Things to Come Wikipedia. Things to Come also known in promotional material as H. G. Wells Things to Come is a 1. British black and whitescience fiction film from United Artists, produced by Alexander Korda, directed by William Cameron Menzies, and written by H. G. Wells. The film stars Raymond Massey, Ralph Richardson, Cedric Hardwicke, Pearl Argyle, and Margaretta Scott. The dialogue and plot were devised by H. G. Wells as a new story meant to display the social and political forces and possibilities that he had outlined in his 1. The Shape of Things to Come, a work he considered less a novel than a discussion in fictional form that presented itself as the notes of a 2. Click a link below to hear any of these TWTD programs now. To purchase download copies of our TWTD Encore rebroadcasts andor Interviews, visit Speaking of Radio. Things to Come also known in promotional material as H. G. Wells Things to Come is a 1936 British blackandwhite science fiction film from United Artists. The film was also influenced by previous works, including his 1. A Story of the Days to Come and his 1. The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind speculating on the future had been a stock in trade for Wells ever since The Time Machine 1. K O R L A P A N D I T aka John Roland Redd, aka Juan Rolando 1921 1998, a biographical sketch by David de Clue. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, U. S. A., and raised. The cultural historian Christopher Frayling called Things to Come a landmark in cinematic design. 3In the British city of Everytown, businessman John Cabal Raymond Massey cannot enjoy Christmas Day, 1. His guest, Harding Maurice Braddell, shares his worries, while his other friend, the over optimistic Pippa Passworthy Edward Chapman, believes it will not come to pass, but if it does, it will accelerate technological progress. An aerial bombing raid on the city that night results in general mobilisation and then global war. Cabal, now piloting a biplane, shoots down a one man enemy bomber. He lands and pulls his badly injured enemy John Clements from the wreckage. As they dwell on the madness of war, they have to put on their gas masks, as poison gas drifts in their direction. When a little girl runs towards them, the wounded man insists she take his mask, saying he is done for anyway. Cabal takes the girl to his aeroplane, pausing to leave the doomed man a revolver. The man dwells on the irony that he may have gassed the childs family and yet he has saved her. A gun shot is then heard. The war continues into the 1. Humanity enters a new Dark Age. The world is in ruins and there is little technology left, apart from the firearms used to wage war. In 1. 96. 6 a biological weapon called the wandering sickness is used by the unnamed enemy in a final desperate bid for victory. Dr. Harding and his daughter struggle to find a cure, but with little equipment it is hopeless. The plague kills half of humanity and extinguishes the last vestiges of central government. By 1. 97. 0 a local warlord called Rudolf, but known as the Boss or Chief Ralph Richardson has risen to power in southern England and eradicated the sickness by killing the infected. He dreams of conquering the hill people to obtain coal and shale to render into oil so his biplanes can fly again. On May Day 1. 97. Everytown. The sole pilot, John Cabal, emerges and proclaims that the last surviving band of engineers and mechanics have formed a civilisation of airmen called Wings Over the World. They are based in Basra, Iraq and have renounced war and outlawed independent nations. The Boss takes the pilot prisoner and forces him to work for Gordon, a mechanic struggling to keep the Bosss remaining aeroplanes flying. Together, they manage to repair one of them. When Gordon takes it up for a test flight, he leaves to alert Cabals friends. Gigantic flying wing aircraft arrive over Everytown and saturate its ruins and population with sleeping gas globes. The Boss orders his biplanes to attack, but they prove to be ineffective. The people awaken shortly thereafter to find themselves under the control of the airmen of Wings Over the World and the Boss dead from a fatal reaction to the sleeping gas. Cabal observes, Dead, and his old world dead with him. A montage follows, showing decades of technological progress, beginning with Cabal explaining plans for global consolidation by Wings Over the World. By 2. 03. 6, mankind lives in modern underground cities, including the new Everytown. All is not well, however. The sculptor Theotocopulos Cedric Hardwicke incites the populace to demand a rest from all the rush of progress, symbolised by the coming first manned flight around the Moon. The modern day Luddites are opposed by Oswald Cabal, the head of the governing council and grandson of John Cabal. Oswald Cabals daughter Catherine Pearl Argyle and Maurice Passworthy Kenneth Villiers insist on manning the capsule. When a mob later forms and rushes to destroy the space gun, used to propel the projectile toward the Moon, Cabal launches it ahead of schedule. Later, after the projectile is just a tiny light in the immense night sky, Oswald Cabal delivers a stirring philosophical monologue about what is to come for mankind to his troubled and questioning friend, Raymond Passworthy Chapman, the father of Maurice. He speaks passionately to progress and humanitys unending quest for knowledge and advancement as it journeys out into immensity of space to conquer the stars and beyond. He concludes with the rhetorical questions, All the universe or nothingnessWhich shall it be, Passworthy Which shall it be Cast notes. All of Theotocopuloss scenes were originally shot with Ernest Thesiger in the role, but Wells found his performance to be unsatisfactory, so he was replaced with Cedric Hardwicke and the footage re shot. 4Terry Thomas, who would become known for his comic acting, has an uncredited appearance as an extra in the film, playing a man of the future. It was his seventh film appearance. 5ProductioneditThings to Come sets out a future history from 1. In the screenplay, or treatment6 that Wells published in 1. A. D. 2. 05. 4. 7Wells is sometimes incorrectly 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. 8 The rough cut reputedly ran to 1. British Board of Film Censors was 1. UK, and 9. 6m 2. 4s in the United States see below for later versions. 9 Wellss script or film treatment and selected production notes were published in book form in 1. An academic edition annotated by Leon Stover was published in 2. The script contains many scenes that were either never filmed or no longer exist, although the extant footage also includes scenes not in the published script e. Bosss victory banquet after the capture of the colliery. 1. 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. disputed discuss A concert suite drawn from the film has remained popular as of 2. After filming had already begun, the Hungarian abstract artist and experimental filmmaker Lszl Moholy Nagy was commissioned to produce some of the effects sequences for the re building of Everytown. Moholy Nagys approach was partly to treat it as an abstract light show, but only some 9. In the autumn of 1. The art design in the film is by Vincent Korda, brother of the producer. The futuristic city of Everytown in the film is based on London a facsimile of St Pauls Cathedral can be seen in the background. 8Historical parallelseditThe film, written throughout 1. World War II, being only 1. Christmas 1. 94. 0, rather than 1 September 1. 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 will always get through. Wells was an air power prophet, having described aerial warfare in Anticipations 1. The War in the Air 1. 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 Second World War, there was much concern that the Germans would use poison gas, which was used by France, Germany and Great Britain during the Great War. Civilians were required to carry gas masks and were trained in their use.
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