{"id":291,"date":"2006-07-13T01:30:35","date_gmt":"2006-07-13T05:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=291"},"modified":"2018-08-22T07:10:51","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T11:10:51","slug":"things-to-come-menzies-1936","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=291","title":{"rendered":"(Menzies 1936) Things To Come"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/span>H. G. Wells par\u00adtic\u00adi\u00adpat\u00aded direct\u00adly in this pio\u00adneer Sci\u00adence Fic\u00adtion film of 1936. The film is visu\u00adal\u00adly fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00ading. No expense or effort was spared in it\u2019s art direc\u00adtion, to put across the 1930\u2019s vision of the future, with it\u2019s mov\u00ading side\u00adwalks and colos\u00adsal shoul\u00adder-pads. It is also imbued with the total\u00adi\u00adtar\u00adi\u00adan atmos\u00adphere of that era. Wells envi\u00adsions a world war com\u00ading (he places it in 1940), which drags on for decades until the world is reduced to bar\u00adbarism. Then a tech\u00adno\u00adcrat\u00adic force of sci\u00aden\u00adtist-air\u00admen takes over the world and builds it into a \u201cutopia\u201d. It is all white walls and glass tub\u00ading. One char\u00adac\u00adter explains that their sav\u00adage ances\u00adtors lived \u201chalf-out-doors\u201d before they learned the supe\u00adri\u00ador\u00adi\u00adty of arti\u00adfi\u00adcial light. Final\u00adly, in 2036 AD<\/span>, an expe\u00addi\u00adtion is sent to the Moon, despite the attempt of an \u201canti-progress\u201d artist to sab\u00ado\u00adtage the project. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The cen\u00adtral char\u00adac\u00adter, Oswald Cabal, played by Ray\u00admond Massey, gives stiff-jawed speech\u00ades like this: \u201c<\/span>Rest enough for the indi\u00advid\u00adual man \u2014 too much, and too soon \u2014 and we call it death. But for Man, no rest and no end\u00ading. He must go on, con\u00adquest beyond con\u00adquest. First this lit\u00adtle plan\u00adet with its winds and ways, and then all the laws of mind and mat\u00adter that restrain him. Then the plan\u00adets about him and at last out across immen\u00adsi\u00adty to the stars. And when he has con\u00adquered all the deeps of space and all the mys\u00adter\u00adies of time, still he will be begin\u00adning.<\/em><\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I watched this with a lit\u00adtle irony. The house that Ray\u00admond Massey grew up is only a hun\u00addred metres from my apart\u00adment. Massey led a fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00ading life (he man\u00adaged to be severe\u00adly wound\u00aded in action in both <\/em><\/span><\/span>world wars, and his broth\u00ader was Gov\u00ader\u00adnor Gen\u00ader\u00adal of Cana\u00adda). The fam\u00adi\u00adly home is now a steak house, and I had a birth\u00adday din\u00adner with my moth\u00ader there, a week ago. Much of the orig\u00adi\u00adnal fur\u00adni\u00adture is still there.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. G. Wells par\u00adtic\u00adi\u00adpat\u00aded direct\u00adly in this pio\u00adneer Sci\u00adence Fic\u00adtion film of 1936. The film is visu\u00adal\u00adly fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00ading. No expense or effort was spared in it\u2019s art direc\u00adtion, to put across the 1930\u2019s vision of the future, with it\u2019s mov\u00ading side\u00adwalks and \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[948,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-d-viewing","category-du-viewing-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9533,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/9533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}