THE STORY OF MANKIND

[RonPrice]

Part 1:

The film The Story of Mankind was released in the USA on 8 November 1957. Four days before, on 4 November 1957, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi, passed away in London. I was only 13 years old and in grade 8 in Burlington Ontario at the time. Shoghi Effendi was on the periphery of my life immersed as I was in 1957 in sport, study, a school environment and life in a small town in Canada. The leading actor in this film was Ronald Colman(1891-1958) who represented ‘the spirit of mankind’ in the film. My mother liked this actor so much she named me Ronald after him.

In the film a council of elders from outer space is deliberating on a very important subject: Must mankind be allowed to survive? Is mankind so essentially evil that it must be destroyed? A devil and an angel act as prosecutor of and defence for the human race. The movie presents in a very interesting way a series of episodes to portray human history. The film presents the story of men and their women from the beginning of creation! What will be the final verdict? Innocent or guilty? Mankind survives as the plot in the film goes, but we are put on alert. The 1950s was a time when humankind was first experiencing what it was like to stand at the edge of oblivion due to the atomic bomb. I grew up in the shadow of the bomb and I have often wondered what effect it had on my development as a youth. -Ron Price with thanks to IMDb, an internet movie database, 10 September 2010.

Part 2:

Colman, a British actor, had a long and varied Hollywood career and was known for his mellifluous, bewitching, finely-modulated, resonant voice. He started out early in silent films becoming stereotyped as a great lover. I think my somewhat romantic mother fell in love with Colman, although I shall never know; she passed away over 30 years ago. In the early days of sound, Colman’s voice helped him to easily make the transition that other stars were unable to make. Colman’s output lessened in the early 1940's, but he was not ready to be relegated to has-been status by any means. Random Harvest in 1942 brought a second Best Actor nomination, and in 1948 he actually won the Oscar for A Double Life

Colman got several Academy Award nominations. He is perhaps best known for his role in the still-unsurpassed romantic adventure Lost Horizon. This film came out in 1937 nine weeks before the start of the first Baha’i teaching Plan: 1937-1944. I have been associated with the extensions of this Plan in the last 70 years. It is a Plan with a visionary and a utopian narrative with some similarities to Lost Horizon.--Ron Price with thanks to the internet blog “You’re Only As Good As Your Last Picture,” 10 September 2010.

I hardly knew you back then, Ronald,
although I remember the Lost Horizon
film: it left a strong mark on my life, so
much more than most movies. Its vision
of a perfect society appealed to my very
idealistic young spirit which had just then
entered its teenage life at the time of the
first Earth-orbiting satellite……Sputnik;
growing up back then among religion’s
complacent trinity: Catholic, Protestant
and Jew, and with Indians getting licked
by the cavalry at movies on the Saturday
matinees’ popcorn and candy-wrappers.

Ron Price
10 September 2010