Things to Come

HG Wells thought Metropolis to be 'quite the silliest film', but a decade later Alexander Korda gave him enormous creative freedom to write a movie version of The Shape of Things to Come, which turned out to be just as silly. However, like Metropolis, it isn't just silly. It is a spectacular production wherein Wells takes his 'science versus art' preoccupations into the future (as seen from the '30s); and to make it work, only lacks the kind of pure cinematic form which a Powell/Pressburger would have given it, for its scale and love of 'ideas' pre-figure their films and make it just as unique in British cinema history. In the realm of 'prophetic science fiction', it is a genre landmark.