Korda's lavish production of an H. G. Wells story was one of the most celebrated science fiction films ever made, with its stunning futuristic sets (by Vincent Korda, and of course director William Cameron Menzies was himself a noted art director); and its uncannily accurate forecast of World War II (it begins in 1940 with a surprise air attack on London). Wells' pessimism (regarding life on earth) permeates the tale which carries the war into the sixties, leaving cities and towns battered and folks, plagued with "wandering sickness," effectively regressed to a state of near savagery. It's Road Warriors of 1935-with Ralph Richardson as a kind of welterweight Duce engaging the populi in endless skirmishes-until a handful of scientist-aeronauts alight to make the world safe for technocratic dictatorship. The narrative jumps to the year 2036 and a futuristic maze of spiraled rooftops and fantastic flying machines. In this sterile Utopian environment, overseen by one Oswald Cabal (Raymond Massey), a revolt brews to return to the days of humanity and frailty. The film was criticized from the left and the right-and from the middle for its emphasis on fleshed-out sets but cardboard characters-but it is unique in its provocative hundred-year sweep of things to come.