THINGS TO COME

THINGS TO COME. William Cameron Menzies, dir. UK: London Films (prod.) / United Artists (US release), 1936. H. G. Wells, script, from his The Shape of Things to Come (preproduction working title for the film). Alexander Korda, prod.

Positive presentation of technocratic takeover after a horrible war. Final portion includes a visual celebration of machines of the future. Discussed by W. Warren Wagar in "The Steel-Gray Saviour," q.v. under Literary Criticism. Also, on Wells's novel, W. Warren Wagar, "H. G. Wells and the Radicalism of Despair," Studies in the Literary Imagination 6.2 (Fall 1973): 8 (Aspects of Utopian Fiction issue).

For discussion and illustration of the architecture, see Film Architecture: From METROPOLIS to BLADE RUNNER pp. 118-21.

RDE, initial; finishing, 23Mar22