Story of Mankind

This is a movie of legendary, legendary awfulness. And, jeez, it is bad. But it does have some amusing moments...

Wow, wotta cast, huh? Hedy Lamarr, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, Cesar Romero, Ronald Colman, the Marx Brothers...

Indeed, we have Groucho Marx as Peter Minuit, hustling the Indians out of Manhattan. ("Robbery!" "That's true, but is it a deal?") This is but one of many dubious cameos strewn throughout Story of Mankind and it is these weird dollops of miscasting and miscomprehension that provide whatever questionable value this movie has. As in...

Why yes, that is Dennis Hopper as Napoleon!

With the added bonus of noir femme fatale Marie Windsor as Josephine. Mercifully, neither of them attempt a French accent.

The principle of the story is that when the "celestial clock strikes eleven," mankind will detonate the hydrogen bomb and "The Council" must decide whether to let them do it. And so we are subjected to an hour-and-a-half of said weird celebrity cameos, interspersed with big, flashy, Technicolor footage of the Crusades or the voyage of Columbus or the French Revolution -- all of which is cut in from other movies.

The is said celestial clock. Which would look great in my living room. To aid in the decision-making process, Mr. Scratch (played by Vincent Price) and "The Spirit of Mankind" (played by Ronald Coleman) must use examples from history to convince the Council (played by a bunch of extras in whatever random period costumes were on discount at Western Costume) to save or doom humanity. And so they journey vaguely through plastic sets and stock footage, spouting platitudes...

We have Cleopatra, not the brilliant strategist and wise ruler of history, but a weirdly perverse sex kitten, portrayed in ultra-coy style by Virginia Mayo, giggling as she poisons and pickpockets. Yes, really, they have her stealing wallets. I'm tempted to Google the writers and see whether any of them got Mummy-cursed...

This is far from the only place where the movie flies in the face of recorded fact, but it does seem to be the longest flight. The Womens, they is evil will be a recurring motif in The Story of Mankind. We also meet a nasty, airheaded Marie Antoinette (well, the second adjective is accurate, actually) solely so she can gurgle about letting 'em eat cake. Nice pink wig, though...

The only non-evil female is Joan of Arc, here played by Hedy Lamarr, who listens to the voice of St. Michael exhorting her to lead France with an expression more appropriate to hearing oneself paged at the Polo Lounge. Hedy was a brilliant woman and could be an adequate actress, but none of that is in evidence here...

I really like that sign, though. Hang it over the bed....

This is the part where Price makes a snarky aside about "not being an art aficianado" -- snarky, since he majored in art history at Yale and i happen to have a copy of his Treasury of American Art on my coffee table. But, when it comes down to it, Price's suave, witty devil has the better argument, better delivered: Mankind sucks and should be allowed to off itself.

Hey! It's Peter Lorre as Nero, fiddling as Rome burns...

The Story of Mankind is heavy on the religion, with Ronald Colman using the fact that men believe in god as a counterpoint to evidence of violence, hatred, thievery, murder, prejudice, slavery, genocide, wrath, envy, greed, pride, gluttony, lust and everybody's favorite, sloth!

Oh, and Harpo Marx as Sir Isaac Newton because...

... because apples? Harps? Bad wigs? Gambling debts? Dead hooker or live boy? I don't know what got all of these big names into The Story of Mankind, but it must have involved video footage of the actor in question committing at least two felonies and three deadly sins. Each.