Science Fiction Films: 1930-1949 - Page 4

Metropolis was released on January 10, 1927. British, French, and American filmmakers tried unsuccessfully to make something bigger and better with the novelty of talking pictures, peaking with Things to Come. Science fiction elements in 1930s films were often gimmicky plot elements in films not marketed as science fiction. The most phenomenal successes turned out to be Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, If one omits serials, the sequels to those make up the bulk of the science fiction films released in the 1940s. This list is based mainly on Phil Hardy's The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction (Overlook Press, 1995), with a couple of additions. Hardy suggests that Strange Holiday and Krakatit are closest to pointing the way in terms of trends regarding dystopianvisiuons, yet even the dark days of World War II paved the way to more realistic Utopian visions (compared to Things to Come) such as Give Us the Moon. Comedies involving inventions continued the earliest trend.