| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Science-Fiction |
|
|
| Horror |
|
|
| Fantasy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE STORY OF MANKIND
Rating: 
USA. 1957.
Director/Producer – Irwin Allen, Screenplay – Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett, Based on the Novel by Henrik Van Loon, Photography – Nick Musuraca, Music – Paul Sawtell, Makeup Supervisor – Gordon Bau, Art Direction – Art Loeb. Production Company – Cambridge.
Cast:
Ronald Colman (The Spirit of Mankind), Vincent Price (Mr Scratch), Cedric Hardwicke (Judge), John Carradine (Khufu), Francis X. Bushman (Moses), Virginia Mayo (Cleopatra), Helmut Dantine (Mark Antony), Reginald Sheffield (Julius Caesar), Dani Crayne (Helen of Troy), Charles Coburn (Hippocrates), Peter Lorre (Nero), Hedy Lamarr (Joan of Arc), Anthony Dexter (Christopher Columbus), Edward Everett Horton (Sir Walter Raleigh), Agnes Moorhead (Queen Elizabeth I), Cesar Romero (Spanish Ambassador), Reginald Gardiner (William Shakespeare), Groucho Marx (Peter Minuit), Abraham Sofaer (Indian Chief), Harpo Marx (Isaac Newton), Dennis Hopper (Napoleon Bonaparte), Marie Wilson (Marie Antoinette), Austin Green (Abraham Lincoln), Jim Ameche (Alexander Graham Bell), Bobby Watson (Adolf Hitler)
Plot: A tribunal is convened in the heavens to decide what to do now that humankind has developed the H-Bomb 60 years before it is meant to. The tribunal incarnates The Spirit of Mankind, one man who represents the average qualities of humanity, to argue the case that mankind should not be allowed to obliterate itself, while The Devil, Mr Scratch, comes to argue in favour of mankind’s baser, most destructive tendencies. To make their case the two of them choose examples that range throughout human history, from Ancient Egypt through the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Discovery of the New World and the colonization of the USA, and World War II.
The Story of Mankind survives today as a real Golden Turkey Classic. Indeed it was selected as one of The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time (1977) by the Medved Brothers. It was one of the first films of producer/director Irwin Allen. Irwin Allen would of course become best known during the 1960s as the producer of tv series such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-8), Lost in Space (1965-8), The Time Tunnel (1967-8) and Land of the Giants (1969-71), and during the 1970s singlehandedly created the disaster movie genre as producer/director of the likes of The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974) and The Swarm (1978). Allen had made a couple of feature-length documentaries prior to The Story of Mankind, but this was his first film using actors.
Irwin Allen’s films are more akin to circuses than films. They are filled with wooden spectacle and hucksterish showmanship where Allen wheels out name stars like they were prize attractions. Here Allen adapts Henrik Van Loon’s bestselling 1922 non-fiction book that gave a potted overview of history. In typical fashion, Allen managed to talk 56 stars into devoting about a day apiece for $2500 each and then winding this in around stock and unused footage from various Warner Brothers historical spectacles. Of course trying to make an epic that covers all of human history but crams it into 100 minutes is naturally a rather slapdash operation – the Twentieth Century for example is skipped over in all of about five minutes. And there is the assumption that does inform many world history accounts, that history only happened to white people mostly in Europe (with a brief stopover in Ancient Egypt and Christian Jerusalem).
Where all The Story of Mankind’s Golden Turkey reputation comes is in the film’s disastrous miscasting. Irwin Allen has roped in a truly amazing cast. Virginia Mayo makes a petulantly girlish Cleopatra and Agnes Moorhead an appallingly over-the-top Queen Elizabeth I, while other casting is simply bizarre – most noticeably Dennis Hopper as Napoleon. But as such it could all pass adequately, if stolidly, as an historical drama – that is until the introduction of the Marx Brothers about two-thirds of the way through. This proves to be disastrous miscasting that sinks The Story of Mankind – and something that has guaranteed its Golden Turkey status. Groucho does his stand-up comedy thing as Peter Minuit, the man who brought Manhattan Island, which is terrible, all the more so because a comedy routine seems completely out of place in a film that had up until that point given all indication of taking itself seriously. Even worse is Harpo’s appearance a few minutes later as Isaac Newton where Harpo plays the part doing his familiar silent mime and facial gymnastics. In no way does he suggest a scientific genius, all he is is a clown in an orange wig doing mime schtick and using his harp to slice the fallen apple. Chico Marx also makes a negligible appearance as a monk.
There is also a problem one has with the argument the film makes. The Spirit of Man’s position, which one is clearly supposed to empathize with by virtue of him being a named a representative of all mankind, is one that holds an absurdly optimistic view of human nature, while The Devil’s position, which we are clearly meant to reject by virtue of it being voiced by The Devil – that humanity is selfish, short-sighted and petty – seems one that the film offers an overwhelming abundance of evidence for. Certainly of the two positions presented it is the one that seems the more realistic interpretation of history.
The Story of Mankind is also an historical epic that comes interestingly informed by the fear of the Nuclear Age. In the Henrik van Loon book for instance there are no heavenly tribunals, no judgments being passed on humanity, the book is just a straight historical summation. There was an overriding sense in the 1950s of some great sense of a line having been crossed over, of a Pandora’s Box having been opened. As in a number of other films of the era such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and The Flight That Disappeared (1961) humanity is being judged for having invented The Bomb. The Story of Mankind makes it explicit with Cedric Hardwicke’s Judge directly turning to the screen at the end and telling the audience “The choice is up to you.”
Copyright Richard Scheib 2002
|