Stubs - When Worlds Collide

When Worlds Collide (1951) Starring: Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Peter Hanson, John Hoyt. Directed by Rudolph Maté. Screenplay by Sydney Boehm. Based on the serial story "When Worlds Collide" by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie in Blue Book Magazine (Sep 1932--Feb 1933). Produced by George Pal. USA. Run time 83 minutes. Science Fiction

I’ll be honest, part of my interest in seeing When Worlds Collide was that it gets a mention in the song “Science Fiction - Double Feature” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975); “…But when worlds collide / Said George Pal to his bride…” When I saw this was going to be on TCM, on went the DVR.

The movie rights for the novel, When Worlds Collide, were originally purchased by Paramount Pictures in 1922 with the idea of Cecil B. DeMille making a film called End of the World. But that film wasn’t made. The story was shelved until October 1949 when Paramount sold them to George Pal, a producer best known for a puppet-cartoon series The Puppetoons. When Pal signed a production contract with the studio, he sold the rights back.

Following the success of Pal’s Destination Moon (1950), Paramount rushed When Worlds Collide into production to capitalize on that film’s success.

Newcomer Barbara Rush was signed to co-star in the film. Rush made her film debut in The Goldbergs (1950) and would later star in It Came From Outer Space (1953). Her co-star, Richard Derr, had been in films since the 1940s but this was his first lead role.

The film went into production on December 14, 1950, and with reshoots, wrapped on April 16, 1951. Some of the exterior launching scenes were filmed in Calabasas, CA.

When Worlds Collide opens with a discovery made at an observatory in South Africa by Astronomer Dr. Henry Bronson (Hayden Rorke). According to his findings, Earth is on a collision course with a new planet, Zyra, circling the star Bellus, and both spheres are racing at an incredible speed toward Earth.

Pilot Dave Randall (Richard Derr) is called in to deliver a black box containing top-secret scientific data, with instructions to deliver it to Dr. Hendron in New York. He is instructed to fly to Lisbon and then take the Yankee Clipper flight to America. Dave asks but Bronson does not reveal anything specific about the data and warns Dave not to discuss his mission, before handcuffing him to the box. He is to be paid $1500 upon delivery.

However, news of a secret discovery has gotten out. At the airport in New York, Dave is met by Hendron's daughter Joyce (Barbara Rush). A newspaper reporter from the Sentinel approaches and offers an even more substantial sum for information in the box. But torn between money and his sudden interest in Joyce, Dave refuses the money.

On the cab ride, Dave Randall (Richard Derr) pretends to know what Joyce Hendron (Barbara Rush) is talking about.

In the cab on the way to see her father, Joyce alludes to Bronson's "end of the world" discovery, piquing Dave's curiosity. He pretends that he already knows everything.

At Hendron’s observatory, where he makes sure to hand the box off to Hendron (Larry Keating), Dave is introduced to physician Dr. Tony Drake (Peter Hanson), Joyce's fiancé.

While Joyce double-checks Bronson's data with a differential analyzer, Hendron explains to Dave, Tony and members of the observatory board about Bronson’s discovery. Bronson has predicted that in eight months, Bellus will pass close to Earth, causing devastating earthquakes and tidal waves, and shortly after, Zyra will collide with Earth, destroying it.

Joyce returns and announces that Bronson's calculations are found to be accurate. A pall falls over the group.

Joyce may be dancing with her fiance Tony Drake (Peter Hanson), but she gives Dave the eye.

That night, Dave goes out on the town with Tony and Joyce and gets drunk. Dave flirts openly with Joyce, who appears to return the attention.

Later, Hendron presents Bronson's findings to the United Nations and proposes that a spaceship be built to take a few dozen people to Zyra just before it hits Earth. While they initially share his concern, a British astronomer convinces everyone that the findings are not accurate and the Earth is safe.

Despite that, two observatory board members, Glen Spiro (Joseph Mell) and Rudolph Marsden (Freeman Lusk) pledge money to start construction on the ship.

Joyce confides in her father that Tony wants to marry immediately, but she is having doubts, as she is attracted to Dave. Hendron advises Joyce to hold off on the marriage and promises to find some way to keep Dave attached to the project.

As generous as Spiro and Marsden have been, they don’t have enough money to complete the project. Wheelchair-bound millionaire Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt) agrees to finance the completion of the spaceship in exchange for a spot on the passenger list. With only eight months to go, 600 men and women begin work on the ship, aware that only forty of them will be randomly selected to make the flight.

The ship under construction.

During the construction, Stanton tries to get Hendron to initiate security measures, anticipating that the doomed workers will storm the ship. Stanton has gone so far as to bring rifles with him, but Hendron refuses to go along.

Dave tells Joyce his decision not to go on the journey.

Dave, meanwhile, tells Joyce, that unlike her and Tony, he is not vital to the operation and thinks it best if he doesn’t go with them. This, of course, upsets Joyce.

Months later, as Bellus and Zyra near Earth, a series of disasters then rocks the planet, including the flooding of coastal cities and earthquakes elsewhere, volcanoes erupt and fires start. The construction area is badly shaken but the spaceship suffers little damage.

While searching for flood survivors in a helicopter, Dave and Tony rescue a little boy, Mike (Rudy Lee), from a rooftop. During the effort, Tony, who is jealous of Dave, considers abandoning Dave on the roof, but quickly changes his mind and goes back to retrieve him.

With time running out, construction on the ship continues at a desperate pace and workers are asked to pick numbers for the lottery, the results of which will be posted the day before the collision.

Although Hendron announces that Dave has a guaranteed place along with his assistant, Dean Frye (Stephen Chase), Stanton, Tony, Joyce, and himself, Dave refuses to be given special treatment. But Tony nobly informs Dave that because Frye, who is to pilot the ship, has a heart condition, he may become incapacitated during the flight. Since Dave is the only other one who knows how to fly the ship, Tony convinces him that he must go along. Joyce is overjoyed at the news and thanks Tony privately for his selfless act.

With the ship all but completed, the winning lottery numbers are posted, and as Stanton had predicted, some workers protest their exclusion and form a mob. When lucky Eddie Garson (James Congdon) finds out that his girlfriend, Julie Cummings (Judith Ames), did not win a seat, he declines to go and returns his spot.

Dr. Hendron (Larry Keating), Dr. Dean Frye (Stephen Chase) and
Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt) discuss who gets to go on the ship.

Stanton insists that to avoid a dangerous overload, Eddie's vacated spot not be filled, but Harold Ferris (Frank Cady), Stanton's aide, demands the seat at gunpoint. During a brief standoff, Stanton shoots Ferris dead with his own gun.

Hendron orders that Julie be included along with Eddie, even though the extra weight could jeopardize the flight.

Thanks to the guns Stanton has brought, the mob arms themselves. Shots and fights break out, and Hendron instructs everyone to board the ship as quickly as possible.

The last to board are Stanton and Hendron, who is outside pushing his wheelchair. But Hendron refuses to board, sacrificing himself as well as the millionaire for the benefit of the excursion sighting that without their weight, the mission has a better chance of success.

The crew onboard the ship.

The ship blasts off, and as expected, the space travelers lose consciousness. Bellus collides with Earth, destroying the planet.

Later, all of the passengers, including Frye, revive, and Dave realizes that Tony lied to him about Frye so that he and Joyce could be together.

Dave and Joyce start life together on Zyra.

Even though they’ve used up all the fuel, Dave manages to land the plane safely on Zyra, which ends up being a lot like Earth. Dave, Joyce, and the rest of the crew, and the livestock they've brought with them, disembark, ready to begin life in the new world.

The final scene concludes with the written statement, "The first day on the new world had begun..."

The reviews were not stellar, when the film was released on November 15, 1951. Several months later, on February 6, 1952, The New York Times film critic summarizes his review with this,” Except for a rustle of applause to salute a perfect pancake landing, the drowsy audience at the Globe, where the film opened yesterday, showed slight interest. It appeared skeptical and even bored. Mr. Pal barely gets us out there, but this time he doesn't bring us back.”

Variety’s review was more enamored with the camera work than with anything else, “Top honors for this inter-planetary fantasy rest with the cameramen and special effects technicians rather than with performances of the non-name cast.” The film did when an Honorary Academy Award for Special Effects, as well as a nomination for Best Cinematography (Color), losing to An American in Paris (1951). They also negatively point out that the introduction of the romance angle hurts the film. “Unfortunately, scripter Sydney Boehm who fashioned the screenplay [from a novel by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie], chose to work in a romance between Barbara Rush, daughter of astronomer Larry Keating, and Richard Derr, a plane pilot. His love rival is Peter Hanson, a doctor.”

The romance is only one of the problems with the film. I have to imagine that its inclusion had more to do with Hollywood’s formula rather than science fiction’s. But that does point out one of the main issues with the film; despite the idea that the Earth is in danger, there never seems to be any frenetic pace to the film, as it concentrates too much on the people involved rather than on the bigger story, the destruction of the Earth. The pacing is too slow and it does become rather dull, despite a relatively short run time.

The acting is okay, but not great. I thought Richard Derr had an easygoing way about him that had some appeal. In a role originally considered for Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Derr does a good job. This may be one of his best-known roles as a film actor. He made a number of films but wasn’t usually the lead. Derr did get the lead role in Invisible Avenger (1958), an early film adaptation of the radio’s The Shadow series.

Barbara Rush was the up-and-coming star at Paramount at the time. Like Derr, she has some appeal in the role of Joyce Hendron. Rush, who began her career on stage in 1937, at the age of ten, was signed by Paramount in 1950. When Worlds Collide was her third film of 1951. She would also appear in It Came from Outer Space (1953) as Ellen Fields, for which she would win the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer – Female”.

However, her career never did take off in a big way, though she would find more success in television. She became a regular performer in the television series Peyton Place and appeared on the soap opera All My Children and the family drama 7th Heaven.

Despite the Honorary Academy Award, the special effects have not aged well. Perhaps the worst of them, is the end of the film. Despite the ship landing on a frozen surface, just outside is a tropical floral painting that is supposed to represent the surface of Zyra. It is interesting that there seem to be artificial structures in the background. Perhaps these would have been explained in the planned sequel, After Worlds Collide, based on the second book, but that film was never made.

If you’re like me, and you recognize the title from the lyrics of a song you might be tempted to take a shot; don’t. Having seen the film, I can’t say that I’d want to see it again. I can only recommend When Worlds Collide to really die-hard fans of 1950’s sci-fi films. This is certainly not the best example of that genre and if you start with this film, you might get the wrong idea about these films.