H. G. Wells famous scientific romances have been adapted by filmmakers since at least 1919. The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, all of these have good and bad versions. But the real Wells legacy in Hollywood is all the films that Wells inspired indirectly. A third of the films listed in The Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983) by Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen come from Herbert George Wells and the ideas he gave to Science Fiction.
Of these a significant number are descended from Wells’ The Food of the Gods (1903), a cautionary tale about Science being used without the proper respect. The theme of scientific hubris dates back further to Frankenstein (1818) but Wells applies it to size. Bensington creates giant rats, a chicken and finally humans. The novel had its own poor adaptation in 1976 with a sequel Food of the Gods II (1989). These film versions are focused on giant bug destruction in a 1950s manner and pretty much ignore Wells’ bigger message.
The 1950s was the perfect conjunction of visual effects (allowing the filming of living creatures in detail) and commercial venture. The drive-in theaters of North America were the place that younger adults chose to see films, preferring movies with cheap thrills to Academy Award performances. The giant bugs were a bonanza that began in 1954 with Them and went great guns for about five years. The 1960s saw the theme transition into the Japanese monster movie, which is related, but not really germane here. Both types of monster movies usually blamed the growth on atomic energy rather than a scientist’s formula.
The scientific facts are that ants can’t grow to be fifty feet tall. (They have a better chance than humans do, but still impossible.) Did H. G. Wells know this? More than likely. Did he care? Not really. The Food of the Gods is what Wells called “a fantasy”. He knew he was breaking the laws of physics but it wasn’t about that. He had social issues to discuss and a fantastic scenario did this best. This is true for the metaphorical nature of all fantastic fiction. Monsters are no exception. For more on this, go here.
Wells makes no secret who the targets of his little fantasy are:
In the middle years of the nineteenth century there first became abundant in this strange world of ours a class of men, men tending for the most part to become elderly, who are called, and who are very properly called, but who dislike extremely to be called—“Scientists.” They dislike that word so much that from the columns of Nature, which was from the first their distinctive and characteristic paper, it is as carefully excluded as if it were—that other word which is the basis of all really bad language in this country. But the Great Public and its Press know better, and “Scientists” they are, and when they emerge to any sort of publicity, “distinguished scientists” and “eminent scientists” and “well-known scientists” is the very least we call them.
He also smashes the image of mad scientist as romantic figure in the Victor Frankenstein mode by saying Bensington and his ilk are all plain-looking and dull individuals. Their only glamorousness comes from their ideas. As men, they are more ordinary than the common worker. This satirical jab at scientists may seem odd, since you’d think the champion of Science Fiction would cheer the average chemist or tinker. That attitude came later with Hugo Gernsback, whose customer base was different than HGW’s. Wells wrote for everyone while Gernsback sold to the dull, little tinkers of ray bulbs and radio parts. The Pulps would give us the Doc Savages and other scientific supermen.
The movies of the 1950s would give us the clean-cut American scientist and his plucky female counterpart. Together, they figure out what the U. S. Army must do to save the country from the gigantic menace. The plot is almost always the same with a last minute fix that ironically sometimes involve nuking the monsters with atomic bombs. Wells would not have appreciated that. In the end of The Food of the Gods, his super giant race holds their own against the ranks of humanity lead by vote-hungry politicians. Wells refuses to give the easy answers of the drive-in movie.
It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955),
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1956)
The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)
Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
War of the Colossal Beast (1958)
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)
1970-80s
The 1970s boom wasn’t sparked by H. G. Wells but Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975). Hollywood simply replaced withe shark with all manner of beasts but some were giant ones with a Wellsian flavor.
The Giant Spider Invasion (1976)
Conclusion
The Great Book of Movie Monsters ends around the time Alligator was hitting screens so there are four decades of films after it. There have been some good giant bug films since, including Mosquito (1995), Eight Legged Freaks (2002), Centipede (2004), one scene from Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) and Monster Island (2019). Most films these days aren’t focused on giant bugs alone but use them within stories about other things. For example this Giant Spider Movie montage includes Fantasy films like Love and Monsters (2021), Harry Potter and superhero movies. Shelob and the giant spiders from Tolkien are another good example of Fantasy having giant spiders but not being about such creatures alone.
The recent success of Monarch, Legacy of Monsters, Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire certainly shows there is still life in gigantic creature story. I’m not sure if we will see many more Wells films for awhile. None of the last few (The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), The Hollow Man (2000) The Time Machine (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005) was a huge hit. And perhaps more important, they don’t really spawn sequels. Godzilla, like the reptile he is, can produce offspring quickly and profitably.
Leave a Reply