THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES (75) (second viewing: 65)

Directed by: Lothar Mendes (1936)

Starring: Roland Young, Ralph Richardson, Ernest Thesiger

The Pitch: Mischievous gods, experimenting with human nature, give a humble draper's assistant the power to do anything he likes.

Theo Sez: As in THINGS TO COME, the other (and better-known) movie written by H. G. Wells for Alexander Korda in 1936, the hero of this piece is effects supremo Ned Mann - whose trick photography is (obviously) a little primitive now but still delightful - and the villain is Wells himself, whose verbose dialogue betrays his inexperience with film. Also like THINGS TO COME it's a sci-fi movie that turns into an anti-Fascist tract, though that's only at the very end (by which time the film has become a little creaky anyway). Most of what makes it treasurable comes before that, as the hero's newfound omnipotence is greeted by the other characters with the understatement that once made British humour - and the British generally - so unique ("Miracles or no miracles George, you mustn't talk to me like that," says his sweetheart primly). It's a film tailor-made for second viewings, rather wordy and badly-paced as a whole but crammed with glorious moments: the self-made businessman dismissing the whole concept of miracles ("Come now Mr. Fotheringay, isn't that rather an old-fashioned word?"), Ernest Thesiger as a beaky-nosed vicar drawing himself up to his full spindly height to declare "Convulsions! Con-vulsions!"; even Ralph Richardson, generally as hammy as he was in THINGS TO COME, has his moments as a blustery Colonel whose swords are turned to ploughshares, holding a sickle and sputtering on about "this blinking Bolshevik thing". Small pleasures perhaps, but the very essence of movie love. ["Tailor-made for second viewings", but actual second viewing - November 2024, i.e. over 20 years later - reveals it to be much less special, a talky little fable that admittedly allows H.G. Wells room to pontificate on the structure of society, the sacrosanct nature of the soul, etc. May even be a little reactionary, working-class revolt - our hero standing up to the elites - being also the point where he goes too far and has to be stripped of his power. Also rather dubious about grand projects, like using miracles to cure all disease - but Ernest Thesiger is indeed splendid as the idealistic vicar behind the project, and Young is also an asset (despite being miscast as what's repeatedly described as a "young man"), and there's even a young George Sanders as a very patrician god (on humanity: "What's the good of them? Squash them!"). In the end, as already mentioned >20 years ago, cherishable mainly for the old-school British knack for subverting self-importance through amusing understatement: "Done any more miracles, George?" "Oh, nothing to speak of..."]