The Subtle Difference Between Stupid and Smart

What will it be, a world ruled by science or a world ruled by tyrants? Such is the too simplistic question posed by 1936's Things to Come, a visually splendid but philosophically daft science fiction film conceived by HG Wells and produced by Alexander Korda.

We begin with "Everytown", a place presumably meant to be a generic stand-in for any city in the world but is pretty obviously an English one. It's 1940, four years in the future from the film's release, and John Cabal (Raymond Massey) is worried about reports of impending war, despite recent assurances from authorities there will be none. To a British audience in 1936, that would've sounded awfully familiar.

And of course there is war. In one of the film's best scenes, a pilot from Everytown is shot down. Dying from his wounds, he sees a little girl approach as his allies above deploy gas. He gives his gas mask to the child, marvelling that he did so after he probably killed her parents, deliberately. It's a nice moment to show the senselessness of war.

The decades pass and endless war reduces Everytown to rubble and its people to a primitive tribe. A ruler emerges played by Ralph Richardson, who hams it up admirably. He lords it over the town in a furry vest and helmet, angrily demanding the deployment of aircraft despite the total absence of petrol to fuel them.

Now John Cabal returns, wearing futuristic tights and a calm demeanour. He talks about a new society of scientists ruled by reason. He's not worried when Richardson takes him hostage. Some time later, his allies arrive in force--a fleet of massive black bombers dropping "peace gas"--a gas that puts everyone to sleep instead of death.

Okay, a fair enough argument for science triumphing over infantile tribalism. Except as decades advance, Wells' vision of a society ruled by reason grows less acute. We see a marvellous future city sadly designed with ugly, featureless walls and balconies. We meet a sculptor, chipping away at a vaguely Native American figure, who complains of this new world where humans are trying to do things they weren't meant to, like going to space. Based on this vague argument, he somehow rouses millions of people to try to tear it all down. Meanwhile, on the other side, an old man tells his granddaughter how humans used to have foolish things called "windows" because they hadn't invented artificial sunlight yet. Mind you, that's not presented ironically. Wells evidently longed for a future in which fresh air and sunlight were not such disgusting necessities.

In obviously being inspired by the emerging tyrants of the 1930s, Wells fails to address the issues that actually made them popular. That they presented a vision of glory in contrast to a reality of poverty, something, ironically, Things to Come also does. So when the film concludes with Raymond Massey, playing the noble grandson of John Cabal, waxing triumphant on the glories of "progress" and "conquest" as the mob is massacred offscreen by concussion from the launching spacecraft, one is more astonished by the extremity of the film's tone deafness than by any of its astonishing special effects.

Things to Come is available on The Criterion Channel.

Mistress in Strategy, Love, and Other Things

History remembers Admiral Nelson for his great victories against Napoleon at sea. But, as the popular 1941 film, That Hamilton Woman, shows, he also had an affair with a woman who achieved a great deal of fame in her own right as a society figure and beautiful portrait model. The film, unmistakeably pitched as anti-Hitler propaganda to promote Britain before the U.S. joined the war, was made primarily as a decadent romance by director Alexander Korda. It remains to-day a lovely indulgence.

The adulterous couple were played by a couple married in real life, Vivian Leigh as Lady Hamilton and Laurence Olivier as Admiral Nelson. Although Olivier had already starred in Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, Leigh is unmistakeably placed as centre attraction here, likely owing something to the success of Gone with the Wind.

The story is presented from her point of view and we're given a version of her life story as close as the Hays code would allow--and a bit further. She mentions that there had been "other men" in her life before her marriage but doesn't go into detail, certainly not mentioning dancing naked on a gentleman's dinner table at fifteen or the illegitimate child she bore and was forced to give up as a condition of remaining mistress in the household of another gentleman. She's still indignant when she winds up in Naples, expecting to meet one fiance and finds she's been sold off to another, the British Ambassador, Sir William Hamilton (Alan Mowbray). He tells her explicitly his intention is to have her in his home as an ornament, as much as his collection of statues, but also tells her she shall live comfortably.

She does exploit her position cleverly and by the time Nelson finally appears in the film she's able to reach the ear of the Queen and get him the troops he wants faster than her husband can, who would have to go through proper and slower channels. Nelson has an oddly passive role in the film--we hear about his victories at sea but never see them until Trafalgar at the climax in which his primary action is to get shot and wish to see Emma.

It seems impossible that anyone in real life could be as noble or as powerful as Emma is shown to be but the filmmakers had an uphill battle against public morality. It was around ten years later that Ingrid Bergman became an outcast in Hollywood because she and Roberto Rossellini became lovers without being married. Still, the real life Emma certainly did suffer a great deal more than she deserved and is an eminently suitable model for great romantic drama. Vivian Leigh bore enough of a resemblance to her, too, that a number of publicity stills were released where she was posed like the real Emma in her many famous portraits by George Romney.

She's very good in the film, a woman whose pride is certainly well earned, and you can see why Nelson becomes so devoted to her. That Hamilton Woman is available on The Criterion Channel.

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