Review #117: 'Things to Come' (1936)

Everytown, Christmas 1940. The world is on the brink of war. So begins William Cameron Menzies' film of H. G. Welles's own loose screen adaptation of his book, 'The Shape of Things to Come'. The film looks at a projected theory of the future of mankind. Everytown (like, we assume, the rest of the world), has been bombed. Technology has seemingly been destroyed. The survivors carry on in a new dark age. By 1970, Everytown is visited by the 'Wings Over the World', a group, headed by engineers and scientists, who have developed a new civilisation of progression - both technologically and socially. If these seeming primitive types won't join their civilisation, they will perish. This 'super-race' will dominate the planet.

This concept of the super-man, was first posited by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche, as a prediction of a future human race, the idea was formulated in genetic science as Eugenics. This ideology looked at how Man could improve, through genetic research, to advance on natures "mistakes". This in turn influenced the Third Reich, culminating in the systematic destruction on non-Aryan individuals. H. G. Welles was a supporter of eugenics. It has since been displaced and condemned by the 20th century, in all its lamentable genocide. But the pre-Nazi concept lives in this film. The idea of progression and improvement could be taken from this idea.

The film passes through 100 years of predicted human existence until 2036. It perhaps perfectly illustrates the path of mankind, in the sense that no matter where science and technology leads us, there will always be factions of man that will want to oppose this. Things to Come has a group beginning a revolution against progression. A fight against technology and all it brings. Perhaps a future we have yet to experience.

A beautifully extravagant Alexander Korda production, with lavish sets, and a future cityscape clearly influenced by Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), the film is a fantastical look at 'what might be'. Whilst Menzies will probably be mostly remembered as a production designer (winning an Oscar for work on 1939's Gone With the Wind), he did also direct a personal favourite '50's science fiction classic, Invaders From Mars (1953), which also highlighted political fear like Things to Come, in the shape of communism - and the ever-growing concerns of senator Joseph McCarthy.

Directed by: William Cameron Menzies
Starring: Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Marc Ivamy