William Cameron Menzies'

Things to Come

Visually arresting and staggeringly ambitious, Things to Come maps out 100 years of future history, covering 1936 to 2036. It is British superproducer Sir Alexander Korda's (1893-1956) effort to dramatize a full spectrum of alternative utopian-distopian futures. Naturally Korda went to H.G. Wells (1866-1946), the most famous living science fiction writer. Things to Come's three-act story is set in the fictional English city of "Everytown."

The Build-up to World War II

The Cabals (Raymond Massey and Sophie Stewart), the Passworthys (Edward Chapman and Pickles Livingstone), and their medical-student neighbor Harding (Maurice Braddell) are introduced in suburban Everytown. Cabal is a pilot and airplane designer who is mobilized into the RAF at the start of the war at Christmas 1940. Cabal is sufficiently skilled to shoot down a much more modern enemy fighter which has just attacked a civilian target with poison gas. Gas had been used extensively in World War I, and there was considerable fear it would be used again, especially against civilians. The massed formations of enemy planes crossing the English Channel drew laughter from 1936 theater audiences, but seemed prophetic a few years later. The RAF flies outdated biplanes and combat scenes are reminiscent of World War I's trench warfare. Enemy technology is shown as more advanced, although primitive British tanks are eventually replaced with streamlined, futuristic models. The war lasts until 1965, when society collapses completely and peace breaks out. Chronic scarcities drive up prices, and by the end of the war, a crudely printed one-page newspaper costs four pounds sterling.

The Collapse of Civilization

Once the war ends, a primitive barter economy begins to reemerge. Warring forces are too exhausted to continue hostilities, and lack access to the necessary materials. No motor vehicles or airplanes remain in operation, and no fuel is available for them anyway. A plague called the wandering sickness breaks out, enabling the Chief (Sir Ralph Richardson) to seize power in Everytown. He controls the wandering sickness by summarily executing its victims. Without international trade, England cannot produce or acquire medical supplies or petroleum. Dr. Harding runs out of iodine, and there is no fuel for cars or planes. The Chief plans a military expedition to capture a coal mine from which he hopes to extract a small and expensive amount of coal oil. The Chief's glamorous and devoted wife Roxana (Margaretta Scott) argues with and bullies a merchant (Abraham Sofaer). Oswald Cabal lands in a futuristic prop plane (with no vertical stabilizer—it would actually be impossible to control in flight). He is greeted by Dr. Harding and then arrested by the Chief, who forces him to assist in repairing several of his ancient biplanes, ("those out-of-date clocks you call your air force.") A large force of futuristic bombers—also lacking vertical stabilizers—subdues Everytown with a benign sleeping gas. Cabal represents Wings over the World, a dictatorship of technocrats based in Basra, Iraq.

The Utopian Future

After an extended montage of advancing technological marvels, the story shifts to the rebuilt, underground, Everytown of 2036. The world of the future features over-elaborate clothing (designed by the Marchioness of Queensberry), tacky Lucite furniture, and ubiquitous but clunky electronic equipment. Head of the government is Oswald Cabal (Raymond Massey), a descendant of the original John Cabal. Similarly Raymond Passworthy (Edward Chapman) is a descendant of the first-act character played by the same actor. Sculptor Theotocopulos (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), though sculpting a 100-foot-tall figure, rails against dehumanizing aspects of advanced technology, which dwarf his megalomaniacal projects. His name comes from the Greek-Spanish painter Domenico Theotocopulos, called El Greco. He makes a televised address, advocating destruction of the Space Gun, a device intended to shoot a manned satellite around the moon. Surprisingly, Wells knew about rockets—Jules Verne made the same well-known error in From the Earth to the Moon—and meant to show a structural parallel between the destructive World War II guns of the first act and the peaceful and progressive Space Gun. Cabal's daughter and Passworthy's son (Pearl Argyle and Kenneth Villiers) volunteer for the dangerous mission. Their parents reluctantly decide they cannot stand in the way of either scientific progress or their children's aspirations. Theotocopulos and his mob converge on the Space Gun as it is about to be fired.

H.G. Wells, together with Jules Verne, practically invented science fiction. He was the most prominent and famous living science fiction writer at the time. He was also a famous playwright, social critic, popular historian—author of The Outline of History—and an all-around public intellectual. Wells was a committed though hardly conventional socialist and was convinced that capitalism and national governments would naturally disappear, whether through peaceful evolution or violent revolution. Things to Come was partly based on Wells's speculative novel The Shape of Things to Come. Wells wrote the screenplay and had unprecedented control over the production, but he had no control over the final cut.

William Cameron Menzies (1896-1957) also directed Invaders from Mars, but was best known as a set designer. He created the position of Production Designer by story-boarding Gone With the Wind for David O. Selznick. Notice that very similar transitional process shots, with repetitive shadows or outlines of ranks of marching soldiers, are used in both Things to Come and Gone With the Wind. He also worked as a second-unit director, often uncredited and behind the scenes. For example, he directed the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind, and the famous dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound.

Hungarian-born Sir Alexander Korda was one of the two largest figures in the British film industry, the other being his arch-rival J. Arthur Rank. This was the most expensive film in British history up to that time, and lost money. Korda was married to actress Merle Oberon (one of three wives), and frequently employed his two brothers Vincent and Zoltan.

Canadian-born Raymond Massey (1918-1973) was nominated for best actor for Abe Lincoln in Illinois. He was a multimillionaire, inheriting an interest in farm equipment manufacturer Massey Ferguson. He served in the Canadian Armed Forces in both world wars, and became a naturalized American in 1947.

Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-1983) was one of the leaders of the Old Vic company in the forties. He was already an acclaimed Shakespearean when he made his film debut in The Ghoul (1933) with Boris Karloff and Ernst Thesiger, and also starred with Olivia de Haviland in The Heiress (1949), and in The Holly and the Ivy (1952), Breaking the Sound Barrier (1952), Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955), Dr. Zhivago (1965), and Khartoum (1966).

Sir Cedric Hardwick (1893-1964) was hired to replace the venerable Ernst Thesiger (Dr. Pretorious in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)). Thesiger shot all the scenes for Theotocopulos, but Wells disliked his performance, and Korda had the part recast. Hardwick was also a member of the Old Vic company. He played Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein in The Ghost of Frankenstien (1942). He narrated both The Picture of Dorian Grey (1945) and George Pal's War of the Worlds (1953), and starred as Pharaoh Sethi, Moses's adoptive father, in The Ten Commandments (1956).

Burmese actor Abraham Sofaer (1896-1988) plays the merchant arguing with Rowena. He played St. Paul in Quo Vadis? (1951).

Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) composed the music, which even today is notably extensive. It is also a sophisticated score which effectively sets the mood as the action changes without the "Mickey Mouseing" then typical of contemporary film scores. Sound recording for this film used cutting edge technology, but consider that it was made less than ten years after the technology had been introduced. Wells chose Bliss and wanted the film to be written and choreographed according to the music, which as he saw it, would need to be composed and recorded first. Korda vetoed this operatic approach, but the score was composed during pre-production, which remains a highly unconventional practice. Elements of the score were performed publicly, on radio, and released as commercial recordings while filming was still in progress. These served to promote the film, but Bliss had to subsequently edit these works to reflect the film's final, edited cut. As is still typical, after the finished film was edited, the score was performed for recording as the edited film was projected for the conductor. Muir Matheson conducted the score as recorded. Bliss was the elder statesman of the generation of modernist, twentieth-century British music, strongly influenced by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and in turn influencing Sir Arnold Bax, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir William Walton, and Brian Easdale. He served as Master of the Queen's Music from 1953-1975.