The Golden Age of Science Fiction Films
1916 - 1945

INTRODUCTION

I call this the Golden Age because in these early years of the genre cinema, science was looked upon as fundamentally beneficent. Indeed the spirit of many of the literary and film works in the first half of the century is that of a wondrous expectancy that the new pure religion of Science will ultimately deliver mankind from the darkness of ignorance, oppression and poverty. There were prophets of doom to be sure, Wells for example, yet even he was one of the strongest advocates of the view that the only hope for the future lay with science, both in terms of technological advancement and sociological advancement. Though we now shudder at the thought of eugenics and designing a perfect human race, such things were openly embraced in the years before the rise of the Nazi regime. This was a more innocent time, and the general view was that knowledge would, of its own accord, naturally lead to enlightenment. It would take the horrors of a second world war to refute finally the notion that humankind could be delivered from its violent tendencies by science. And by the dawn of the Atom Age, the fears of just what science might unleash upon a hapless world became foremost among the thoughts of the Western world.

TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1916
Produced by: Universal Films (Carl Laemmle)
Directed by: Stuart Paton
Other: Underwater cinematography by
George and Ernest Williamson
Cast of Characters
Allen Holubar Capt. Nemo
Dan Hanlon Prof. Arronax
Curtis Benton Ned Land
Edna Pendleton Arronax's Daughter
Matt Moore Lt. Bond
Jane Gail A Child of Nature
Synopsis and Commentary

A scientific genius obsessed with revenge for the death of his family and the oppression of his people roams the seas with a submarine boat of fantastic power, imparting his knowledge to a French naturalist whom he rescues from a sinking ship. Long before the marvelous version created by Walt Disney in the 1950s, this ambitious production introduced film audiences to the greatest tale of science adventure penned by science fiction's greatest early author, Jules Verne. Considered astounding at the time for its special effects, this aspect is obviously rather weak by contemporary standards, but anyone who is interested in classic films will enjoy seeing the state of the art in technical effects in the dawn of film. This version blends elements of Verne's Mysterious Island, in which the secret past of Nemo is revealed. It is apparent that this film influenced the Disney production.

THE LOST WORLD
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1924
Produced by: First National Pictures, Inc.
Directed by: Harry O. Hoyt
Other: Animation by Willis O'Brien
Cast of Characters
Wallace Beery Prof. Challenger
Lewis Stone Sir John Roxton
Bessie Love Miss Paula White
Lloyd Hughes Edward E. Malone
Alma Bennett Gladys Hungerford
Arthur Hoyt Prof. Summerlee
Synopsis and Commentary

An irascible and eccentric professor of paleontology leads an expedition into the jungles of the Amazon basin to a vast escaprment, where prehistoric creatures still survive. The Lost World is the first film to depict a monster set loose in the modern world by a group of adventuring scientists, almost a decade before King Kong and 70 years before the film loosely based on Michael Crighton's novel of the same title borrowed the idea with an episode more faithful to the above poster than the original film (in this film it is a sauropod, rather than a therapod, that runs amok). The Lost World had a profound effect on film makers, animators in particular, for years to come. This was the first major film effort for animation pioneer Willis O'Brien, who is most famous for his work on King Kong.

METROPOLIS
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1927
Produced by: Erich Pommer
Directed by: Fritz Lang
Other: Based on the novel by Thea von Harbou
Cast of Characters
Alfred Abel Johan Fredersen
Gustav Froelich Freder Fredersen
Brigitte Helm Maria / The Machine Woman
Rudolf Klein-Rogge C. A. Rotwang, Der Erfinder
Fritz Rasp Der Schmale
Theodor Loos Josaphat
Erwin Biswanger George, No. 11811
Heinrich George Grot
Synopsis and Commentary

In the future, society is divided between a worker underclass and an elite ruling class, until a malevolent scientist creates a cyborg that precipitates an unrising. If there is a film more archetypal of classic, true science fiction than Metropolis, I can't name it - and I defy anyone to try. Brilliant, subversive director Fritz Lang is famed for many films, but arguably most of all for this one. True science fiction operates fundamentally as social commentary and this film is the ultimate commentary on the modern social order and its relationship to technology. Although visually fantastic, Metropolis is surprisingly realistic and accurate in its predicted trends.

DOCTOR X
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1932
Produced by: First National Pictures, Inc.
Directed by: Michael Curtiz
Other:
Cast of Characters
Lionel Atwill Dr. Jerry Xavier
Fay Wray Joan Xavier
Lee Tracy Lee Taylor
Preston Foster Dr. Wells
John Wray Dr. Haines
Harry Beresford Dr. Duke
Arthur Edmund Carewe Dr. Rowitz
Willard Robertson Detective O'Halloran
Synopsis and Commentary

A brilliant scientist must find a mysterious killer that strikes only during the full moon. One of the earliest full color films using the Technicolor process, Doctor X, is a companion to Mystery in the Wax Museum, also starring Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray and directed by Michael Curtiz, who like many a famous director after him (Robert Wise, Francis Ford Coppola) got his start making genre films. Like its sibling, Doctor X is filled with lively 1930s dialogue and steeped in classic period atmosphere. The plot premise is also rather unusual and imaginative. The film was based on a stage play that ran in New York for 80 performances.

THE INVISIBLE MAN
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1933
Produced by: Univeral Pictures, Inc
Directed by: James Whale
Other:
Cast of Characters
Claude Rains Griffin
Gloria Stuart Flora Cranley
William Harrigan Dr. Arthur Kemp
Henry Travers Dr. Cranley
Synopsis and Commentary

A brilliant chemist discovers the secret of imparting invisibility to living tissue, but becomes a murderous madman when he submits himself to the process. Next to The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, H. G. Wells' most well known novel is The Invisible Man. The decision by Universal to bring this story to the screen only three or four years after the emergence of sound in film is, in retrospect, really remarkable and indicative of the high degree of technical innovation in early films - a fact less recognized today. While bluescreen techniques are passe' today, The Invisible Man created a sensation among original viewers when Griffin unwraps his bandages. Spawning a series that was as successful at the time as the Frankenstein, Mummy, Dracula and Wolfman films of Universal, and launching the career of the great Claude Rains, this is a true classic. It is probably the archetype for all subsequent stories of dire consequences that follow self-experimentation by obsessed, pioneering scientists; which has become both a genre staple and a tiresome cliche' (don't mad scientists watch these old movies?).

THE INVISIBLE RAY
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1936
Produced by: Universal Pictures (Carl Laemmle, Jr)
Directed by: Lambert Hillyer
Other:
Cast of Characters
Boris Karloff Dr. Janos Ruhk
Bela Lugosi Dr. Felix Benet
Frances Drake Diana Ruhk
Frank Lawton Ronald Drake
Walter Kingsford Sir Frances Stevens
Synopsis and Commentary

A brilliant but eccentric scientist discovers an aeons old meteorite in Africa that possesses radioactive properties that alter him, imparting a lethal touch. One of the classic Karloff-Lugosi films from the heyday of Universal's efforts, The Invisible Ray offers probably the original form of the death touch theme that recurs in genre films, notably in The 4D Man and The Projected Man. There is also a curious resemblance to the plot device of a very different film also starring Karloff in the early 1960s: Die, Monster, Die!. The most memorable and imaginative scene is the reconstruction of the history of the meteor across the depths of time and space. The Invisible Ray is a prophetic harbinger of the terrors of the atomic age soon to be unleashed.

THINGS TO COME
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1936
Produced by: London Film Productions
Directed by: William Cameron Menzies
Other: Screenplay co-written by H. G. Wells
Cast of Characters
Raymond Massey John Cabal / Oswald Cabal
Edward Chapman Pippa Passworthy / Raymond Passworthy
Ralph Richardson The Boss
Margaretta Scott Rowena / Roxana
Cedric Hardwicke Theotocopulos
Synopsis and Commentary

A society governed by scientific reason arises from the ruins of a decades long world war to challenge the boundaries of Earth in the quest for knowledge and advancement. No film of the sci-fi golden age is a better epitome for the early spirit of science fiction and H. G. Well's fiction in particular, than Things to Come. In contrast to all dystopias of the future sci-fi cinema this is the utopia once dreamed of. Significantly, H. G. Wells collaborated on this production, contributing to the adaptation of his novel The Shape of Things to Come. Told, as a morality play of sorts in which Science, rather than God, is the hero, the film can be pedantic, especially to cynical contemporary audiences. Its anticipation of the effects of global war and the rise of totalitarianist regimes and anarchy is prophetic. What is most poignant about this film after 70 years is that the optimism and hopeful perspective of human progress has been all but abolished. The very postulate that reason and science can deliver humankind from its legacy of oppression, violence, injustice and poverty would elicit ridicule today. Of course, we are experienced enough to doubt the perpetual beneficence of any global socialist government of the type depicted in Things to Come.

DR. CYCLOPS
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1940
Produced by: Paramount Pictures (Merian C. Cooper)
Directed by: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Other:
Cast of Characters
Albert Dekker Dr. Alexander Thorkel
Janice Logan Dr. Mary Robinson
Thomas Coley Bill Stockton
Charles Halton Dr. Rupert Bulfinch
Victor Kilian Steve Baker
Frank Yaconelli Pedro
Paul Fix Dr. Mendoza
Frank Reicher Prof. Kendall
Synopsis and Commentary

A sadistic physicist working in a remote laboratory in the Peruvian jungle discovers how to shrink objects using nuclear radiation and applies this knowledge to torment his scientific opponents. Dr. Cyclops exhibited Academy Award nominated special effects, ground-breaking for its time, as well as a nuanced performance by veteran heavy Albert Dekker as the obsessed scientist gone wrong. This film, probably more than any other - arguably more than The Invisible Ray, is the archetype for stories of mad scientists (especially in remote laboratories, wherein the visitors are made uniquely vulnerable). Certainly, it is one of the best and it seems to foreshadow the post-war disillusionment with science and the awareness that the obsessive, unbounded quest for knowledge can present unacceptable compromises of virtue and sound reason - a theme that resonates to this day. The most chilling scenes are unconventional acts of violence, as when Thorkel kills his original scientific partner with the radium ray, or the moment when he turns the beam on his party of victims (seen only as a blaze of hellish green light, with screams of terror blended with the screech of unleashed energy), and in a particularly horrible scene when he kills his most imperious antagonist.

THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS
Rating
Film Production Credits
Release Date: 1940
Produced by: Univeral Pictures, Inc
Directed by: Joe May
Other:
Cast of Characters
Sir Cedric Hardwicke Richard Cobb
Vincent Price Geoffrey Radcliffe
Nan Grey Helen Manson
John Sutton Dr. Frank Griffin
Cecil Kellaway Inspector Sampson of Scotland Yard
Synopsis and Commentary

A man framed and convicted for murder accepts the dangerous invisibility serum in a desperate bid to escape the hangman and find the real murderer. The Invisible Man Returns is a classic example of the Golden Age premise that science can right injustice and triumph in the end. Combining the talents of a very young Vincent Price, with those of Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Cecil Kellaway, this film is better than The Invisible Man. The lovely Nan Grey had previously been the victim of Dracula's Daughter in 1936.

LINKS TO THE OTHER PAGES

The Best Science Fiction Films

The Atomic Age of Science Fiction Films (1945 - 1964)

The Age of Dystopia in Science Fiction Films (1965 - Present)

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