H.G. Wells - Things to Come
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Movie Reviews of H.G. Wells - Things to Come
Movie Review: Remastered but NOT restored
Summary: 3 Stars
One of the great things about DVD is the increase in resolution. This is *very apparent* in Things To Come.Now that someone has found a 35mm print and gone to the trouble of tranferring it, we get to see the details in the production design. For afficionadoes, the texturing of the models, and the thousands of tiny people (also models) seizing the Space Gun are probably worth it.
But be warned: it is still an old print. Some reels are better than others, and the whole thing could use a good clean and some scratch removal.
As for the content? I must confess it's a guilty pleasure -- just like The Fountainhead, this film is so far over the top it's a must have.
Ironically, Raymond Massey is in both -- another excuse for buying it, perhaps?
Movie Review: Excellent-quality fascist propaganda
Summary: 3 Stars
This is an excellent print of this movie. I thought it was interesting as a product of its time. But the message of the film is disturbing. It's mostly anti-war propaganda. The people in it are almost literally bombed back to the stone age. But then science and social engineering saves the day! Yipee! If you are interested in H. G. Wells or imaginative depictions of the future, then this is the version to watch. If you're interested in a morality tale, a logical plot, or compelling sci-fi, look elsewhere.Movie Review: GREAT movie, LOUSY video transfer
Summary: 2 Stars
NOTE: Unfortunately, I think the new colorized Harryhausen version has the same problems. See more below.
"Things to Come" was the "2001" of its day.
In the late sixties, I saw a clean print of this movie in a New York theatre and it blew me away. Although it is in black-and-white, it is visually spectacular; the story is exciting; and it has a wonderful score. The sound was mono optical sound, but it was crisp and clear and capable of delivering the impact of the Arthur Bliss music.
For years, I've owned a disappointing VHS copy, which looks as if it were made made from a dirty, blurry, over-contrasty 16mm print, and the sound quality is poor. I've yearned to see a clean copy.
So when I got my DVD player, one of the first things I did was to buy this release, which says that it "features a pristine new film-to-video transfer from original source materials."
I am sorry to say it looks EXACTLY like the cruddy old VHS version, and the mushy sound is completely unworthy of the composer and music director.
So, I don't know what to say. If you've never seen the movie _Things to Come_, I recommend the movie highly. But the image quality and sound on this DVD have, alas, that "lousy old 16mm print look."
UPDATE: I'm afraid I think the "Harryhausen" colorized version is just as bad. My remarks above were written about an earlier DVD, Alas, and to my great disappointment, apart from being colorized, I'm afraid that they do. My review was for an earlier DVD edition.
I had great hopes for this new release with the Harryhausen name, and I'm aware that apparently other reviewers' opinions differ from mine. I think they must never have a 35mm print of this film, though.
Black-and-white films from the late thirties are technically every bit as good as "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane." This DVD still looks to me like a bad 16mm print. I'm not a purist, but the film grain is coarse and obvious. The framing is not steady. The exposure varies, giving an irregular flickery effect. It's not exactly blurry, but it's not as crisp and sharp as any ordinary DVD of any ordinary 1950 black-and-white movie. Comparing it to the earlier DVD, I'm not sure what "restoration" was done except for colorization.
I'm glad that people find this version enjoyable to watch, but _Things to Come_ is a minor landmark in cinema history, and a major landmark in science fiction cinema history. Like 2001, this film was a visual spectacle and low picture quality greatly reduces its impact. It deserves better than this.
Movie Review: Historical pageantry fast-forwarded
Summary: 2 Stars
The British, for some reason, were obsessed with historical pageants in the 1930s, and this peculiar product (one of the most expensive films made in Britian up to that time) is an odd by-product of that obsession. It plays like Noel Coward's CAVALCADE in reverse. It opens in 1940, when war against a foreign power is declared at Christmastime (these are the best and most famous sequences, and are performed nearly like a kind of pantomime). Then the film advances episodically at first about decade at a time, showing the devastation wrought by war and plague, the barbarian society that becomes built over the carnage, and finally the superscientific cryptofascistic organization that defeats the barbarian power and its own problems.Aside from Alfred Hitchcock's work, british cinema just wasn't very good prior to the Second World War, and this film shows why: everyone from the evil barbarian dictator and his Lady MacBeth to the children in the street speak with absurdly posh BBC accents, and there's a ridiculous amount of posturing and posing. The film is mostly of interest today as a kind of curio, especially in its relaization onscreen of the popular futuristic fantsies of the period: giant Art Deco turbines, and oversized flying wing aircrafts that sweep the skies. The striking visualization of the Wings over the World society, with its towers and plazas, and its citizenry bedecked in caped togas with plastic tubing (the costumes were co-designed by the Marchioness of Queensbury!) clearly provided the inspiration for DC Comics illustrators in the United States in their depictions of Superman's Krypton for the next fifty years or so.
Movie Review: DATED!
Summary: 2 Stars
This film is just overall dated. Although I respect the foretelling of actual events that did take place in history, the movie itself is just not up to standards anymore and I cannot relate to it, sorry.