A remarkable film; I wouldn’t go far as to call it a masterpiece but it’s endlessly fascinating. The sheer fact it was made, and on such a large scale, still strikes me as incredible, and Alex Korda deserves all the praise he received in his career for gambling on it. But then he always liked to gamble on major league talent – Charles Laughton, Robert Flaherty, and in this case HG Wells.
The opening sequences are incredibly eerie – Everytown in 1940, which falls victim to a catastrophic World War. I got chills watching it, especially the devastation, the impact of gas, the moving scene where Raymond Massey tries to help the life of a pilot he's shot down, the spread of infection. The bulk of the film’s action – about an hour – concerns the post-war world, with the rise of a dictator (Ralph Richardson) by shooting infecting people. This was all too believable… but his defeat at the hands of some super duper aeroplane flyers (led by Raymond Massey) which wasn’t. Massey and company have a civilisation devoted to progress and hygiene which looks pretty good after all the war. Then there's a last half hour set in the future where they are trying to fly to the moon by Cedric Hardwicke leads a sort of luddite revolt.
Plenty of ideas floating around here and it's possible to watch the film and not believe it completely endorses Massey's point of view (especially as he comes across as such a fanatic). Stunning special effects and production design. The episodic narrative and shoddy acting (in places) make you wonder why Korda thought it could make money? But it has become a sort of semi classic. Needs to be seen to be believed.
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