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Review: As The Earth Turns (1938) ★★★½

Ed Hartman

&NewLine;<p>Not to be confused with the 1933 novel and <a aria-label&equals;"undefined &lpar;opens in a new tab&rpar;" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;amazon&period;com&sol;gp&sol;product&sol;B07FRL2KRD&sol;ref&equals;as&lowbar;li&lowbar;qf&lowbar;asin&lowbar;il&lowbar;tl&quest;ie&equals;UTF8&amp&semi;tag&equals;mjones34880c-20&amp&semi;creative&equals;9325&amp&semi;linkCode&equals;as2&amp&semi;creativeASIN&equals;B07FRL2KRD&amp&semi;linkId&equals;63b984e2bc03fc05658c62e61f1367f5" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener">1934 film of the same name<&sol;a>&comma; <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;1938&rpar; is an independent sci-fi thriller directed by Richard Lyford&period; Thanks to <a aria-label&equals;"undefined &lpar;opens in a new tab&rpar;" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;8thsenseproductions&period;com&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener">8th Sense Productions<&sol;a>&comma; <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> has been restored and released for the first time since its creation over 80 years ago&period; <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> also comes with a completely new soundtrack thanks to composer Ed Hartman&period; Though it is certainly not a perfect film&comma; <em>As The Earth Turns &lpar;1938&rpar;<&sol;em> is a fascinating look at the early days of independent filmmaking and a surprisingly intuitive antiwar film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><a aria-label&equals;"undefined &lpar;opens in a new tab&rpar;" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;amazon&period;com&sol;gp&sol;product&sol;B088P8Y1NG&sol;ref&equals;as&lowbar;li&lowbar;qf&lowbar;asin&lowbar;il&lowbar;tl&quest;ie&equals;UTF8&amp&semi;tag&equals;mjones34880c-20&amp&semi;creative&equals;9325&amp&semi;linkCode&equals;as2&amp&semi;creativeASIN&equals;B088P8Y1NG&amp&semi;linkId&equals;56d56440f87666cddedcd3f546966ab0" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener"><em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em><&sol;a> begins with newsreels of war erupting in Europe&period; We then meet Julie &lpar;Barbara Berger&rpar;&comma; an underappreciated journalist for the <em>New York Evening Star<&sol;em>&period; She and her friend&comma; Arthur &lpar;Alan Hoelting&rpar;&comma; ask her boss to give Barbara a chance on a real story&period; Barbara’s boss begrudgingly sends her to the naval radio station in Arlington&comma; Virginia&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Once at the station&comma; Barbara overhears a strange message from a mysterious entity known as &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Pax” &lpar;Richard Lyford&rpar;&period; The message claims that&comma; through their control of the Earth’s rotation&comma; Pax will increase the length of the day by 5 minutes if the United States and Europe do not bring an end to all war&period; The naval radio operator assumes it’s a joke&comma; but Barbara takes the message back to her boss anyway&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>When scientists see that the day has actually increased by 5 minutes&comma; Barbara begins to take the message more seriously&period; Soon&comma; more messages come in&period; Pax threatens to excavate a channel through the Atlas Mountains&comma; unleashing the Mediterannean Sea onto the Sahara Desert&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Further messages threaten even more devastation across the planet if war does not come to an end&period; This&comma; in turn&comma; forces world leaders to meet in Washington&comma; DC to discuss a peace treaty&period; When the peace talks break down&comma; an earthquake rocks the planet&comma; injuring the US president in the process&period; As soon as the earthquake subsides&comma; it begins snowing in Washington — even though it’s the middle of July&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Meanwhile&comma; Barbara and Arthur meet with Professor Lionel Banks &lpar;Edwin C&period; Frost&rpar; to discuss the international crisis&period; They conclude that nothing can be done if nations refuse to make peace&period; Following their meeting&comma; Barbara witnesses a strange craft crash-landing in the forest nearby&period; She searches the craft&comma; only to discover that it belongs to Pax&period; A map inside the craft shows the location of Pax’s base of operations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2020&sol;07&sol;JULIE-NEW-TITLE-w-credit-1024x660&period;jpg" alt&equals;"As The Earth Turns &lpar;1938&rpar;" class&equals;"wp-image-2017"&sol;><figcaption>Barbara in <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;1938&rpar; by 8th Sense Productions<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>When Arthur catches up to the crash site&comma; Barbara is nowhere to be found&period; All that’s left behind is the note with the coordinates of Pax’s base&period; Arthur and Professor Banks take matters into their own hands to save Barbara and bring the chaos to an end&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> won’t win any awards for its plot&period; At times&comma; the film feels like a string of loosely related scenes strung together&period; However&comma; one has to give credit where credit is due&period; Lyford obviously made the film on a shoestring budget as a young&comma; ambitious director&period; However&comma; Richard Lyford showed his ingenuity through special effects and prescient predictions&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>First&comma; I will address the quality of the special effects&period; Lyford wrote&comma; directed&comma; produced&comma; and starred in this indie science fiction project&period; He bankrolled the film&comma; leaving little room in the budget for big explosions&period; Fortunately&comma; Lyford puts miniature sets and replicas to excellent use&period; The film involves futuristic UFOs&comma; flash floods&comma; massive earthquakes&comma; and derailed trains&comma; all created using old-school miniatures&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>By today’s standards&comma; the effects are laughable&period; It looks like a school project that a few friends put together and uploaded to Youtube&period; However&comma; for the time and the budget&comma; the special effects look better than you’d expect&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The film was shot throughout 1937 and 1938&period; 20 years later&comma; big-budget science fiction films were still using UFOs on strings and miniature sets when necessary&period; It’s hard to criticize a young&comma; amateur director for doing his best with what he had&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; on to the so-called &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;predictions” of the film&period; Since 8th Sense Productions released <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em>&comma; they have promoted it as a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;film that predicts WWII&comma; future-technology&comma; climate change&comma; and the extreme need for peace&period;” I will address each of these assertions one by one&comma; as some have more validity than others&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2020&sol;07&sol;PAX-NEW-TITLE-w-credit-1024x679&period;jpg" alt&equals;"As The Earth Turns &lpar;1938&rpar;" class&equals;"wp-image-2018"&sol;><figcaption>Pax in <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;1938&rpar; by 8th Sense Productions<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Rumors of a potential war in Europe had already begun by the mid-1930s&period; Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933&period; By 1935&comma; Germany rejected the Treaty of Versailles and began ramping up militarization&period; Soon after&comma; alliances between Italy&comma; Germany&comma; and Japan made war in Europe all but certain&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>So&comma; to say that the film predicted WWII is technically not wrong&comma; but it’s a bit misleading&period; Richard Lyford was merely echoing sentiments of the times&period; Nonetheless&comma; these predictions of war would turn out to be true just two years later when Germany invaded Poland&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>As far as predicting future-technology&comma; it’s hard to give much credit to Lyford&comma; either&period; The film involves spaceships&comma; but Georges Méliès’ <em>A Trip to the Moon<&sol;em> &lpar;1902&rpar; predicted this technology far earlier&period; <em>As The Earth Turns <&sol;em>also deals with technology that would allow for the complete destruction of mountains from the air&period; One could argue that this predicts the invention of the Atomic Bomb&period; In any case&comma; every science fiction film does its best to predict the technology of tomorrow&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Next&comma; the film predicts global warming&comma; albeit indirectly&period; The film’s antagonist&comma; Pax&comma; has the ability to cause natural disasters at the drop of a hat&period; He also has the ability to change the weather&period; Thus&comma; these ecological catastrophes are manmade &lpar;like global warming&rpar; and could be stopped with the end of war&period; While war is not the only cause of accelerated global warming&comma; it is a potential contributor&period; So&comma; in a sense&comma; <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;1938&rpar; did predict manmade ecological catastrophes nearly half a century before the rest of the world caught on&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Finally&comma; Richard Lyford supposedly predicted the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;extreme need for peace&period;” In the post-WWI world&comma; the need for peace was well-known&period; It became even more apparent after WWII and the invention of nuclear warfare&period; <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> did little in the way of establishing this notion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2020&sol;07&sol;FLYING-PLANE-NEW-TITLE-w-credit-1024x625&period;jpg" alt&equals;"As The Earth Turns &lpar;1938&rpar;" class&equals;"wp-image-2019"&sol;><figcaption>The UFO in <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;1938&rpar; by 8th Sense Productions<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; let’s look at the film as a new release&colon; <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;2018&rpar;&period; Despite being shot in the 1930s&comma; Richard Lyford’s work wasn’t remastered for modern audiences until 2018&period; It didn’t become widely available to watch until June of 2019&period; In any case&comma; 8th Sense Productions did an excellent job of restoring the original film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The soundtrack&comma; composed by <a aria-label&equals;"undefined &lpar;opens in a new tab&rpar;" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;edhartmanmusic&period;com&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener">Ed Hartman<&sol;a>&comma; is especially praiseworthy&period; It matches the tone of the film well and echoes the style of many other remastered silent films&period; It’s impossible to say whether Richard Lyford exhibited the film with music&period; He usually showed his films to a select audience in his own house&comma; with little to no press&period; However&comma; Ed Hartman’s score certainly does this quirky indie film justice&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Though <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;1938&rpar; is not a perfect film&comma; it is a fascinating one&period; The story&comma; though somewhat farfetched&comma; speaks of a future plagued by natural disasters and endless war&period; It also showcases mass destruction using miniature sets and wonderfully campy special effects&period; In short&comma; if you’re a fan of silent films and over-the-top science fiction&comma; <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> is a real treat&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Rating&colon; &starf;&starf;&starf;&half; out of 5<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If you’d like to watch <em>As The Earth Turns<&sol;em> &lpar;1938&rpar;&comma; it is currently available to purchase or <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;amazon&period;com&sol;gp&sol;product&sol;B088P8Y1NG&sol;ref&equals;as&lowbar;li&lowbar;qf&lowbar;asin&lowbar;il&lowbar;tl&quest;ie&equals;UTF8&amp&semi;tag&equals;mjones34880c-20&amp&semi;creative&equals;9325&amp&semi;linkCode&equals;as2&amp&semi;creativeASIN&equals;B088P8Y1NG&amp&semi;linkId&equals;56d56440f87666cddedcd3f546966ab0" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" aria-label&equals;"undefined &lpar;opens in a new tab&rpar;" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener">stream for free with Amazon Prime<&sol;a>&period; And if you&&num;8217&semi;d like to read more reviews like this one&comma; consult the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;">Philosophy in Film Homepage<&sol;a>&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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