starring Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Peter Hansen, John Hoyt
directed by Rudolph Maté
83 minutes
Earth is threatened by a couple of runaway planets which will pass close enough to cause wide scale destruction and then destroy the Earth completely. The only hope for humanity is a rocketship which will be built under the supervision of Dr. Cole Hendron. He gets the some of the funding from Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt), an eccentric millionaire who only agrees to give Hendron the money he needs if he gets to be one of the passengers aboard the rocket.
David Randall (Richard Derr) helps Dr. Hendron's efforts to get the rocket built. Joyce Hendron (Barbara Rush), Dr. Hendron's daughter and Randall's love interest (despite already having a boyfriend) also works with her father to get the rocket built. Dr. Tony Drake (Peter Hansen), Joyce's boyfriends when the movie begins, also assists with the preparations to evacuate a small group of humans from Earth.
This is both a modern version of Noah's Ark and based upon a novel, When Worlds Collide (1933) by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie. The opening of the movie makes the biblical reference unambiguously clear .
I'm pretty sure I saw this movie once before, 40-45 years ago. There's one key scene towards the end of the movie that stuck with me. I saw it on a black and white television back then and was surprised to discover that it was shot in Technicolor.
The love triangle was a weird one. Randall is reluctant to break up Joyce and Tony. Drake just seems to accept that Joyce has chosen to move on once it becomes clear that she prefers David Randall. There's probably more to it than that and more that can be read into this love triangle.
This isn't a great movie. There are some funny lines and moments in this movie but I don't think that they were intended as such. I would only recommend this movie to people who are fans of 1950s science fiction movies.
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