WHEN WORLD’S COLLIDE (1951)

WHEN WORLD’S COLLIDE (1951)

Tagline: Planets destroy earth!

(Sci-fi, Thriller, Let’s Get Off This Planet) [G]

Note: This movie wasn’t given an MPAA rating, but it would definitely fall under G by today’s standards.

You've spent too much time in the stars. You don't know anything about living. The law of the jungle... the human jungle. I do... I've spent my life at it! You don't know what your civilized people will do to cling to life.

In this one, it is discovered by scientists that a star called Bellus will collide with Earth and basically put an end to all mankind. A plan is devised to build a spaceship or “Ark” that will take about 40 or 50 not so carefully selected people to the planet Zyra which orbits Bellus. Meanwhile, Dave Randall who is involved in the plan to leave the planet, has the interest of Joyce Hendron but she is supposed to already be planning to marry Dr. Tony Drake, so we’ve got all that going on here too. 

First off, apparently, there was a planned sequel based on the book's sequel “After World’s Collide”, but after the director's next film CONQUEST OF SPACE bombed, the sequel never got made. In case the plot feels familiar, this movie is the basis for 1998’s DEEP IMPACT. 

The pace is pretty slow. I mean, this thing takes its time to get going, but the dialog is pretty solid. There are not a lot of wasted lines, there just isn’t a ton visually going on for the first 42 minutes or so. When the action does start this movie ramps up and actually does a pretty good job of creating a sense of tension and dread worthy of the movie’s title, but that only lasts for a few minutes of the entire movie. Unlike a lot of 1950’s sci-fi, this was filmed in color.

Acting-wise we get a pretty good cast. The film’s leading lady is Barbara Rush who plays Joyce Hendron. Barbara is pretty decent in this, but with everything that is going on, she only gets about 10 minutes or less of actual screen time. She is most famous for her other big sci-fi flick IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE. The male lead is Richard Derr who plays Tony Randall. He reminds me a lot of Kirk Douglas from 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. Derr is really good in this, but I wasn’t crazy about his character. His other sci-fi film from the 50s was TERROR IS A MAN. Rachel Ames also has a small role as Julie Cummings in this one and it’s her first film ever. She is still around as of the writing of this review and has 69 acting credits. She is probably most famous for her role as Audrey Hardy R.N. on the TV show “General Hospital”. Peter Hansen has a standout performance as Dr. Tony Drake. He also has the distinction of probably being most famous for his role on “General Hospital”. Larry Keating plays Dr. Cole Hendron in this and probably delivers the best performance out of anyone.

The sets are actually decent for the most part, but they're just isn’t enough going on in this movie for most of its run time for me to give it a great rating. The score is better than okay but not the best from this genre. I wish I liked this one more, but even the messaging that human nature is just overall pretty jaded doesn’t really hit a chord with me because it’s the theme of tons of movies. The love story is also just a giant tossed salad that ends up on the floor being eaten by the cat. Normally that kind of cheese is what I am all about, but this is a rough one for me in spite of doing a lot of things right. 

Overall I have to give this a 3 out of 7.
 

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