Monday, November 2, 2020

High Treason (1929)

High Treason is one of the earliest British "talkies" and also an early science fiction film, being set in the "near future" of 1940. However, despite being only set eleven years into the future the world is a very different place (though quite familiar to us today). 

Two power blocs jockey for position in an uneasy peace. Arms manufacturers don't like peace of course as its bad for business so they engineer a war between the Atlantic States and Europe by bombing the Channel Tunnel. Ironically, big business manipulating two states into a war actually happened in South America a few years later in the 1930s...

Dr Seymour (Humberston Wright) leads a peace league which is opposed to the seemingly inevitable war. Injured in an explosion he calls upon his daughter Evelyn (Benita Hume) to stop the bombers... one complication is that the bombers are commanded by her ex Deane (Jameson Thomas)...

As you can imagine the world in 1940 is an Art Deco masterpiece with aeroplanes and airships flying over skyscraper filled cities, video calling and fencing being the interval act at a dance. While the film looks a treat, the story is a bit hokum and the peace message is hammered on rather too thickly. 

War is averted by a rather neat twist (though you can see it coming). Peace in our times, well for a few years anyway.