Information about Things To Come

Things to Come
Directed by	William Cameron Menzies
Produced by	Alexander Korda
Written by	H.G. Wells
Starring	Raymond Massey Ralph Richardson
Music by	Arthur Bliss
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	February 20, 1936 (UK)
Running time	117m 13s, edited to 108m 40s (original 1936 British release), 96m 24s (1936 US release), 92m 42s (current UK copyrighted version)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£240,000 (estimated)
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Things to Come is a 1936 British science fiction film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come and his 1931 non-fiction work, The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind. The film stars Raymond Massey.

Christopher Frayling of the British Film Institute calls Things to Come "a landmark in cinematic design."

Synopsis

Things to Come sets out a future history for the century following 1936. It is set in the fictional English city of 'Everytown' (based on London, St Paul's Cathedral is in the background) and, rather prophetically, begins in 1940 just as a global world war breaks out.

In one scene, the pilot of a biplane shoots down a more advanced single-seater enemy bomber whom he stealthily caught from behind. He then lands his own plane and pulls the enemy pilot from the wreckage. Dwelling on the madness of war they hurry to put on their masks since poison gas is leaking from the bombs in the wreckage. A little girl joins them and the enemy pilot insists she wear his mask. The biplane pilot then hurries to get the girl and himself out of the danger zone, pausing to leave the enemy pilot a gun. The man dwells on the irony that he may have gassed the little girl's whole family and yet he has saved her. He then commits suicide.

The war lasts for decades, long enough for the remaining survivors to have forgotten the reasons for it in the first place. Strategic bombing is so successful that civilisation on both sides is totally devastated. Humanity falls into a new Dark Age where the technology level is reduced to that of medieval times, symbolised with a car being drawn like a cart by a horse. There is even a medieval-type plague sweeping through the land, known as "the wandering sickness", which was spread by the enemy, who dropped bombs containing the virus from their few remaining aircraft.

In 1970, Everytown is run by a local warlord called Rudolf, a.k.a 'The Boss' or 'The Chief' (played by Ralph Richardson), who is at constant war with the "Hill People" and obsessed with repairing the remaining biplanes and capturing coal mines in order to convert the coal to petroleum for the aircraft. The Chief consolidated his power over Everytown after having eradicated "the wandering sickness" by shooting all those infected with the disease.

One day, a futuristic aeroplane lands outside the town. The Chief and the townspeople are incredulous when the pilot John Cabal (played by Raymond Massey) proclaims that the last surviving band of scientists have formed a society known as 'Wings over the World'. They are building a civilisation, based in Basra Iraq, that has renounced war and outlawed independent nation-states. The Chief resists by making the pilot his prisoner, but the Chief's mechanic (whom he was using to repair biplanes from the war) escapes to Basra in a plane he was testing, and alerts Cabal's scientist friends to his capture.

Wings Over the World mount an attack upon Everytown, and the skies fill with futuristic aeroplanes and bomb the town with a sleeping gas known as "the Gas of Peace" to pacify it. The Chief orders his few biplanes to attack them, but they are all shot down.

The populace of Everytown awakens shortly thereafter, to find it occupied by the Airmen and their Chief dead — presumably from a heart attack brought on by the belief that the gas was deadly, or maybe by suicide in the face of defeat. The mechanic who had escaped to bring the Airmen comments on the Chief's death, to which Cabal replies, "Yes, dead. And his world with him - and so the New World begins!".

A montage sequence follows showing decades of technological progress and human achievement, beginning with Cabal explaining the plans of the Global Conquest by the Airmen of Wings Over the World ("First this zone, then that!").



By 2036, mankind lives in underground cities. Everytown is one of them (the only one shown, with no information given on any others - or if there even are others), and the first flight to the Moon is about to be launched from a space gun nearby. However, Luddites among the population fear this new technology, led by a sculptor who claims mankind needs a "rest" from further technological development, and that shooting people into the cold of space is not "natural". They start a riot, trying to destroy the space gun before it can be fired. The head scientist Cabal (the great grandson of the pilot in the previous section of the film, and also played by Massey) explains that the crowds are misguided and that technology has in fact saved humanity. He launches the space ship with his daughter and the daughter's boyfriend as the crew, and the blast from the launch knocks the crowd back.

The film ends with Massey's character delivering a speech to the idea of Progress and humanity's quest for knowledge, claiming that "if Man is merely an Animal then he must fight for every scrap of happiness he can, but if he is something more, then he must strive for more — the Universe or nothing - which shall it be?"

Taglines:

• What will the next hundred years bring to mankind?
• The future is here!

Cast

Raymond Massey - John Cabal/Oswald Cabal
Edward Chapman - Pippa Passworthy/Raymond Passworthy
Ralph Richardson - Rudolf a.k.a. The Boss
Margaretta Scott (as " Margueretta Scott") - Roxana Black/Rowena Cabal
Cedric Hardwicke - Theotocopulos (replaced Ernest Thesiger)
Maurice Braddell - Dr Edward Harding
Sophie Stewart - Mrs Cabal
Derrick de Marney - Richard Gordon
Ann Todd - Mary Gordon
Pearl Argyle - Catherine Cabal
Kenneth Villiers - Maurice Passworthy
Ivan Brandt - Morden Mitani
Anne McLaren - Child (2036)
Patricia Hilliard - Janet Gordon
Charles Carson - Great-Grandfather (2036)
Patrick Barr - World Transport official
John Clements - Enemy pilot
Antony Holles - Simon Burton
Allan Jeayes - Mr Cabal (1940)
Pickles Livingston - Horrie Passworthy
Paul O'Brien - Extra
George Sanders - Extra
Abraham Sofaer - Wadsky
Terry-Thomas - Extra, man of the future
Gordon Bailey - Extra
Clarence Bigge - Extra
Hilda Davies - Extra
Aubrey Dexter - Extra
Colin Eaton - Extra
Don Gemmell - Extra
Jacqueline Giovanni - Extra
Florence Harwood - Extra
Eugene Leahy - Extra
Clifford Marquand - Extra
Victor Papanek - Extra
Kim Peacock - Extra
Charles Stuart - Extra
H. Fisher White - Extra

Behind the scenes

Wells is assumed to have had a degree of control over the project that was unprecedented for a screenwriter, and personally supervised nearly every aspect of the film. Posters and the main title bill the film as "H. G. Wells' THINGS TO COME", with "an Alexander Korda production" appearing in smaller type. In fact, Wells ultimately had no control over the finished product, with the result that many scenes, although shot, were either truncated or not included in the finished film. The rough-cut reputedly ran to 130 minutes; the version submitted to the British Board of Film Censors was 117m 13s; it was released as 108m 40s (later cut to 98m 06s) in the UK, and 96m 24s in the United States. The standard version available today is just 92m 42s, although some prints are in circulation in the United States - where the film is in the Public Domain - that retain the additional scenes that constitute the original American release.

Wells originally wanted the music to be recorded in advance, and have the film constructed around the music, but this was considered too radical and so the score, by Arthur Bliss, was fitted to the film afterwards in a more conventional way. A concert suite drawn from the film has remained popular; as of 2003, there are about half-a-dozen recordings of it in print.

After filming had already begun, the Hungarian abstract artist László Moholy-Nagy was commissioned to produce some of the effects sequences for re-building of Everytown. Moholy-Nagy's approach was partly to treat it as an abstract light show but only some 90 seconds of material was used (e.g. a protective-suited figure behind corrugated glass), although in the autumn of 1975 a researcher found a further four discarded sequences. ^[1]

Historical parallels

The film, written throughout 1934, is notable for predicting World War II, being only 16 months off by having it start on 23 December 1940, rather than 1 September 1939. Its graphic depiction of strategic bombing in the scenes in which Everytown is flattened by air attack and society collapses into barbarism, echo pre-war concerns about the threat of the bomber and the apocalyptic pronouncements of air power prophets. Wells was an air power prophet of sorts, having described aerial warfare in Anticipations (1901) and The War in the Air (1908).

The use of gas bombs is very much part of the film, from the poison gas used early in the war to the sleeping gas used by the Airmen of Wings Over the World. In real life, in the build-up to the World War, there was much concern that the Germans would use poison gas, much like they had in the Great War. Civilians were required to carry gas masks and were trained in their use. In the event the Germans did not use gas for military purposes.

Wings Over the World is based in Basra, in southern Iraq, from where it begins a new civilisation. Southern Iraq was also the home of one of the world's first known civilisations, Sumer.

Duration history and surviving versions

Known versions

The rough-cut of the film was 130 minutes in length, while the version submitted for classification by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) was 117m 13s.^[2] By the time of the 21 February 1936 UK premiere and initial release, this had been reduced to 108m 30s,^[3] while the American print premiered on 18 April 1936 was further cut to 96m 24s. By late-1936 a 98m 06s print was in circulation in the UK,^[4] and a 72m 13s print was resubmitted for classification by the BBFC and was passed after further cuts for reissue in 1943. A 92m 42s print - cut down from the 96m 24s American print by the removal of four sections of footage - was subsequently reissued in America and the UK in 1947 and 1948 respectively. A continuity script exists for a 104m 41s version of the film, which contains all the material in the 96m 24s and 92m 42s versions, plus a number of other sequences. It is not known if a version of this duration was actually in circulation at any time.

Copyright status

Although the film lapsed into the public domain in the United States in the 1960s, copyright remained in force in the United Kingdom, the European Union, and elsewhere. The film came back into copyright in 1996 in the United States under GATT. In the UK, film copyright subsists for seventy years after the year of release, or the death of either the director, the writer (or author of original story), or the composer of original music, whichever is the latest. As the composer, Arthur Bliss, did not die until 1975, copyright does not expire until 2045. In early 2007, Legend Films in the United States released a "colourised" version of a cut copy of the 92m 42s print on DVD. This would count as a newly copyrighted work in America, if it was not for the fact that the underlying film is not in the public domain. Both original and colour restored versions are presented on the Legend Films DVD. The colourisation of the film was supervised by Hollywood special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen.

Available versions

For many years, the principle surviving version of the film was the 92m 42s print. Since at least the late-1970s, this has been the only version "officially" available from the rights holders in the UK, and has been widely available via home video and television screenings, both in the UK and elsewhere (in countries using PAL or SECAM video systems, it runs to 89m exactly). In the United States, although the 92m 42s version is most prevalent, a version is in also circulation that includes the four pieces of footage that were in the 96m 24s print, but not the 92m 42s version, although due to cuts elsewhere it actually runs shorter than the latter.

In May 2007 Network DVD in the UK released a digitally-restored copy of the 96m 24s version. To date this is the longest version available on DVD anywhere in the world.

"Things to Come" was digitally restored and colorized by Legend Films in the USA in 2006 and released in DVD format.

See also

• H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come, a Canadian science fiction film from 1979 which was also (extremely loosely) based upon Wells's novel.

Another book of the same title

Things to Come" by J. Dwight Pentecost ©1958; Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506.

References

External links

• Things to Come - The "Film Story"

•  • [ e] H. G. Wells
	The Country of the Blind and Other Stories · Floor Games · Little Wars · A Modern Utopia · The New World Order · The Open Conspiracy · The Outline of History · Russia in the Shadows · Tales of Space and Time · The Science of Life · The Shape of Things to Come · The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents · Travels of a Republican Radical in Search of Hot Water · World Brain
	Ann Veronica · The First Men in the Moon · The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth · The History of Mr Polly · The Invisible Man · The Island of Dr Moreau · Kipps · Love and Mr Lewisham · Men Like Gods · The Sleeper Awakes · Star-Begotten · The Time Machine · Tono-Bungay · The War in the Air · The War of the Worlds · The Wheels of Chance · The World Set Free
	"The Chronic Argonauts" · "The Country of the Blind" · "The Crystal Egg" · "Empire of the Ants" · "The Land Ironclads" · "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" · "The Red Room" · "The Stolen Body" · "A Story of the Days To Come" · "A Story of the Stone Age" · "A Vision of Judgment"
	The Man Who Could Work Miracles · Things to Come ? The History of Mr. Polly · The War of the Worlds · The Time Machine