Futuristic Themed Films Made In The 1920's - 1950's.

HONDO

 

Metropolis ( 1927 ), Just Image ( 1930 ),Things To Come ( 1936 ) and 1984 ( 1956 ). Three of the above are very well known titles, and Just Image would be known by some members of the forum.There are others as well that were predicting the future that were made in the 1920's - 1950's, that are virtually unknown to modern generations, which  I had in mind to cover. The first one is the British film High Treason released in 1929. This film was only projecting us eleven years into the future though. I must say that I love the the version of the car  they came up with.






Australian 24 sheet. The just above information has a typo. on it. London of 1949 should have been London of 1940, mentioned on the bottom line. 

Bruce

I've only ever auctioned ONE lobby card and ONE still from this movie!

Here is a description of the movie:

High Treason, the 1929 Maurcie Elvey English futuristic science fiction (sci-fi) war melodrama ("A Gaumont-Tiffany All-Talking Production"; based on the play by Noel Pemberton-Billing; the movie was released in both a silent and a talking version in 1929; it is set in the future world of 1940, and in that world, the world has divided into two gigantic entities, the "United States of Europe" and the "Empire of the Atlantic States", and they go to war when bootleggers cross the borders of the two countries [because the filmmakers did not anticipate the repeal of Prohibition in 1931!]; there is a tunnel under the English Channel, which decades later became a reality, and it is blown up, resulting in a potential world war!)

It starred Benita Hume, Basil Gill, Humberston Wright, Jameson Thomas, Edith Barker Bennett, and James Carew. Note that the only surviving sound print of this movie was found in an archive in Alaska, and it has been restored by the Library of Congress. This movie clearly owes a great debt to Metropolis, made two years earlier in Germany, and the English movie "Things to Come", made seven years after this movie, clearly was at least partly inspired by this film (and Raymond Massey, star of "Things to Come", has a tiny role in this movie). All three movies were made between World War I and World War II, and they all presented a very bleak futuristic world. But this movie is barely known, while the other two movies are considered classics, and "High Treason" certainly needs to be rediscovered by a wide audience!

Bruce

Incidentally, all my life I have loved "dystopian fiction" (about an imagined future where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives) and now I am very afraid the imagined is becoming all too real.

Here are the best ones I have read (in chronological order, and in most cases, the later ones always draw inspiration and ideas from the earlier ones):
When The Sleeper Wakes (H. G. Wells) 1899
The Iron Heel (Jack London) 1908
We (Yevgeny Zamyatin) 1921
The Trial (Franz Kafka) 1925
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) 1932
It Can't Happen Here (Sinclair Lewis) 1935
Anthem (Ayn Rand) 1938
If This Goes On— (Robert A. Heinlein) 1940
Animal Farm (George Orwell) 1945
Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) 1949
Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) 1953
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) 1957

If I had to pick ones I would MOST recommend reading, they would be The Iron Heel and We, both because they are really wonderful, and because so few people have read either (or have even heard of them).

Do yourself a favor and pick any one of these and read it, because one day you may no longer be allowed to do so.

Eisenhower

Good list Bruce. Not sure it’s dystopian, but I’ve read Issac Asimov’s Robot and Foundation series and they are so much fun to read....  

Bruce

Mark

I read those too, and I got one of my sons to read the Foundation trilogy. As you say, not dystopian fiction (far too hopeful!), but definitely great fun to read.

darolo

The Everyones issue for Dec 18 1929 has an image of the High Treason 6 sheet.

HONDO

    darolo said:

The Everyones issue for Dec 18 1929 has an image of the High Treason 6 sheet. 

Here is the 6 sheet image to tidy things up. Lots of various poster images of High Treason appear earlier on this thread.

     

                                                                                                                                        

HONDO

 

Men Must Fight ( 1933 ) is another futuristic film that I have recently remembered. and it certainly qualifies to be included here.

Although produced in 1933, the bulk of the film takes place in 1940; events depicting the start of World War II are, of course, fictional and strictly futuristic, but nonetheless on target as far as the date is concerned. ( IMDb Trivia )

The movie was futuristic in predicting not only World War 2 (with the rise of Hitler and other totalitarian regimes in the early 1930s) but also the popularity of television and telephones with cameras. ( IMDb )