 of 1936
1. Modern Times
2. Things to Come
3. My Man Godfrey
4. Fury
5. Dodsworth
6. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
7. The Devil-Doll
8. The Only Son
9. Club de femmes
10. Lloyds of London
Other write-ups: Sabotage
The match of Wells and director Menzies is fairly inspired too. Menzies was a Hollywood veteran and more of an art director / production designer kind of guy. On IMDb, he's director in only one of his "known for" movies (Invaders From Mars, 1953). He's otherwise noted as the production designer on Gone With the Wind (1939), producer on Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and art director on The Dove (1927). Other pictures he's associated with are Duel in the Sun, It's a Wonderful Life, The Pride of the Yankees, Rebecca, and The Thief of Bagdad (for some reason he was formally uncredited in many of them). In Things to Come it's plain from the titles forward that first and foremost the movie is a visual treat of modernist impulse. In fact, Menzies's assault of extravagant images, half-Roman and half-expressionist, is probably the best part of the whole thing. Arthur Bliss's score is pretty zingy too.
It's arguable Wells is not keeping up—his "space gun" of 2036 is a ridiculous cannon pointed straight up. Did they not have the basic concept or even the word for "rocket" in 1936? I didn't bother to check. Menzies and Wells are like a pro wrestling tag team. When one gets tired the other steps in. The war against fascism (which turned out not to be the war that ended fascism) was a relatively tidy six-year affair in our timestream, but the 30 years and extreme devastation of it in Things to Come still does not seem entirely unlikely (nor is it the war that ends fascism). The wandering sickness that follows is so strangely and randomly accurate, at least in terms of popular culture (from The Last Man on Earth in 1964 to Night of the Living Dead in 1968 to The Walking Dead in the 2010s), that you just have to give it to him for calling it at all in 1936. So what if he got space exploration completely wrong? Nice try!
Things to Come is more relentlessly grim about the near future, and if anything that is its essential position, like its peers Modern Times and Make Way for Tomorrow, warning us to get our house in order. It is trying to head off or perhaps ameliorate the coming war with fascism whereas Modern Times focused on labor disputes and dehumanization and Make Way for Tomorrow worried about prospects for elderly care in a swiftly changing world. The world is swiftly changing in Things to Come too, of course. Its fancy-font intertitles toll the years: 1966, 1970, 2036. Humans are fools practically no matter what they do. There will always be people eating expensive horse paste instead of getting free and effective vaccines which do not magnetize you. Things to Come gets the view of social conservatives exactly right and it's a lot of fun to look at too, if a little depressing overall.
Top 10 of 1936
1. Modern Times
2. Things to Come
3. My Man Godfrey
4. Fury
5. Dodsworth
6. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
7. The Devil-Doll
8. The Only Son
9. Club de femmes
10. Lloyds of London
Other write-ups: Sabotage
No Reefer Madness? I've seen three (or four counting Sabotage)of your list. Keep wondering what year I'll finally be shutout completely. You're getting close.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have Reefer Madness on any of my lists and forgot it was '36. I remember it as silly but want to see it again.
ReplyDelete