British Film Classics: The Korda Collection Volume 1 (Things to Come / Conquest of the Air / The Challenge / Death Drums Along the River) DVD

CONQUEST OF THE AIR (1936): This early docudrama uses dramatic reenactment, working models of early flying machines, and archival footage to trace man's attempts to fly from ancient times through the 1930's.

THINGS TO COME (1936): It's Christmas 1940, and Everytown resident John Cabal (Raymond Massey) fears that war is imminent. When it breaks out, the war lasts 30 years, destroying the city and ushering in a new dark age of plagues and petty despots. But there is hope in the form of Wings Over the World, a group of pacifist scientists and thinkers lead by Cabal. Their dream is to build a utopian society on the ruins of the old. But first they'll have to unseat the latest ruling tyrant (Ralph Richardson).

THE CHALLENGE (1938): A melodramatic recounting of the race for first summit on Matterhorn, the fifth highest peak in the picturesque alps, in 1856, as countries and lives get tangled up in the endeavour with blind-ambition to conquer, creating deceit, betrayal, and tragedy; as hope strives to triumph.

DEATH DRUMS ALONG THE RIVER (1963): While investigating the murder of a fellow police officer in the British West African colony of Gambia, ex-patriot Inspector Harry Sanders (Richard Todd) discovers links to a sinister diamond smuggling operation working further up the River Gambia. The evidence points to a clinic run by Dr Schneider (Walter Rilla) and his assistant director, Dr Weiss (Albert Lieven). At first, Inspector Sanders suspects that a local businessman Jack Pearson is behind the crimes. But when Pearson together with American journalist Jim Hunter are murdered, Sanders realises he was mistaken and begins to suspect that the clinic may be the centre of a diamond smuggling ring.