Views from Crestmont Drive

This is an ambitious film from 1936, based on a treatment by H.G. Wells depicting future history from 1950 to 2036. Again, Wikipedia has a fairly detailed plot at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come.

I’ve read that for decades after, Things to Come was considered the most serious, big-ideas science fiction film of all time. (Until 2001, maybe.) It has some striking ideas and images, but it hasn’t aged well.

This film breaks into roughly three parts.

• In 1940, war breaks out. We witness events from a generic city called “Everytown,” beginning as the main character, the forceful John Cabal (played by Raymond Massey), and his friends discuss the inevitability of war and its impact on technological progress. Then sirens sound and the war begins; we see the center of town as people run, cars crash, aircraft attack, tanks roll through the central square. Bombastic music. Buildings collapse, burn. Then shots of ships at sea, futuristic tanks, planes over the coast. Title cards display the years as war goes on… 1945, 1960. Finally it’s over in 1966, but then a pestilence spreads; no one who catches it survives.
• Everytown is now ruins, occupied by poor villages. The town is now run by a warlord, who wears furs and has a chatty wife. Despite common thought that technology is over, one day a plane flies over and lands nearby. Its pilot is John Cabal, wearing an oddly huge helmet, and he explains that the engineers and mechanics of the Mediterranean area have united into an organization called “wings over the world,” and are rebuilding civilization. The warlord arrests Cabal and tosses him in a dungeon. Sample lines from the warlord: “Who wants books that muddle our thoughts anymore?” and “Why was all this science ever allowed? What was it ever let begin, science? The enemy of everything that is natural in life.” But huge flying-wing airplanes appear in the sky and overwhelm the warlord’s ancient planes, then drop sleeping gas over the villagers. Cabal remarks, about the warlord, “Dead and his world dead with him…” “Now for the rules of the airmen, and a new life for mankind.”
• Then there’s a transitional montage of the rebuilding of society, via huge technology. Mountains are blown up; enormous machines grind away; men pass through factories on gliding platforms. More music.
• Then we see the result, in 2036: the area where Everytown lay is now grassland and low hills, while the city has been rebuilt inside a huge nearby cave! It’s an enormous spacious well-lit cavern, rather like the interior of a huge shopping mall or Las Vegas hotel, where all the residents wear white robes with enormous shoulder pads. The story immediately becomes one about progress, as an artist (played by Cedric Hardwicke) wants to rebel, to stop progress before it’s too late! The head of the ruling council, Oswald Cabal (again played by Raymond Massey), plans to launch the first mission to the moon via an enormous “space gun.” After some debate about who to send, the space gun is prepared, and launches despite converging mobs. Looking into the starry sky, Cabal speechifies about progress and knowledge, concluding with “All the universe or nothing? Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be? ..”

The film is an admirable attempt to imagine a disastrous, and then expansive future; it recalls a quote from Wells: “Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe.” Comments:

• The acting style is broad and the music, by Arthur Bliss, bombastic and grating. The music was popular at the time and released separately on recordings, but you don’t hear it much anymore, all these decades later.
• The film equates progress with enormous technology, which was appropriate for a time when Empire State Buildings and Hoover Dams were being built, but isn’t so true anymore.
• I don’t find the idea of building utopia, so to speak, in an underground cavern, plausible, and wonder it was thought so. (Somewhat similarly, in the 1950s and ‘60s and ‘70s there were science fiction stories and movies about building cities under the sea, another idea that’s rather faded away.)
• On the other hand, the production design is striking, especially of the underground Everytown. This is another case where a feature on the DVD, about Vincent Korda and others, is as interesting as the film itself.
• There are some cute scenes in the final section with a little girl and her grandfather, reclining on glass furniture and watching a big screen showing Manhattan as it used to be, as grandpa explains about the age of windows, when they were diseased and had colds, not like today.
• One of the DVD features points out that the “space gun” is implausible—its passengers would quickly turn to raspberry jam—but Wells, who had considerable influence and involvement with the making of the film, wanted the resemblance of the vehicle to go to the moon with the cannons fired earlier when war broke out.
• The debate in the final sequence is rather insipid; what is the artist complaining about, exactly? Religious opposite would have been more plausible (as was a theme in written SF of the ‘40s and ‘50s), but there’s no mention of religion here. At the same time, the contrast from the middle section of the film, of barbarity, to the final section, of gleaming building and expansion into space, is sharp, and moving.

I grant that standards and styles have changed over time, which accounts for much of my reaction. And I’m aware that similar stylistic complaints would be made about 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially about its slow pacing compared to virtually all modern cinema. So I’ll grant Things to Come its status and try to understand it in its context.

As I’ve said, the basis for these posts, and for my taking the time to watch these rather primitive films from the dawn of the movie era, is to revisit the predecessors of the earliest science fiction films; I have no particular interest in horror films per se. Except for Metropolis (in 1927) and Things to Come (in 1936), there were no true science fiction films, in the modern sense, until 1950. (And my interest in those is how they presumed misunderstandings of how the world, the universe, actually works.) Rather, the 1930s and 1940s were dominated by horror films, beginning with the iconic films about Dracula and Frankenstein.

So yes it’s mostly because the subjects of these films have become iconic. No matter how obscure the original novels were, the films made in the first and second decades of the film industry, about Frankenstein and Dracula and the Wolf Man, have rooted themselves into popular culture. That’s why we see new versions of them every decade or so.

So here we are with The Wolf Man, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolf_Man_(1941_film), the 1941 film starring Lon Chaney Jr., along with Claude Rains and Ralph Bellamy.

I’d never seen it before. What I knew about was mostly from comments by Harlan Ellison – the famous, firebrand short story and TV writer and anthologist, profoundly influential in the 1960s and 1970s, and who died in 2018 – who spoke of Lon Chaney Jr., and Bela Lugosi, in their famous roles, as if they were some kind of gods. Ellison grew up in the 1940s, and these movies and performances were imprinted on him, in a way I suppose like Star Trek and 2001 imprinted on me, in both cases in our teenage years. He would speak of those actors, those movies, in his appearances, in his essays.

So then, Lon Chaney, Jr.? He’s big, he’s tall, and the word that came to mind to describe him as I watched the beginning of this movie was galoot. Right at home in one of those old American TV series set in the south, e.g. Mayberry R.F.D. Big and dumb and with a dopey grin. The plot of the movie is there on Wikipedia, but let me observe, again, how the mansions these people live in, in these early 1930s and ‘40s films, are improbably large and luxurious. Talbot Castle is in Wales, supposedly, and we see the same kind of charming village as we saw in some of the Frankenstein films. So Larry Talbot returns to his father’s estate in Wales, is attracted to a local shopworker, Gwen. Nearby is a camp of gypsies. What is the premise here? That werewolves, men who transform into wolves “at certain times of the year,” turn others into werewolves by biting them [much like vampires].

And so Larry Talbot (Chaney) is bitten by one of the gypsies (played by Bela Lugosi, because of course), and becomes a werewolf himself.

And the fascination, even redemption, of this film, compared to the other early horror films, is that Talbot is horrified by this transformation and how it affects those around him. Chaney, the galoot, becomes a sympathetic, tragic character; he understands what’s happening to him and tries to overcome it. He seems to die at the end – in an ironic scene that mirrors an earlier scene – and yet Chaney came back to play the Wolf Man in a number of sequels.

The DVD I watched has a long feature about the life of Lon Chaney, Jr.; a bit character, in the shadow of his father’s reputation, until he stuck the audition for this movie, and played the character in all the sequels, and did well in many other films through the 1950s. Sometimes the stories of these actors are just as interesting as the movies they played in.

In the Fall of 2019, September and October, I began a systematic review of early science fiction films, and adjacent horror films, going all the way back to the beginning of modern film, so to speak–excepting the many silent-movie era adaptations of 19^th century novels like Frankenstein and Dracula. That beginning being a silent film yet a significant early science fiction film (Metropolis), followed by the earliest sound-film versions, and still most famous, of Dracula and Frankenstein. My directory of those films to watch and comment on is here, http://www.markrkelly.com/Blog/bibliographies-and-reviews/skiffy-flix/. In the past month or two I’ve returned to this project, having now watched all the films in the first group up to 1945, watching them on Fridays (or yesterday, on a Monday), days when my partner is away at work.

So I’ll fill in comments about those not yet posted. Perhaps not detailed plot summaries, as in some earlier posts, just some general comments. Detailed plot summaries for all of these are on Wikipedia.

Monday 6 July: the 1945 version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. This was originally a novel by Oscar Wilde, and has apparently no fewer than 8 film adaptations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray_(disambiguation)).

The version I watched is, I think, the most famous; Wikipedia’s take is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray_(1945_film). This page has a detailed plot summary.

So then just a broad outline and my comments.

I’ve never read Oscar Wilde’s book, nor seen any of the film adaptations, but I’ve been aware, as a sort of cultural meme, that it’s the story of a man who avoids growing old by having a painting of himself, hidden in closet, grow old in his place. The man remains eternally young.

• The film is set in 1886 London. The settings of the main protagonists are enormous mansions like those in other 1930s and ‘40s Hollywood movies—fantasies, I think, even for wealthy districts like London’s Mayfair (which we visited in our April 2019 London trip, so I know where that is!), because these fantasies appealed to move-goers at that time.
• The story breaks fairly cleanly into five or six sections, or acts.
• The opening scene, or first act, is in the home of a painter, Basil Hallward, where he’s visited by bon vivant Lord Henry Wotton. (Who’s played by George Sanders, in a haughty and cynical characterization reminiscent of his theater critic in All About Eve, five years later.) Lord Henry goes on about how life should be devoted to pleasure, with many cynical characterizations of common social customs, like marriage. Meanwhile, Hallward’s subject for a painting is one Dorian Gray, a lovely young handsome young man….
• Dorian Gray in this film is played by Hurd Hatfield, who did much further film work, but who in this one gives the most blank, expressionless performance I’ve ever seen. Why? I can think, given the story’s premise, only that he’s playing the aspect of his character that was captured in the portrait, somewhat serene, but rather blank.
• (So, what is the fantasy premise?) While in Hallward house, having his portrait done, Dorian Gray notices a small statue of an Egyptian cat. It’s one of the 73 great gods of Egypt, Hallward claims. Inspired by Lord Henry, Dorian Gray wishes he could be young forever. And apparently his wish to the Egyptian cat god comes true.
• The second act, so to speak. Inspired by Lord Henry, Dorian Gray seeks out worldly experience. He travels to a tavern in Bluegate Fields (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegate_Fields), a famous slum in northeast London, and is smitten by a tavern girl singer (played by Angela Lansbury, in her first Oscar nominated role, as supporting actress), named Sibyl Vance. She sings a pretty little song about a yellow bird. He calls himself Sir Tristan. Later, when he tells Lord Henry about her, Henry in turn gives Gray cynical advice about dealing with women, which Gray follows: he invites her to his home, asks her not to leave (for the night), and when she hesitates but accepts, he condemns her as a harlot, and dismisses her.
• (Now why, pursuing a life of pleasure, should Dorian Gray immediately head for the lowest class slum in all of London, as apparently Bluegate Fields was? It’s not as if he’s…. picking up whores. Or perhaps he was, in the book, and for movie sensibilities in 1945, that was glossed over. Another possibility: Oscar Wilde was a famous, relatively open homosexual, and perhaps the places in his era where he would meet compatriots was in that area. Was there any hint of this in the book, perhaps? Well, apparently not; a quick skim of the book’s plot shows that this film version was remarkably faithful to the book.)
• Third act: Dorian Gray decides his real life will begin. He recants to Sibyl Vance, asks her to marry him; but learns she’s committed suicide instead of accepting his proposal. Then he sees the painting has changed: there’s a cruel look in his face. Fearing what this means, he hides the painting in his top floor school room, and blocks access to the room so no one will ever see it.
• Fourth act. Years pass. He looks the same, others have aged; he’s developed a reputation for ruining people’s lives, with even a couple allusions about ruining boys’ lives. Gladys, a girl in the first act when his portrait was painted, is now all grown up (she’s played by a young Donna Reed), and is intent on marrying him, despite her engagement to another man, David (played by a young Peter Lawford). At a party (featuring Balinese dancers, very exotic I suppose for 1945), Gray rebuffs her.
• One late foggy night Dorian passes Basil, the painter, in the street (near Grosvenor Square, at the center of Mayfair), and is obliged to invite him to his house, where he tells him the truth, showing him how the painting has changed – and now we see the painting in its final form, a grotesque monster, as shown on the Wikipedia page. Basil appeals to God and tries to pray; Dorian, fearing Basil now knows the truth, and could betray him, kills him with a knife. And then blackmails an old acquaintance to dispose of the body.
• At a dinner, he asks Gladys to marry him, and she agrees.
• Fifth act. He visits Bluegate Fields again, where Sibyl’s brother recognizes his name—but sees Gray as too young to be the man who caused his sister’s death 18 years before. Gray withdraws to his country estate in Selby, where a group of men hunt rabbits. The brother, having followed, is accidentally shot lurking in the bushes. This is a convenient bit of plotting, perhaps installed to push Gray over the edge with guilt at having caused the deaths of both Sibyl and her brother. So he abandons Gladys and returns to London, intent on withdrawing himself to live anonymously on the continent. But first he’ll slash the horrible portrait, stabbing it in the heart. He collapses in sympathetic magic. Gladys and the others arrive moments later, and see the painting in its original form, and a grotesque man dead on the floor.
• Narration. Much of the back-story and character motivation is described in a calm, soothing narration by Cedric Hardwicke, whose long career included appearances in various TV shows in the early 1960s. That’s how we know, for example, Dorian Gray’s final intentions as he returns to London at the end.

Points:

• We don’t see more than three versions of the painting; presumably production costs didn’t allow a broad range. The second version, with the cruel look, is only subtly different from the original. Remarkably, though the film is in black and white, two or three times we see full screen shots of the portrait in full color, including the grotesque version at the end.
• Already mentioned: a scan of the novel’s plot shows the film is remarkably faithful to it.
• So bottom line, this is a story that equates pleasure, or hedonism, with corruption, and death. That Dorian Gray dies reflects Victorian morality, I suppose, that traditional conventions are best, and self-indulgence must be restricted. On the other hand, Lord Henry (the George Sanders character) dominates the first part of the film with many witty and subversive opinions, and apparently has been living the life he’s recommended to Dorian Gray (or perhaps not; perhaps he says things merely to provoke?). And though he shocks his friends on occasion, his position in society seems secure. I suspect his character is a reflection of Wilde’s. Wikipedia notes on the novel reveal more.