As the Earth Turns (1938/2019)

AS THE EARTH TURNS  (1938/2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Richard Lyford
    Barbara Berger, Roger Bassett, Richard Lyford,
    Alan Hoelting, Patricia Cowan, Edwin C. Frost
Not to be confused with the long-running soap opera "As the World Turns", this one's a real cult item: a silent sci-fi movie shot in the Pacific Northwest on a severely limited budget in 1938 and finally released 80 years later at the Seattle International Film Festival. It's an impressive piece of work under the circumstances, like a home movie done in the style of a Flash Gordon serial, shot on 16mm by a filmmaker who at the time was just 19 years old. It's about an ambitious young reporter (Barbara Berger) who sets out to write a story that will "rock the world," and ends up tracking down a mysterious figure called PAX (played by Lyford) who wants to rock the world himself, as a way to persuade humans to stop waging war. Comparisons to Orson Welles might be overstated, but Lyford clearly had an idea and an instinct for the medium, and you can tell he'd watched "Metropolis" a couple of times. He eventually went to work for Walt Disney. The restored version contains a new musical score by composer Ed Hartman.