The Story of Mankind (1957)

User Rating:

4.9/10   

Director:

Irwin Allen

Writers:

Irwin Allen (writer)
Charles Bennett (writer)

Release Date:

8 November 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy

Tagline:

The Story of Men and Their Women From the Beginning of Creation!

Plot:

The council of elders of outer space is deliberating on a very important subject: Must mankind be allowed to survive...

Plot Keywords:

Angel | Outer Space | Devil | Apple | Harp

Cast

Ronald Colman	...	The Spirit of Man
Hedy Lamarr	...	Joan of Arc
Groucho Marx	...	Peter Minuit
Harpo Marx	...	Sir Isaac Newton
Chico Marx	...	Monk
Virginia Mayo	...	Cleopatra
Agnes Moorehead	...	Queen Elizabeth I
Vincent Price	...	Mr. Scratch / The Devil
Peter Lorre	...	Nero
Charles Coburn	...	Hippocrates
Cedric Hardwicke	...	High Judge
Cesar Romero	...	Spanish Envoy
John Carradine	...	Khufu
Dennis Hopper	...	Napoleon Bonaparte
Marie Wilson	...	Marie Antoinette

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

UK:U (original rating) | Finland:K-12

Company:

Cambridge Productions

Trivia:

One of the films included in "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and how they got that way)" by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell.

Quotes:

Indian Chief: How.
Peter Minuit: Three minutes, and leave 'em in the shell.

Movie Connections:

Edited from Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

What a piece of work is "Mankind"

Leave Ed Wood alone. To call "Plan 9 from Outer Space" the worst film ever made would be to deny this abysmally vulgar heap of Hollywood guano its rightful title. This pretentious fusion of witless whimsy and bathetic sociopolitical "commentary" actually does seem to be formed along the lines of "Plan 9," with badly-staged scenes of down-on-their-luck actors on cheap sets interspersed with what appears to be footage of battle and crowd scenes cribbed from higher-budget epics. But whereas "Plan 9" occasionally manages to be funny when it means to be and reasonably entertaining overall, this tacky pageant is appallingly lacking in basic showmanship, with scenes ranging from offensively unfunny (the disgusting burlesque of Groucho Marx stealing Manhattan from the Indians) to low camp (Hedy Lamarr attempting to impersonate Joan of Arc hearing her "voices") to tedious (Dennis Hopper doing absolutely nothing with the role of Napoleon) to the unexpectedly poignant performance of Peter Lorre as the psychotic Nero. Give the worst director trophy to Irwin Allen, for turning so much into so little.