hough he's in the dark about what he's carrying in his black satchel,
courier pilot David Randall (Derr) knows it must be something ominous. First
the astronomer who hires him to deliver it to Dr. Cole Hendron (Keating)
starts muttering about how money soon won't mean anything. Then he's met at
the airport by Hendron's daughter, Joyce (Rush), who muses glumly that she
hasn't the courage to face the end of the world.
His brow furrowed, Randall tags along as Hendron calmly confirms the data
from the satchel. A rogue star, Bellus, will smash into the Earth in mere
months. Only a handful of humans might survive, and only if they travel by rocket to Zyra, the
mysterious planet orbiting Bellus.
Other astronomers ridicule Hendron's findings, scotching his plan for an
international space ark. Undaunted, he turns to private investors, notably gnarled
plutocrat Sydney Stanton (Hoyt). Though Stanton insists on taking over, he
crumples under Hendron's offer: Your money for your life.
Hendron, Joyce and her fiance Tony Drake (Hanson) assemble a crack team to
build and stock the ship. Randall is kept on, but he feels out of place
among the specialists, especially since he loves the spoken-for Joyce. His
rivalry with Drake leads him to give up his place on the rocket, which is
limited to only 43 people; but Drake, realizing that Joyce truly loves
Randall, tricks him into staying.
The rocket is completed just in time; Bellus fills the sky as those chosen
by lot hurry on board. But in the final moment, the armed, panicky mob long
predicted by Stanton materializes, endangering humanity's only chance of
surviving the last day of planet Earth.
When rival suitors collide!
Scientists must find it a great comfort to know that the more eminent they
become, the more beautiful their daughters will be. This device is as old
as the hero-interloper: A beautiful princess furnishes an "in" for the hero,
conflict with the inner circle, and romance. In science fiction there's an
added rule: The daughter must be a princess of science and know what the
father knows. This makes for a lot of brainy debutantes.
In When Worlds Collide, based on the novel by Edwin Balmer and Philip
Wylie, the raw emotions that any apocalypse must spawn are ignored.
Unfortunately, the daughter device is sucked into the vacuum, turning what
should have been an edgy thriller into a stale potpoiler. Joyce frets about
which man to date as if her only worry were what to wear to the Mensa
Cotillion, while doting dad, taking time out from his urgent efforts to save
the world, coaxes young Randall to confront his feelings.
Apart from Stanton (who's made as repellent as possible), everyone is
blandly wholesome and generally unmoved by the forthcoming holocaust--that
is, until the mob jarringly appears at the end. Nonetheless it's
welcome--the mob is the first foreshadowed suspense point that didn't
quietly vanish into the swamp, never to resurface.
What does work for this film is its look: the Oscar-nominated cinematography and
Oscar-winning special effects. Produced by George Pal (The Time
Machine, The War of the Worlds), When Worlds Collide has a
strikingly rich feel throughout. At least it's something when the spaceship
and the menacing star have a resonance to them, even if the protagonists do
not.
