WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951)
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: G
Duration: 82 Minutes 18 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Director: Rudolph Mate
Cast: Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Peter Hansen, John Hoyt
Sc-fi cosmic-disaster flick When World's Collide (1951) is produced by George Pal (War of the Words) and directed by
Sc-fi cosmic-disaster flick When World's Collide (1951) is produced by George Pal (War of the Words) and directed by
Rudolph Maté, in it star-gazing scientists discover a distant that a rogue star named Bellus, accompanied by an Earth-sized planet named Zyra in it's orbit, and both are on a cataclysmic collision course with Earth, we have eight months until the destruction of our planet. Of course the government refuses to believe that doomsday is upon the planet, leaving it up to a group of private citizens to finance and build a space-ark to carry a limited number of people and animals to another planet to begin a new civilization on a new planet. The space-ark project is headed by scientist Cole Hendron (Larry Keating, The Incredible Mr. Limpet), and bankrolled by cynical industrialists millionaire Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt, X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes), and a lottery is designed to select forty people with he needed skills, and a Noah's ark style selection of animals, to travel to the planet Zyra via the space-ark to prevent the extinction of humanity. We also get a bit of a love story by way of pilot David Randall (Richard Derr, Firefox) and Hendron's daughter Joyce (Barbara Rush, It Came from Outer Space), that adds some melodrama to the literally Earth-shattering disaster flick.
The 1950s sci-fi epic offers some terrific (for the era, anyway) special effects, including miniatures used to display worldwide massive tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes during the destruction of our world, as well as some not-so-great for even then matte painting, and of course a cool silver-rocket, and errant cosmic bodies that will ultimately bring doom to our beloved Earth. Their also some religious overtones, which was not surprising for the era, opening with a passage from Genesis 6:12, we get comparison to the second coming during the doomsday even, and the obvious Noah's Ark references. We also have oodles of pre-Moon landing science baloney that doesn't hold up, heck, it didn't even hold up then, but it's still an entertaining slice of pulpy b-movie sci-fi, this being the grandaddy of big-budget cosmic disaster flicks like Armageddon and Moonfall, and while it might look a bit dated and hokey to modern eyes the spectacle of it all still warms my vintage sci-fi loving heart.
Audio/Video: Previously issued on Blu-ray as part of the War of the Worlds 4K UHD double-feature set When World's Collide (1951) gets a re-release as a standalone Blu-ray from Paramount, presented in 1080p HD framed in the original 1.33:1 fullscreen. It generally looks quite nice, the source is near immaculate, with good color and pleasing depth and clarity. Their is a brown-lean to it that turns what should be crisp whites a bit tea-stained beige and saps the vividness of other primaries, but overall for a film of this vintage I thought it looked pretty terrific. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The track is clean and well-balanced, dialogue is never hard to discern, and the dramatic score from Leith Stevens (War of the Worlds) sounds appropriately epic, but also of it's proper vintage.
This is bare-bones, and does not even have the lone trailer that was present on the Blu-ray that accompanied the War of the Worlds/When Worlds Collide 4K UHD/BD release. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- None
Screenshots from the Paramount 2024 Blu-ray:
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