Picture this

Although it's fairly well known that what exists now of the film Things to Come is not the entirety of what was originally planned, or even filmed, it is not so widely appreciated that some of the extant footage appears in a different order to that originally intended by scriptwriter H.G. Wells. This is particularly true of the third act of the film, set in the year 2036. In the published Film Story - essentially the shooting script from mid-1935 - following the little girl's video history lesson, part of this segment plays out thus:

(1) Oswald Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(2) "A quarter of an hour later," Cabal arranges to meet Raymond Passworthy
(3) Cabal meets Passworthy in the City Ways; they travel outside to the "Athletic Club in the hills"
(4) At the Athletic Club, Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(5) Cabal meets with his ex-wife, Rowena
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(7) World audience reacts to (6)
(8) Three days after (4), Passworthy meets with Catherine and Maurice
(9) Cabal discusses the growing rebellion with "Controller of Traffic and Order" Morden Mitani
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

The surviving footage and the slightly expanded surviving editor's script, hocwever, has the following arrangement:

(1) Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(4) Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(X) Theotocopulos and followers discuss public reaction to speech
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

Most significantly, what are two different meetings between Cabal, Passworthy, and their respective children - i.e. 4. & 10 - separated by a gap of three days and a number of other events, are effectively merged together to give the impression of a single meeting, punctuated by a brief cutaway to Theotocopulos and his followers. The latter does not appear at all in the Film Story, and it feels very much like an addition to explain the changed timeline. In the original version there are at least a couple of days for the discontent to grow after the broadcast, but in the surviving footage it seems that all it takes is a few choice soundbites from the rebel artist to provoke an instant reaction, hence the need for one of his entourage to declare that his words, "have struck fire!"

It is notable that whilst in most cases the dialogue in existing footage is almost word-perfect when compared to the Film Story, the only major deviations are in the scenes involving Theotocopulos. The role was originally played by Ernest Thesiger, but Wells was so dissatisfied with his performance that he personally approached Cedric Hardwicke as a replacement. Thesiger was so unaware of this that he actually turned up at the film's premiere in February 1936 with a group of friends, so clearly the change happened once all of his scenes had been shot the first time around.

When the restored Network DVD was being planned, the question was how to integrate script extracts from the missing footage in the "Virtual Extended Version" of the film, and it was decided to include as much as possible, but to retain the chronological arrangement of the extant footage, thus:

(1) Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(4) [At the Athletic Club,] Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(5) Cabal meets with his ex-wife, Rowena
(X) Theotocopulos and followers discuss public reaction to speech
(8) Three days after (4), Passworthy meets with Catherine and Maurice
(9) Cabal discusses the growning rebellion with "Controller of Traffic and Order" Morden Mitani
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

The decision to drop Cabal and Passworthy's actual first meeting and subsequent journey through the City Ways was a difficult one, but at the time what was known of the film as a whole suggested that this was one sequence that had probably not been shot, let alone included even in the rough-cut. Whereas most lost scenes are represented by production photographs proving that they were at least rehearsed, if not actually filmed, there seemed to be absolutely nothing of what was quite a convoluted journey through and then outside of the Everytown of 2036. In his 1995 book on the making of the film, Christopher Frayling suggested that the technical requirements of the Athletic Club - with its huge flexible windows and complex sporting water-chute - may have been too great. Although there was much dialogue between Cabal and Passworthy, there didn't seem to be an easy way to incorporate it into the "Virtual Extended Version" of the film on the DVD, so it was omitted.

Last week I finally got round to scanning and preparing for upload all of the almost forty additional production photographs I had acquired since the DVD was put together. These come from various sources and in a variety of formats, requiring some precision in lining up on the scanner, but still some trimming of the image electronically. It was while I was doing the latter on the still shown here - one of the iconic images from the film, frequently used to illustrate it in books, magazines, and on video or DVD covers - that something fleetingly caught my eye. I blinked, thinking "surely not," as I peered at the figures just visible along the bottom edge of the photograph. I zoomed in on one in particular, the image now more pixelated, but more compelling. I grabbed the still itself and a strong magnifying glass, and the results were even more conclusive. Finally, I put the photograph back on the scanner, homed in on the portion in question, and cranked the resolution up from the usual 100 to 900 DPI:


So there he was, Oswald Cabal amongst the crowd in the City Ways, and to his right (i.e. on the left of the photograph), the almost unmistakable top of Raymond Passworthy's head! In retrospect, while I'd only recently acquired this particular still (in a job lot of seven from Australia), I wondered how I'd not spotted this detail before. A quick check of the other examples I have of it used elsewhere, however, showed that in all cases the bottom edge of the image had been trimmed off, so that Cabal's head was barely visible, let alone that of Passworthy.

Finally we have some evidence that Cabal and Passworthy's journey through the city was actually filmed, but it will probably take the discovery of more photographs (the actual footage is too much to hope for!) to clarify the situation, although that may take some time. Based on the codes that appear on each still, there are at least 520 or so of them, of which I already own 91, and am aware of a further 41 - around a quarter of the total.