Things to Come

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Template:Infobox Film 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. The film stars Raymond Massey.

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

1 Synopsis
2 Behind the scenes
3 Historical parallels
4 See also
5 External links

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Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Things to Come sets out a future history for the century following 1936.

The film begins in the fictional English town of 'Everytown' in 1940, as a global world war breaks out. 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 civilization on both sides is totally devastated. Humanity falls into a new dark age where the technology level is reduced that of medieval times.

In 1970, Everytown is run by a local warlord known as 'The Chief' (played by Ralph Richardson). One day, a futuristic aeroplane lands outside the town. The Chief and the townspeople are incredulous when the pilot (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 civilization, based in Basra, Iraq, that has renounced war. The Chief resists by making the pilot his prisoner, but the skies fill with futuristic bomber-like aeroplanes and bomb the town with sleeping gas to pacify it.

A montage sequence follows showing decades of technological progress and human achievement.

By 2036, mankind lives in gigantic underground cities. Everytown is one of them, 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, claiming that technology was the cause of the last great war. They start a riot, trying to destroy the space gun before it can be fired. The head scientist (the son 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 son and the son's girlfriend as the crew, and the blast from the launch presumably kills the Luddites. The film ends with Massey's character delivering a eulogy to the idea of Progress and man's quest for knowledge.

Taglines:

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

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Behind the scenes

Wells 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.

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.

In preparation of the film Hungarian abstract artist László Moholy-Nagy was commissioned to design some of the effects sequences, in particular the re-building of Everytown. Nagy's approach was to treat it as an abstract light show but this did not prove usable. In the early 1990s researcher found the Nagy test reels.

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Historical parallels

The film is notable for predicting World War II; it was only one year off. Its graphic depiction of strategic bombing in scenes in which Everytown is flattened by air attacks 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 air war in Anticipations (1901) and The War in the Air (1908).

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