John and Eugene look at George Pal’s 1951 end-of-the-world film When Worlds Collide and ask, “They really wouldn’t blow up the Earth, would they?”

Synopsis

Dr. Bronson, an astronomer at the Mount Kenna, South Africa Observatory, has made an unsettling discovery.  He calls in reliable freelance pilot and courier, Dave Randall, to delivery photographic observations and calculations to his colleague, Dr. Hendron, in the USA.  It’s all very top secret, and newspapers are trying very hard to get Randall to reveal what is in the courier case he carries halfway around the world.

Randall doesn’t know what’s in the case, but when he arrives in New York, Dr. Hendron’s attractive daughter, Joyce, lets a bit slip. She’s frightened about the world coming to an end.  At her father’s office, Randall meets Dr. Tony Drake, Joyce’s fiancé, and Dr. Hendron.  When Joyce tells her father that Randall knows all about the contents of the case, he lets Randall stay for the briefing.  Dr. Bronson has discovered a star, Bellus, and Zyra, a planet orbiting it, that is approaching the Earth at a rapid speed.  In July of the next year, some eight months away, Zyra will pass close enough to the Earth to cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis.  Countless people will die, but a few may survive.

But only for 19 more days because that’s when Bellus will collide with the Earth, destroying it completely.

Dr, Bronson’s figures are checked and double-checked.  There is no mistake.  The Earth is doomed.

Hendron takes the findings to the UN and proposes building spaceships.  The hope is that Zyra might support life, and if so, a few humans could start a new world.  When other prominent astronomers poo-poo Bronson and Hendron’s findings, the UN laughs them out of the building.  The US government doesn’t laugh him out the door, but they also won’t fund his work.

A couple of humanitarian millionaires step up to fund Hendron’s plan to save some of humanity.

Tony has asked Joyce to marry him right away, but she is hesitant.  She’s developed a thing for Randall and never was really on board with the idea of marrying Tony anyway.  She asks her father for advice, and, when it becomes clear she loves Randall, he father contrives a way for Randall to be on the project to build the spacecraft – the keep him close at hand.

Millionaire Stanton arrives.  He’s an unpleasant man in a wheelchair.  He’ll fund the project, but the condition is that he gets to pick who goes to the new world.  Hendron will accept his money for a ticket for Stanton, but he will not allow Stanton to pick the other people who go.  It’s a take-it-or-leave-it offer, and there’s no other game in town, so Stanton takes it.  There is word that other countries are also trying to build spacecraft.

A camp is built, staffed, and construction begins on the rocket.  Provisions, animals, microfilm of books, and any number of other things are prepared for the rocket.  There are over 600 people working on the project, but only 40 will be able to go.

Less than four months out from the destruction of the Earth, the other astronomers come around to Hendron’s observations, and Stanton now predicts that the world will soon turn ugly as people will try to fight and kill their way onto the rocket.  Hendron disagrees and refuses to issue the rifles Stanton has bought.  The next day, the UN announces the end of the world, although it seems they may only be preparing for the flyby of Zyra.

Martial law is declared, and coastal cities are evacuated when Zyra arrives, causing massive damage and flooding and nearly destroying the ship.

In the aftermath, Randall and Tony, who aren’t getting along very well because of the simmering tension between them, go out to aid some survivors in need of medical equipment.  They drop some supplies off for some doomed survivors stranded on a small islet, then rescue a small boy floating on the roof of a house.  It looks for a moment that Tony thinks about leaving Randall behind to die, but he doesn’t.  After that, they’re the best of pals.

Hendron has devised a secret lottery system to select the passengers, minus the six people he’s selected – Himself, Joyce, Tony, the rescued boy, Dr. Frye, the designer and pilot of the rocket, and Randall.

Randall is outraged.  He doesn’t deserve a place on the ship, but Hendron says he’s doing it because he loves Joyce, and she wants it, and why not?  Randall refuses to go but tells Hendron not to tell Joyce.

Time is running out, and they are behind schedule. Then, Tony drops a bombshell on Randall: Dr. Frye has a medical condition, he may not survive the launch, and if he doesn’t, or is incapacitated, there is no one else, apart from Randall, who can fly the rocket.  Randall is overjoyed.  At last, he has a legitimate reason to be on the rocket.

The results of the lottery are announced, and two young lovers hoping for a place in the new world find out that only one of them can go.  Eddie, the one who got selected, gives up his place.

This is just what Stanton wanted to hear.  He’s been lobbying to leave a few more people behind to decrease the weight and increase his chances of survival.  Stanton’s wheelchair-pusher, Ferris, uses this opportunity to pull a gun and demand that he go on the rocket.  Stanton kills him with a concealed pistol.  Hendron makes up his mind and decides that the two lovers can both go on the ship.

Hendron continues to insist that people will not panic and that Stanton is wrong about his assessment of people – but Stanton is not wrong.  The 560 people who weren’t selected take Stanton’s rifles and storm the ship.  Hendron and Stanton are the last to board, but Hendron has one last trick up his sleeve.  They’re not going.  The new world is for the young, and he disengages the rocket’s moorings and starts the launch.  Hendron and Stanton will be the weight savings that will help the rocket make it to Zyra.

The launch goes according to plan, and when Randall awakens from the blackout, Frye is already on the job.  Randall realizes he’s been conned.  There was nothing wrong with Frye.  Tony lied to him so he’d make the flight.

The approach Zyra and things are OK, but they’re using too much fuel.  They run out on landing approach, and Randall brings the ship in for a rough but survivable landing.  Outside, a strange new world awaits them and their goats.