Timeslip

This early Merton Park production is no relation to the children's TV sci-fi adventure of the same name made fifteen years later. The sci-fi component is novel but ends up taking a back seat to a conventional Cold War thriller about saboteurs, atmospherically photographed by A. T. Dinsdale and briskly directed by Ken Hughes, soon to graduate to 'A' features.

Gene Nelson makes a whimsical hero, while Faith Domergue, newly returned from Metaluna, is here buttoned up in an overcoat against the London cold. Also in an overcoat, plus a trilby, rather than playing one of the scientists Joseph Tomelty is here unusually cast as the inspector following the case.

Great little British SF paranoia film featuring the wonderful Faith Domergue (This Island Earth) and a plot that really does hold up well. Having said that a lot of the acting and sets don't stand the test of time and the script is a bit dodgy. It does look like there is a brief appearance by Charles Hawtry part way through. Fun film.

Ken Hughes directed five feature films and two short films in 1955, and this is one of the features. It is a superior B picture with the female B star, Faith Domergue, she of the big soulful brown eyes. The story and screenplay are by Charles Eric Maine, and he has written a good yarn. Some of the ideas for the technical background are mentioned in passing, and they concern a scientist named Stephen Rayner who works for the Atomic Energy authorities. He has learned how to achieve the alchemical transmutation of elements in order to produce tungsten in the laboratory from cheap materials. This threatens the interests of the United Tungsten Corporation of Argentina, which controls two thirds of the world's tungsten supply, so they have another scientist's face transformed by plastic surgery to replace Rayner, and the film starts with Rayner being shot one night and falling into the Thames. He miraculously survives but is in a coma for some time while everyone is trying to figure out what happened. After he is identified, the police are puzzled because his employers say he is at work in his lab. Something strange has also happened to him because he has undergone a slight forward time-shift of 7.5 seconds due to exposure to radiation, so he answers questions put to him before they are asked. When the police and others finally figure out why his interviews don't make any sense, because the answer to each question is really to one that will be asked next, they then begin to piece together his story. The film is very intriguing and entertaining, despite being low budget. The hints of escaped corrupt Nazis in Argentina who will kill anyone who gets in their way were well understood in 1955, only ten years after the War. The film's original release title was TIMESLIP, and it is under that title that the DVD is now once again available. As another reviewer says, this is not really a sci fi film but is an industrial espionage thriller with some intriguing sci fi background elements which are significantly under-developed. Both the timeslip angle and the tungsten angle could have been much better developed and turned into a much stronger film. As it is, the film is rather mediocre.

A wounded atomic scientist is found to be 7 1/2 seconds ahead of time and has a radioactive halo about his body that can only be seen in photographs. Unfortunately, it is more of a cops, robbers and gangsters picture with a scientific twist than a true sci fi picture. It is intriguing at first, but it fails to live up to its promise, although it does eventually explain the time slip. However, the acting is solid and the subplots are fine but the film misses the mark overall.

The science fiction gimmick in this "B" British mystery is a man who after his highly radioactive body is fished out of the Thames, comes to life. After he awakes it is discovered that his brief death and exposure to radiation causes his consciousness to be 7 seconds into the future. This film soon drifts into a typical "wise cracking reporter" mystery after a reel or two and the "timeslip" gimmick is forgotten. Most of the film deals with a male and female reporter trying to prove the mysterious man is actually a famous scientist who is now being impersonated by an enemy agent. The script written by Charles Eric Maine, based on his novel, is typical of most of Maines screen/published science fiction; he comes up with an interesting science fiction gimmick and works it into a mundane plot. In this case a typical "wise cracking reporter" mystery. Another of example of this is the film THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER aka ESCAPEMENT from a script by Maine based on his published novel. An historical note; American actor Gene Nelson was dancer and singer who starred in many musicals. He was in an accident about a year before this film was made and it prevented him from dancing.