What’s the World Coming To? (1926) takes on cross-dressing by both sexes, also in an upper-class world. Written in part by comedy’s up-and-coming genius Stan Laurel, the script is set a hundred years in the future when women and men have switched roles. Women are the dominant sex, sporting waistcoats and close-cropped hair, and the men have become not so much feminine as ruffle-draped buffoons. In this imagining of 2026, it’s a zero-sum game, in which any power gained by women is a loss for men. —Aimee Pavy
What’s the World Coming To? was produced by Hal Roach Studios and released in two reels on January 17, 1926. The film was copyrighted by the distributor, Pathé Exchange on January 23, 1926 (LU22294). This restoration is based on a 2K digital transfer from a black and white 16mm print (603.4 ft) printed circa 1944 and preserved in the William K. Everson Collection at New Your University. Projection speed is 20 frames per second. This restoration was completed in September 2015 as a collaboration between San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Carleton University, and New York University.
