Sci-Fi Sundays: When Worlds Collide
Welcome to the first installment of what I hope will be a weekly feature here on The Weekly Geek, Sci-Fi Sundays. This week, I’m going to be talking about the 1951 George Pal film When Worlds Collide.
When Worlds Collide opens, oddly, with a short reading from the Bible. The sermon today is apparently about Noah, which is what pastors usually talk about when they’ve got nothing really interesting to preach on. Following the sermon, we’re treated to a narration that informs us that “there are more stars in the sky than humans on Earth.” Gee thanks, narrator, I never would have known that.
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Meanwhile in South Africa at an observatory, Dr. Bronson (played by the guy who played Dr. Bellows on I Dream of Jeannie, looking like a pipe-smoking Lenin with a comb-over) has made a startling discovery and he’s sent for David Randall, maverick pilot and all around ladies man. Bronson hires Randall as a courier to take his data to New York to get it analyzed by his colleague Dr. Hendron (sorry if I’m throwing too many names at you here, but the movie has a cast of several hundred, so I’ll try to only give you the critical ones). To make sure the data isn’t peeked at they handcuff it to his wrist. The “what’s in the box” subplot of this movie is every bit as interesting and suspenseful as the “what’s in the box” subplot on Heroes was. That is to say, not at all.
Randall, daredevil flying ace that he is, flies business class back to America in a passenger plane. Why or how this master of the sky doesn’t actually fly back is anyone’s guess, but he takes the opportunity to flirt the hell out of some stewardesses. Landing in New York after renewing his Mile-High Club membership several times over, he meets up with Joyce Hendron, the daughter of the doctor. Heading back to the office they meet Dr. Drake (everyone is a doctor in this movie), the man Joyce is currently dating and who we are assured she will dump in the course of the movie to make room for her eventual relationship with Randall. Randall and Drake exchange and smoke each other’s cigarettes in what is either a metaphor for fighting over Joyce or an incredibly blatant protocol for initiating illicit gay sex.
Eventually the box is opened and surprise! It contains data tapes! I know, I know, I told you it was a letdown. The data tapes are analyzed in a giant weaving machine that’s supposed to look like a computer. After looking at the data Dr. Hendron announces sadly that Bronson was correct, and that the earth will be destroyed by a rogue gas giant named Bellus in as little as a year. Faced with this information Randall, Drake, and Joyce take a very sensible approach to this problem and go get hammered.
Instead of soaking themselves to the gills Dr. Bronson and Dr. Hendron head to the U.N., hoping to impose some economic sanctions on the rogue planet, I guess. The Doctors tell the assembled delegates that the Earth is about to be destroyed and that they have to act quickly to evacuate what little they can from the earth to Zira, an earth-like planet being towed along by the traveling Bellus. The U.N. apparently finds this sort of information hilarious, because the next day newspapers read “Laughed Out Of United Nations” with no other context on the page. Which is admitteedly a great way to sell papers. I'd buy one just to figure it out.
In an interlude Joyce wonders, who is it she really loves, Drake or Randall and how will she choose blah blah blah… Less talky, more collidey!
Luckily Dr. Hendron has some rich friends who are willing to bankroll his exogenesis scheme. Unfortunately his buddies can only get him part of the way so Hendron must enlist the help of Stanton, a rich old coot who wants to build the rocket simply to assure that he will get a place on it. But there’s a catch, he wants not only a ride to Zira, but he wants to pick the rest of the crew as well. Hendron tells him no and berates Stanton for his greediness in what will become a recurring theme for the rest of the movie. Even though he won’t get what he wants Stanton decides to pony up the cash anyway with the agreement that he’ll get one seat.
Funding secure, the Science Squad enlists the help of 600 men and women from technical colleges (women in college!?) to do the actual building of the rocket. Of these 600, 40 will be chosen to go on the rocket. The decision will be made when the rocket is completed by either a lottery system or an old-school freestyle dance-off.
While the men folk do the heavy lifting, the ladies busy themselves with photocopying the important books to take with them, such as The Bible, Grey’s Anatomy, and the Joy of Sex. They also collect and care for several pairs of animals to help populate this new world. Because apparently eluding to Noah’s Ark wasn’t getting the job done and the movie had to move on to directly referencing again.
Stanton, in addition to being rich and old is crotchety. He thinks that when the time comes everyone on earth will want to get aboard the rocket and they’ll have to fight people off to keep control of it. He actually has a pretty good point here, but Hendron yells him down again and makes a lofty speech about the better nature of man. He is completely and totally wrong in this case, but it doesn’t stop him from making Stanton look like a total jerk for even mentioning it.
Hendron predicts that very soon the gravitational forces from Bellus will practically tear the earth apart and everyone sits watching the clock, waiting for it to happen. It does, and somehow everybody seems surprised about it. Tidal waves erupt (yikes!), New York floods (oh no!), glaciers crumble (wait, huh?) and refineries explode (…). The Science Squad quickly races to brace the rocket and keep it from being destroyed in the turmoil, which they really should have done ahead of time. In the turmoil a falling crane crushes Dr. Bronson, which is sort of ironic if you think about it.
The movie then dissembles in to a billion subplots and loose ends start flying around trying to get tied up. I’ll save you the details but Randall and Joyce hook up, Drake fools Randall in to co-piloting the rocket, a couple is distraught about not both being able to go on the rocket, and a little boy wants to bring a puppy on the rocket. If any of those plots sound interesting to you let me assure you that they aren’t in the least. In an actually somewhat interesting scene Stanton’s valet tries to get passage on the ship by holding Stanton and Hendron hostage. Stanton shoots him dead, triggering another moralizing speech from Hendron.
Bellus can now be seen during the day looming in the sky, getting bigger all the time. This actually looks pretty cool in a 1950’s sort of way.
Now that it’s time the 40 are picked and they suit up in what can only be termed “space ponchos” and get in to the rocket.
Outside, the other 560 realize that they’re totally boned and grab some guns and try to storm the rocket. Hendron sacrifices himself (and Stanton too, not being able to resist one last chance to deliver a heaping platter of platitudes) to allow the rocket to escape before earth explodes.
It actually explodes before even coming in to contact with Bellus, so no actual world collision takes place. Rip-off!
The trip to Zira goes well, even though the ship appears to be only a foot long and made of aluminum foil, balsa wood and sparklers. Eventually the ship lands on a new world and the last 40 humans step out on to the alien world, ready to start over. And guess what, the dog had puppies! Awwwwwww! But will humanity also flourish on this new world? I guess we’ll never know because at this point the movie ends suddenly with another bible verse.
Post-Ending Prediction: This is the part where I get to make up my own prediction for what happens to the characters after the credits roll. Most of these early sci-fi films have pretty abrupt endings so it’s up to me to finish them proper.
I guess when Bellus leaves our solar system again and there’s no sun nearby to warm it to a point where it can sustain human life, the last members of the human race will die on a frozen rock hurtling through the endless void of space.
See you next week for another (hopefully less dismal) Sci-Fi Sunday!
