Any thoughts about the subject? No? Well, do you think it's American, or English?
Yes, English - but it's a mid-30s tribute to the bonds between the "English-Speaking Peoples." Some scientists and investors have a plan: let us build a tunnel beneath the ocean!
From England to America.
The part of the movie that involves people, and people walking around saying lines, is nothing but cardboard, and cliches lie in wait every time the plot twists. Great special effects, though. You want to rewind to see if it was produced by George Lucas Sr.:
Hello, calling the man in the next room standing in front of an open square hole! We're all in white here; how about you?
Telescreen communication is a given throughout the film; it was an accepted signifier for The Future. As usual, they're objects dedicated to talking and nothing else; the idea of desktop computers just didn't occur to anyone.
Lads, we've no choice but to go into the poison-flooded room wearing these outfits I nicked from a Buster Crabbe serial, so let's make the best of it.
No one wore helmets; they just stood around like proles who couldn't find the right sized pants:
These are small carps, though - the look of the underground project is wonderful, and gives you a sense of scale and toil.
As befits the Things-to-Come future, everything is very white, and sleek, and modern.
But it's also very British. There's something quite English about the enormous speaker in the video clip below; can't quite explain it. The buildings look like they should be in America, though; perhaps there was an understanding that everything in the future would resemble the Daily News building in New York, since it was the logical end result of the history of Architecture.
The enormous telescreen now reminds us all of Big Brother, of course. The dystopia often ends up defining the terms by which we imagine the future. This is why "Star Trek" was so important: hope.
After that whole "Third World War" thing we kids wouldn't have survived, but you know what I mean.
