Episode 166 – William Cameron Menzies’s Things to Come

Scott, David, and Trevor discuss dramatic structure, societal needs, and production design in the landmark utopian film.

This time on the podcast, Scott is joined by David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett to discuss William Cameron Menzies’ H.G. Wells’ Things to Come.

About the film:

A landmark collaboration between writer H. G. Wells, producer Alexander Korda, and designer and director William Cameron Menzies, Things to Come is a science fiction film like no other, a prescient political work that predicts a century of turmoil and progress. Skipping through time, Things to Come bears witness to world war, disease, dictatorship, and, finally, utopia. Conceived, written, and overseen by Wells himself as an adaptation of his own work, this megabudget production, the most ambitious ever from Korda’s London Films, is a triumph of imagination and technical audacity.

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Buy The Film On Amazon:

Watch the trailer:

Episode Links:

Things to Come (1936) – The Criterion Collection
Things to Come: Whither Mankind? – The Criterion Collection
10 Things I Learned: Things to Come – From the Current – The Criterion Collection
Things to Come (1936) – IMDb
Things to Come – Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
H.G. Wells Presents an Outline of Future History in ‘Things to Come,’ at the Rivoli (archival NY Times review)
Things to Come (1936) – Articles – TCM.com
Weird Facts You Never Knew About H.G. Wells’ Movie
BFI Screenonline: Things to Come (1936)

Episode Credits:

Scott Nye (Twitter / Battleship Pretension)
David Blakeslee (Twitter / Criterion Reflections)
Trevor Berrett (Twitter / The Mookse and the Gripes)

Music from this episode is by Arthur Bliss.