The very first time I saw this movie, I must have been 10 years old and caught it on TV while I was staying home sick from school. As this was my first exposure to anything by H.G. Wells, I was far too young to know or understand any of his principal concerns such as class inequality or his hatred of war which are at the center of this film’s storyline. For me, THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES was just what the title implied, a fantasy about an ordinary man who could suddenly perform extraordinary things. In the beginning the “miracles” were performed by one of the movies’ oldest tricks which is simply stopping the camera, inserting or removing an object, and then starting the camera again. Think of BEWITCHED or I DREAM OF JEANNIE.
As the movie continues, the “miracles” become progressively more grandiose and far reaching in their effects on people and things. From healing a co-worker’s sprained arm to removing another’s freckles to, on the advice of the local vicar, making whisky non-alcoholic and literally “turning swords into plowshares”. The one thing that cannot be done is to alter people’s feelings. He couldn’t make someone love or hate another person. That would be interfering with free will. However, unwanted miracles can create great animosity as when a retired Colonel from India attempts to shoot the miracle worker but fails. Having made himself invulnerable, the miracle man calls a world conference and informs its leaders that he is now in charge…of everything!
That’s the basic storyline…but how did it all start? Remember, that despite some of the serious issues the movie (ie. Wells) addresses, MIRACLES is essentially a fantasy and so it has a fantastic beginning. 3 all powerful heavenly deities (they are never identified) decide to give a British haberdasher’s assistant named George McWhirter Fotheringay the ability to do anything except control people’s minds. George seeks advice on how to use his new found powers from those around him beginning with his fellow workers and then management who want to use George to their own advantage. It is after being advised by the local minister and being shot at by the old Colonel that George decides to start a new world order…with disastrous results.
Roland Young (best remembered as the ghost-tormented Topper from the 1930s) is Fotheringay who goes from early befuddlement to becoming World Dictator. Young, who specialized in milquetoast characters, is ideal as the mild mannered everyman who becomes overwhelmed by a gift he eventually cannot control. Ernest Thesiger is the vicar who wants to give everyone peace and plenty while Ralph Richardson, in an early role, is the blustery old Colonel who, in Wells’ view, represents everything that was wrong with contemporary England. The special effects start simple and then become increasingly more elaborate until the finale, which was state of the art for 1937. In fact, it must be seen to be believed. As a 10 year old, I was blown away.
The movie was made and released by Alexander Korda’s London Films, a major player in British cinema in the 1930s. However, being released right after their monumental production of H.G. Wells’ THINGS TO COME and the award winning REMBRANDT with Charles Laughton, MIRACLES was rather neglected and disappeared from the public’s consciousness until it started showing up on TV in bad 16mm prints during the 1960s. MIRACLES made its home video debut in the 1980s on VHS. Discount DVDs began showing up in the 2000s. Most of them are still available but the film has yet to make it to Blu-Ray. As of now the best looking version is a Region 2 Network DVD from the U.K. Unfortunately all the current versions lack captions/subtitles which would make it easier to follow.
The Capsule Critic 