It’s always interesting to see what someone famous does on his day off.
Although the truth is that, despite our image of him as a Science Fiction writer, H.G. Wells wrote nearly all of his most famous works within about eight or nine years.
And, after that, he wrote very few works we would describe as Science Fiction.
In fact, if, somewhere across the gulf of space, intelligences greater than man’s, which are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, were to regard Wells’ lifetime work with critical eyes, they would probably come to the conclusion that he wrote comedies.
Trust me, he wrote a lot of them.
So, when we talk about Wells’ first venture into the world of film, it wasn’t in the form of some great epic tale of the future (although that did come). There were no aliens, no secret formulas, and no mucking about in time.
The story of how these shorts came about seems almost as much a British comedy of the Twenties as one of Wells’ own stories: Ivor Montague and his friend Adrian Brunel ran a company that helped get films onto theater screens, whether British independents or foreign imports. Montague realized that the best way to build a solid reputation in the film world was to direct a film, so he made a deal which would get him the backing to make three short comedies — but only if he got H.G. Wells to write the story outlines.
Wells was willing to do it — but only if Montague hired an actress Wells admired: Elsa Lanchester, who was currently one of the biggest stars of the British Stage.
Montague admired her as well, so this wasn’t a problem. He even hired her husband, Charles Laughton, to do a bit part in all three films.
The hardest part proved to be getting Wells to actually sit down and write the stories. When Wells started making excuses, Montague showed up at his door and asked him for the story outlines, Wells had written just the first — Bluebottles — and Montagu simply waited around until he actually produced two further outlines that same day (they were both only a couple of paragraphs long, but considering that all three are slapstick comedies with little dialogue they didn’t need a lot of scripting).
The actual scripts were credited to Frank Wells (who, yes, was H.G.’s son) although one suspects that Montague and Brunel might have made a bigger contribution to the final version.
Elsa proved a remarkably good choice thanks to her very physical performance, her awkward physique and odd looking but expressive face (with that hint of vulnerability which would make her performance as The Bride of Frankenstein a few years later so memorable). Contemporary critics called her the British Chaplin, and it isn’t hard to see why.
Ironically, her husband suddenly (and permanently) overshadowed Elsa just four years later when he rocketed to international stardom with his portrayal of Henry the Eighth. She never did become the British Chaplin, and, in fact, by the time these three silent shorts came out the era of sound film was well underway, and they largely went unnoticed by the general public (and only got scant attention from the critics).
She did, however, have a long and somewhat eccentric film career, playing a lot of strange and batty characters with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Eight years later, Wells would end up collaborating with William Cameron Menzies and Alex Corda on a far more famous (if pretentious) movie called Things to Come which is actually science fiction.
And, just to round things out, a year before his breakthrough role, Charles Laughton would give a brilliant performance as one of Wells’ most famous characters.
To date I’ve only found two of the three short films, but even if they got ignored at the time they are a lot of fun. They offer wacky slapstick shenanigans, with small incidents rapidly turning into bigger ones with comic results. I am impressed with just how willing Elsa was to take a lot of tumbles, including several which probably left her black and blue all over (like when she sits down hard in a scrub bucket).
Bluebottles might remind you of Buster Keaton’s Cops, although it isn’t as funny or as dark. It has just a little trouble ending the film, and works too had to get that final gag in. The Tonic may not provoke as many laughs, but it is a bit smoother.
Even if we can see the ending coming a mile away.
But, let’s be honest, that happens a lot in comedy.
What is absolutely certain is that they are both worth seeing, particularly if you love silent comedies, slapstick humor —
Or Charlie Chaplin…
The Tonic (1928)
Bluebottles (1928)
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4 thoughts on “Another side of H.G. Wells: The Tonic; Day-Dreams and Bluebottles”