The Man Who Could Work Miracles

The Man Who Could Work Miracles is a 1937 British fantasy comedy film directed by Lothar Mendes and produced by Alexander Korda. The film stars Roland Young with a cast of supporting players including Sir Ralph Richardson. Possibly the best-known of Mendes' 20 films, it is an expanded version of H. G. Wells's 1898 short story of the same name. Wells worked on the adaptation, revising the plot to reflect his socialist frustrations with the British upper class and the growing threats of communism and fascism in Europe. Plot The film begins in the celestial realms, with three superhuman entities — gods, or perhaps angels — regarding the planet Earth. Despairing of these "animals" that one of them continues to care about, the other two dare him to conduct an experiment to see if such lesser creatures can handle the kind of power over reality that might let them deserve to reach the stars. As the experiment's only limit, the Celestials will allow no control over a person's free will, as decreed by their master (possibly God). Choosing a human subject at random, the one who controls Poower reaches down and bestows it upon George Fotheringay, an English middle-class haberdasher's assistant. In a pub, Fotheringay argues with his friends about miracles and their impossibility. He calls upon his "will" to force a change and inadvertently causes a miracle; he makes an oil lamp turn upside down without anyone touching it and with the flame burning steadily downward. At home, he performs the same trick with a candle and moves on to feats such as lifting his table, lifting his bed, enlarging a candle extinguisher to a brightly painted cone and making a kitten appear under it and turning his bed into a cornucopia of fruits and bunnies.