This week’s movie is Things to Come, based on the HG Wells novel The Shape of Things to Come. Unlike recent interpretations of Wells this one is set in London, but under the name of Everytown. The film is produced by the great Alexander Korda and directed by American William Cameron Menzies. Made in 1936, the film is particularly prescient as it opens with a near-future forecast of Christmas 1940 as Everytown being threatened by world war. Pacifist intellectuals, such as John Cabal (played by Raymond Massey, best known for his role as Dr. Gillespie in the 60s TV show, Dr Kildare), try to prevent the war, but to no avail.
His efforts go unheeded by the self-interested classes, and war arrives with tanks and aeroplanes and gas bombs. The metropolis is destroyed by air raids and the war continues for a further thirty years, its original purpose forgotten. Civilization degenerates while the “Wandering Sickness” and devastation accelerate the downward spiral until 1970, when the world has crumbled into a balkanized Dark Ages ruled by a barbaric warlord, the Boss, played by the late Ralph Richardson.
To view the movie online, click the icon below. Broadband and QuickTime required.
To download Things to Come right click (ctrl-click on a Mac) on one of the links below.
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64Kb MPEG4 (107 MB)
256Kb MPEG4 (241 MB)
MPEG1 (1.0 GB)
MPEG2 (1.9 GB)