Kings Like Wells

THE KING WHO WAS A KING--H. G. Wells--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). To Herbert George Wells, as to many another social idealist, man's future means a great deal. But Wells is prophet as well as wisher. Years ago, so he claims, he took a joyride in an aeroplane and prophesied Lindbergh. "This book" he declares, with some slight inaccuracy, "is the same sort of thing. . . . Can form, story and music be brought together to present the conditions and issues of the abolition of war in a beautiful, vigorous and moving work of art, which will be well within the grasp and understanding of the ordinary film audience?" This book seeks to prove that, with expert manipulation, they can. Mr. Wells's audience would first be shown a primeval cave, views of the globe. North America, the Manhattan skyline, a skyscraper, then a view of one of the sky-scraper's windows, into it, across the room, to a map, where, with the aid of a pointer outlining Kingdom of Clavery and Republic of Agravia, two fictitious Balkan states, the story begins. It seems there is a certain precious metal called calcomite. The English control all the calcomite mines except those in Agravia. And the Agravians, out of a tender regard for the British, refuse to sell theirs to anyone, even to the Americans. In their New York skyscraper, the Americans remark that if only Clavery, the friendly kingdom, were to attack, invade, annex Agravia, Clavery would then control calcomite, sell it to America. But one Paul Zelinka becomes King of Clavery and outwits them all by making a pact with the Agravian President appealing to all peoples to set up a world control of calcomite. This is the first step towards internationalism and the universal brotherhood of man. Naturally, Mr. Wells is aware that this bald doctrine would be a bitter pill in the throats of a typical film audience. So he tempts the crowd with a Graustarkian love affair: all about how Paul, though heir to the Claverian throne, began life as the son of a simple U. S. garage-owner--how he met Margaret Harting, the daughter of a pacifist lecturer, and loved her. Then duty called. Someone had been assassinated. He returned to Clavery and met (a) the villain, Michael, would-be usurper of the throne, whom he shoots for the mad dog of a militarist he is; (b) Princess Helen of Saevia whom he loves, and marries, without any regrets for the U. S. girl. As a novel, The King Who Was a King is thus unconventional in form. The fact that it is the author's description of a possible film, gives the story an effect less real than it would have on the screen. Paul's dream of ultramodern warfare on land, sea and air, with poison gas, liquid fire, mob massacre, would make Hollywood producers tremble not only at the moral shock this might cause on the box-office front, but in itself would necessitate the hire of air fleets and duels, a Cathedral and High Mass, hordes of soldiers, five tanks "bigger and uglier than any contemporary tanks," a battleship which explodes -- and, on top of all this, New York's East Side tenements would have to be first bombed, then swept into the sea. . . . Mr. Wells was unhappy when he finished The King Who Was a King. Reason : "Not one in a thousand who would see this gladly on a screen will ever read it as a book."