The Story of Mankind (1957)

Director:

Irwin Allen

Writers:

Irwin Allen (writer)
Charles Bennett (writer)
(más)

Release Date:

8 noviembre 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy

Frase comercial:

No Greater Cast Ever! Rarely So Vast An Undertaking!

Plot:

The council of elders of outer space is deliberating on a very important subject: Must mankind be allowed to survive...

Plot Keywords:

Queen | Queen Of England | Queen Elizabeth I | Angel | William Shakespeare

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Ambitious but wrongheaded film philosophizing man's worth in the universe

Cast

Ronald Colman	...	The Spirit of Man
Hedy Lamarr	...	Joan of Arc
Groucho Marx	...	Peter Minuit
Harpo Marx	...	Sir Isaac Newton
Chico Marx	...	Monk
Virginia Mayo	...	Cleopatra
Agnes Moorehead	...	Queen Elizabeth I
Vincent Price	...	Mr. Scratch aka The Devil
Peter Lorre	...	Nero
Charles Coburn	...	Hippocrates
Cedric Hardwicke	...	High Judge
Cesar Romero	...	Spanish Envoy
John Carradine	...	Khufu
Dennis Hopper	...	Napoleon Bonaparte
Marie Wilson	...	Marie Antoinette
Helmut Dantine	...	Marc Antony
Edward Everett Horton	...	Sir Walter Raleigh
Reginald Gardiner	...	William Shakespeare
Marie Windsor	...	Josephine Bonaparte
George E. Stone	...	Waiter
Cathy O'Donnell	...	Early Christian Woman
Franklin Pangborn	...	Marquis de Varennes
Melville Cooper	...	Major Domo
Henry Daniell	...	Pierre Cauchon - Bishop of Beauvais
Francis X. Bushman	...	Moses
Jim Ameche	...	Alexander Graham Bell
David Bond	...	Early Christian
Nick Cravat	...	Devil's Apprentice
Dani Crayne	...	Helen of Troy
Richard H. Cutting	...	Court Attendant
Anthony Dexter	...	Christopher Columbus
Toni Gerry	...	Wife
Austin Green	...	Abraham Lincoln
Eden Hartford	...	Laughing Water
Alexander Lockwood	...	Promoter
Melinda Marx	...	Early Christian Child
Bart Mattson	...	Cleopatra's Brother
Don Megowan	...	Early Man
Marvin Miller	...	Armana
Nancy Miller	...	Early Woman
Leonard Mudie	...	Chief Inquisitor
Burt Nelson	...	Second Early Man
Tudor Owen	...	High Tribunal Clerk
Ziva Rodann	...	Egyptian Concubine
Harry Ruby	...	Indian Brave
William Schallert	...	Earl of Warwick
Reginald Sheffield	...	Julius Caesar
Abraham Sofaer	...	Indian Chief
Bobby Watson	...	Adolf Hitler
listado alfabético del resto del reparto:
Sam Harris	...	Nobleman in Queen Elizabeth's Court (uncredited)
Angelo Rossitto	...	Dwarf in Nero's Court (uncredited)
Paul Zastupnevich	...	The Devil's Assistant (uncredited)

Dirigida por
Irwin Allen

Créditos del guión (in alphabetical order)
Irwin Allen		writer
Charles Bennett		writer
Henrik Van Loon		novel

Producida por
Irwin Allen	....	producer
George E. Swink	....	associate producer

Música original por
Paul Sawtell

Fotografía por
Nicholas Musuraca

Montaje por
Roland Gross
Gene Palmer

Dirección artística
Art Loel

Diseño de vestuario por
Marjorie Best

Ayudante de dirección
Joseph Don Page	....	assistant director

Departamento de sonido
Stanley Jones	....	sound mixer

Music Department
Leon Birnbaum	....	music editor
Robert Tracy	....	music editor

Production Companies

• Cambridge Productions Inc.

Distributors

• Warner Bros. Pictures (1957) (USA) (theatrical)
• CBS Television (1974) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• Shocking Videos (????) (USA) (DVD)

También conocida como:

Historia de la humanidad, La (Venezuela) [es]

Duración:

100 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sonido:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Clasificación:

Finland:K-12

Company:

Cambridge Productions Inc.

Trivialidades:

The Marx Brothers are never seen together in this film.

Quotes:

First Angel: This story here in the newspaper... Some devilish fellow down on Earth has actually discovered the secret of the super H-bomb!
Second Angel: That's impossible! The super H-bomb is not scheduled for invention by the Devil until the year... let's see... until... here it is... 2016. Why, they're not ready or wise enough to handle it yet. According to our heavenly statistics, if exploded now, the bomb would blow Man and his Earth sky-high. No one would be left alive. Everyone would be dead.
First Angel: My, my, the housing shortage up here would be terrible! What'll we do?

Movie Connections:

Edited from Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

Ambitious but wrongheaded film philosophizing man's worth in the universe

The Story of Mankind is a noble attempt to argue the case of humanity, whether he is inherently good or evil, as he has just developed the "super H bomb." Vincent Price is at his best as the Devil arguing against humanity. It was a poor choice in general to reconstruct so many scenes of human history, especially since the screenwriter(s) changed the events so much as to make them unrecognizable. The casting is very odd and distracting in these sequences, too. The film is chock full of once-brilliant character actors like Agnes Moorhead, who embarrasses herself as Queen Elizabeth, and especially the Marx Brothers. I guess one of the biggest reasons you might want to see this is to see what Groucho, Harpo, and Chico looked like in technicolor (which, if you remember Groucho in The Big Store, was too expensive for their earlier vehicles). They among the numerous actors retain their vaudville characters in this film. Groucho plays Peter Minuit, the man who fleeced Indians out of Manhattan island. He makes suggestive comments towards the chief's daughter, but none of them are funny. Chico is on screen for 30 seconds as a priest arguing about the shape of the world with Columbus (he is the only one to retain his dignity in this movie; at least his character was Italian). Harpo plays Isaac Newton in a particularly pathetic sequence. He starts to play his harp, and apples drop onto his head. Then he mugs for the camera. No Brother fell further from grace than Harpo.

Basically, The Story of Mankind forgets its purpose, worrying too much about the elaborate recreations than the philosophical argument. This plot could have made a good film, I think. Its ending is one of ambiguity, which is where it should be. It tells us that the filmmakers did intend to make a serious film. I say that this is worth ignoring. For a better film with the same message, we all have and still love to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still. 5/10.