The Story of Mankind

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Audience Member Hendrik Willem van Loon wrote and illustrated The Story of Mankind in 1921, telling brief chapters of the history of Western civilization, always asking "Did the person or event in question perform an act without which the entire history of civilization would have been different?" Thirty years later, former publicist Irwin Allen chose the book as his first non-documentary film, directing, writing and producing the film with the goal of only having an actor and actress appear in the film before changing up his strategy and taking a page out of the recent box office hit Around the World In 80 Days and having a cast of nearly fifty stars tell the story. Oh yeah and lots and lots of repurposed b-roll from other movies and stock footage. Ronald Colman is The Spirit of Man and Vincent Price is Mr. Scratch. They're testifying in front of a tribunal that will decide the fate of mankind, who has created a Super H-Bomb, and the powers that run the universe will determine whether they stop the bomb or allow it to destroy the human race. That leads to a cavalcade of stardom, with Hedy Lamarr as Joan of Arc,  Virginia Mayo as Cleopatra, Agnes Moorehead as Queen Elizabeth I, Peter Lorre as Nero, Charles Coburn as Hippocrates, along with all three Marx Brothers in their last film together. But wait -- there's more. Cesar Romero! John Carradine! Dennis Hopper as Napoleon!  Francis X. Bushman as Moses! Jim Ameche, taking over the role his brother made famous, Alexander Graham Bell! All on sets that seem made for TV with dialogue made for the grade school stage. Yes, The Story of Mankind certainly is something else. Everyone in this showed up for one day to film their part and were all paid pretty well. So who cares if the movie is so strange, kind of like a religious epic with no religion. When asked if the film was based on a book, Colman replied, "Yes. But they are using only the notes on the dust jacket." Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Tom M Wow ! That was really bad. Hard to believe a movie with Ronald Colman, Charles Coburn and other great talents could be that laughable. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 10/15/20 Full Review Audience Member I couldn't even watch. Seems like the people making movies in the 50's were morons or thought that their audience was. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Audience Member My late night movie insomnia habit's. curiosity has been satisfied. Truly a clunker, but now I want to write an essay about moralistic therapeutic deism in Hollywood. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review s r Seemed like that had footage of all the eras of history and turned it into a final judgement film. It was poorly told and I only liked satan's depiction by price and the Marx brothers' cameo. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Not the worst idea, and the heavenly court works well with Colman and Price bouncing off each other as opposites as they dissect the history of the world. It does however feel a bit like a clip show at times with clearly scenes from other films being used to paint the arguments. It's not all like that though and plenty of the historical observations are part of this production and there's a plethora of names in them too. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Story of Mankind

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