Beyond the Time Barrier

"Major William Allison" (Robert Clarke) is a test pilot for the United States Air Force who has been assigned to fly an experimental jet into space at speeds never before attempted by mankind. Unfortunately, his mission accidentally takes him 64 years into the future to a time when a plague has decimated most of the population and created hostile mobs of mutants who seek to wreak havoc on the few less infected people living underground. Yet while these people don't quite suffer from the full ravages of the plague the disease has rendered all of them deaf, mute and completely sterile. All but one that is and the arrival of Major Allison gives them hope that perhaps he and a beautiful woman named "Trirene" (Darlene Tompkins) can offer them a chance of repopulating the human species. But there is another opportunity presented with Major Allison's arrival which another group has formulated, and it conflicts with the plans of the establishment. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a decent science fiction film for the most part. Admittedly, being produced in 1960 it lacks the special effects of movies made during the present time and the film lacked depth and substance to a certain degree as well. But in any case, I kind of enjoyed it and so I rate this movie as about average and recommend it to fans of this particular time and genre.

From Edgar G. Ulmer (director of `The Man from Planet X' and `The Amazing Transparent Man') comes this likable little sc-fi tale. A test pilot (Robert Clark) is catapulted into the future by a freak phenomenon, where a post World War III society lives in futuristic cities that protect them from the lingering radiation. However, the populace is having fertility problems, and the head of the government (Vladimir Sokoloff) hopes that his daughter (gorgeous Darlene Thompkins) and Clark will get together.

The costumes will meet with male approval; the women all wear short dresses and high heels (if you like it, guys, check out `World Without End').

Okay, back to the plot: a group of dissidents conspire to take over the government by releasing a horde of imprisoned mutants. They do, and the first thing the mutants do is attack all the women. Girls, be forewarned: if you dress provocatively, you'll suffer the consequences, especially if imprisoned mutants get loose.

Hats off to Ulmer for efficiency: he filmed this enjoyable effort in a matter of weeks, and he saved money on sets by using an exhibit of futuristic art-and-design at the 1959 Texas State Fair in Dallas. The interior architecture is appealing, despite being relatively simple. The doors, walls, and pillars are all based on triangles and pyramids. Don't' expect any elaborate special effects, but the film does manage to invoke a pleasant Buck Rogers feeling.

Unfortunately, I've never seen this movie shown on local or cable TV, and it doesn't seem to be avail on VHS or DVD. Dedicated sci-fi fans will have to work to get a peek at this lost gem. But it's worth the effort if you're a 1950s sci-fi fan.

After the release of 'Forbidden Planet' in 1956, and before the release of 'Planet of the Apes' in 1968, the overwhelming number of science fiction films were ultra-low budget affairs, generally produced to fill out double-bills at drive-in theaters. I would posit that this period should be called the Golden Era of Schlock.

Schlock Scifi was not all bad...in fact, some of it was actually good, and a lot of it is interesting, and sometimes fascinating. There is a certain rough and ready charm to the earnestness and creativity of the actors, writers and directors, with some Schlock films being like the experience of watching community theater.

This film contains creative usage of a derelict airfield, filmed and edited to give the impression of a future of ruin and decay. The director also made good use of some strange architecture at the Texas State Fairgrounds, allowing the audience to make believe they are in fact seeing the underground dwellings of the future.

Stock footage of the F-102 'Delta Dagger' fighter plane is used to represent an experimental rocket...and in an unusual move, the director actually had a miniature created that matched the stock footage...the FX are extremely primitive even by 1960 standards, but I have to give them credit for finding a model of an F-102, because usually these films just show stock footage of say, an A-4 rocket and then a model of a B-52 or something completely unrelated. (BTW, the F-102 is what former president George Bush flew when he was in the 'Champagne Unit' of the Texas Air National Guard, avoiding Viet Nam.)

There are some mildly scary screaming mutants here, who for some reason, the civilized people of the future keep in a huge dungeon inside their fortress, as opposed to a safer location outside the city. The mutants are bald and wear coveralls in close ups and medium shots...but when the camera looks down the stairs into the dungeon, the mutants have long hair and wear caveman clothes. Obviously, director Ulmer obtained some stock footage of the cavemen types and edited in to save money and time. The mutants yell a lot.

Robert Clarke is pretty decent as Our Hero the square jawed USAF pilot, and Darlene Tompkins is strangely charming as Tirene, the cute mute in the short skirt. In the city of the future, everyone is sterile except for Tirene...until the arrival or Our Hero. The Supreme Leader of the City of the Future, as well as Tirene, want Our Hero to impregnate Tirene so as to perpetuate the human race.

Apocalyptic Futures were in vogue during this era, but this film is unusual in that rather than forecasting an atomic war, it instead predicts Future Earth as a place where the atmosphere is gradually degraded from unrelenting atomic testing, and the human race is decimated by a series of plagues.

The idea of a time traveler visiting a post-apocalyptic future was fairly new at this point. The George Pal adaptation of The Time Machine, also released in 1960, touched on the subject, but only in passing, and was more concerned with evolutionary changes, rather than nuclear holocaust. This film certainly beat the el cheapo 'Time Travelers' (1964) as well as the big-budget 'Planet of the Apes' (1968) to the punch. Like those two films, this one also has a shock ending.

This film somehow manages to convey a mood of melancholy and anxiety, appropriate for the story of a man who learns that his world is going to hell. The subplot regarding his role as a sperm-donor, admittedly an adolescent male fantasy, is handled as plausibly as possible under the circumstances. Perhaps Gene Roddenberry was influenced by this film, since his 1964 unsold Star Trek pilot is also a story of a science-fiction sperm donor.

Many reviewers like to discuss ne'er-do-well director Edgar Ulmer's style in this film. Certainly there are some elements of 1920's German expressionism that help this film be a little more creepy and moody than it would otherwise.

In summary, this is a fun and interesting excursion into the land of Schlock, and it is better and more interesting than most Schlock...yet it was created as Schlock, and Schlock it will always be. View it in this context, and you will be happy.

Beyond the Time Barrier is an old-fashioned science fiction film made in 1960 that has the look and feel of a science fiction serial. It has some obvious flaws, most of which spring from its low budget. The special effects are woefully un-special. The sets are cheap-looking as are the costumes and any make-up used. Acting is mediocre at best with a few actors doing reasonable work. Darlene Tompkins is a lovely actress and does a pretty good job in her role as a deaf princess. Robert Clarke should be nicknamed Robert "Stonewall" Clarke for his stone-like performance. His performance isn't wooden, it's petrified. Nonetheless he is fun to watch. Boyd "Red" Morgan is, on the other hand, painfully bad a a captain(earlier referred to as a major?). The film tells a very complex story about Clarke leaving the year 1960 and crossing a time barrier and reaching the year 2024 where plague and pestilence are common. The human race has divided into factions of mutants and non-mutants(really people in the very first stages of being mutants). I found the story quite interesting despite not really believing the scientific aspects behind it. Sure the film is talky, but that was okay with me as I liked the story. The film was directed by Edgar Ulmer and it has some wonderful Ulmer moments. I particularly liked the way the mutants were locked up...a well-shot scene. Also, the climatic fight scenes were very good too. Ulmer uses a triangle of another scene interspersing into the already existing shot quite often as well for a neat little effect. An interesting science fiction film with a message.

"Beyond the Time Barrier" is the type of late 50s/early 60s Sci-Fi film of which you know, after approximately five minutes already, that it could have been a fantastic contemporary genre highlight if only the cast and crew didn't have to work with such a minimalist budget! Most of the conceptual ideas are really great and well- elaborated, but the cheap looking set pieces and the pitiable special effects have an immensely restraining impact on the overall plausibility and entertainment value. In case you serve an ambitious plot that is dealing with time-traveling and largely takes place in a futuristic dystopia, you can't afford to use paper made spaceships or drawings of the metropolis and you most certainly cannot speak of horribly deformed mutants the entire time without properly showing their faces! So, in an attempt to cover up for the budgetary weakness, Edgar G. Ulmer does what every experienced veteran director would do: replace the action sequences with endless intellectual speeches and complicated time warp theories as much as you can! In 1960, Major William Ellison has the honor and privilege to test-fly a brand new and hi-tech type of army fighter plane. The speed of the aircraft is even a little too successful, as Ellison breaks through the time barrier and ends up in the year 2024. It takes quite a while before our Major properly realizes that he fast- forwarded 64 years into the future, and the technical details are explained to him by three other scientists that went through the same experience. By the way, I didn't understand one iota about those time-traveling theories, but I also figure that incomprehensible speeches are a mandatory aspect of 50s Sci-Fi… Ellison immediately gets confronted with the terrible state of our planet and civilization in the year 2024. Apparently an all- devastating kind of cosmic plague made the entire world population sterile (the last child was born more 20 years ago) and gradually transforms the remaining survivors into mutants. There's also good news, however, as the last fertile woman on earth is a beautiful princess and she has chosen him to re-populate the planet! She – Trirene – is a deaf-mute with telekinetic powers and she can read Ellison's thoughts, which results in at least one (unintentionally?) hilarious sequence: "I know you can read my mind…. Although right now I probably wished you couldn't" and then he gets slapped in the face! Admittedly "Beyond the Time Barrier" principally got made to cash in on the tremendous success of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and also borrows many elements from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", but it's an engaging and occasionally suspenseful tale. I even like to think that some nifty ideas from this film were copied years later in massive Hollywood productions (for example the sterility in "Children of Men"), although I'm probably mistaken.