http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Worlds_Collide
This is the synopsis of the book, not the movie........
Plot summary
Sven Bronson, a South African astronomer, discovers that a pair of rogue planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta, will soon enter the solar system. In eight months, they will pass close enough to cause catastrophic damage. Sixteen months later, after swinging around the Sun, Alpha will return to pulverize the Earth and leave. It is hoped that Bronson Beta will remain and assume a stable orbit.
Scientists led by Cole Hendron work desperately to build an atomic rocket to transport enough people, animals and equipment to Bronson Beta in an attempt to save the human race. Various countries attempt the same thing. Nations including the United States evacuate their coastal regions in preparation for the Bronson bodies’ first pass. Tidal waves sweep inland at a height of 750 feet (230 m), volcanic eruptions and earthquakes take their deadly toll, and the weather runs wild for more than two days. As a token of things to come, Bronson Alpha grazes and destroys the Moon.
Three men take a floatplane to check out conditions across the United States and meet with the President. All three are wounded fighting off a mob at their last stop, but manage to return with a precious sample of extremely heat-resistant metal one of them had noticed, solving the last remaining engineering obstacle: No material had been found to make rocket tubes capable of withstanding the heat of the atomic exhaust for very long.
Five months before the end, desperate mobs attack the camp, killing over half of Hendron’s people before they are defeated. With the rocket tube breakthrough, the survivors are able to build a second, larger ship that can carry everyone left alive. One ship makes a successful landing, but it is unknown if her sister ship or ships from other nations made it. They find that Beta is habitable .
The sequel, After Worlds Collide, details the fate of the survivors on Bronson Beta.
Heh, yeah, one of the ridiculous details that made it from the book was, an unnamed unobtainium type metal needed for the engines, but was in short supply. There was going to be a drawing of lots from among the few thousand people sequestered in the compound (I think it was in Michigan) to build the rocket, the winners would go, the rest would stay behind and die with everyone else. Very late going, another deposit of the metal was found somewhere, making it possible to build a second, even larger rocket, so that everyone on the project could be saved.
> Tidal waves sweep inland at a height of 750 feet (230 m), volcanic eruptions and earthquakes take their deadly toll, and the weather runs wild for more than two days. As a token of things to come, Bronson Alpha grazes and destroys the Moon.
The premise in the book was similar, but again, doofus-like — the two planets consisted of a smaller, Earth-sized body, being pulled along by the much larger “A” body. The calculations were said to show that when the “A” body struck the Earth, the impact would loosen the grip on the “B” body, which would enter a nice orbit around the Sun and the “A” body would, I forget, exit the Solar System, fall into the Sun, something like that.
In the sequel, the Earth team got to the planet and found that it was thawed out already (it had been in the deep cold of space for untold eons of course), still barren, but previously the home of some alien civilization. They found a wrecked vehicle on the side of the ruins of a road, and the remains of a dead alien inside.
They also discovered that German commies had built an escape rocket in secret and managed to arrive on “B”, but had somehow managed to forget to bring along any women, so they wound up having a big fight over that. Classic pulp fiction.