The more I think about this movie the more I realize that it's kind of "The Time Machine" with a bit of a space travel twist to it - and one of the stars is actually Rod Taylor, who also starred in the definitive movie version of "The Time Machine." It also had Hugh Marlowe, who did a few sci-fi movies in the era, along with westerns and a fair bit of TV work in his later career. It also has a few things in common with "Planet Of The Apes" - which, of course, was still quite a way in the future. This movie gives us four astronauts who somehow on a trip home from Mars (and this is set in 1957) end up being hurtled forward in time and land back on Earth about 500 years in the future. What they discover is a post-apocalyptic earth, an atomic war apparently having erupted in the 22nd century. The dangers of radiation were a staple of 1950's Cold War sci-fi movies, of course, because everyone was afraid of atomic war breaking out. So, as with many sci-fi pictures of this era, we do get mutants - silly looking giant spiders, and cyclopean looking humans on the surface who seem interested in little but attacking whatever they find. But our intrepid astronauts also discover an underground and non-mutant human society (unless the mutation is that all women are beautiful and long-legged and naturally inclined to wear really short skirts - although the most beautiful of the women may have been Lisa Montell as Deena, brought below from the surface, who wore pants.) This society locks itself away from the world above out of fear of the mutants and has really developed a rather passionless and fearful outlook on life - perhaps understandable for people who essentially spend their entire existence cowering in fear. The beautiful women, of course, are quite taken with the handsome muscular men from the past - we're told that even in the 26th century when they haven't seen anything except this rather pathetic collection of the male of the species women can't resist men with "good shoulders." The girls fall in love, jealousy erupts among the underground men, and eventually the men of the past - apparently having accepted that they can't return home - try to "un-wimp" this society and get them back to the surface - where humans belong!
It's a pretty quick movie. Special effects are what would be expected from a 50's sci-fi movie, although the producers chose to spend extra to film this in colour. The women may have been beautiful and the men may have been muscular (or pale and wimpy, depending on which group you're thinking of) but one thing that pretty much everyone in the cast had in common was that they offered somewhat bland performances. It was never really explained how the spaceship travelled forward in time. There was some mythical scientific theory referred to, and the point was made that the ship travelled pretty fast. But ... The speed was originally 15 miles per second (which in terms of space travel is standing still.) Once they hit the phenomenon, they hit 100 miles per second (still standing still in space) and at that speed their instruments froze, so the point was made that since nothing beyond that was recorded they could have been going ten or even a hundred times faster than that - which is still kind of standing still in space. Certainly there seemed nothing to suggest that this little ship could have approached the speed of light - which, basically, it would have had to do to facilitate this kind of time travel.
But I'm getting too technical. They travelled through time. Somehow. That's all that matters. And the four astronauts ultimately seemed to have a positive impact, and the movie does seem to end on an optimistic note. It's OK. In a lot of ways it's standard 50's sci- fi - hokey by today's standards, but entertaining enough at the time. And if you like beautiful women who all seem to have legs that go on forever - well, what's to complain about? (4/10)
It's a pretty quick movie. Special effects are what would be expected from a 50's sci-fi movie, although the producers chose to spend extra to film this in colour. The women may have been beautiful and the men may have been muscular (or pale and wimpy, depending on which group you're thinking of) but one thing that pretty much everyone in the cast had in common was that they offered somewhat bland performances. It was never really explained how the spaceship travelled forward in time. There was some mythical scientific theory referred to, and the point was made that the ship travelled pretty fast. But ... The speed was originally 15 miles per second (which in terms of space travel is standing still.) Once they hit the phenomenon, they hit 100 miles per second (still standing still in space) and at that speed their instruments froze, so the point was made that since nothing beyond that was recorded they could have been going ten or even a hundred times faster than that - which is still kind of standing still in space. Certainly there seemed nothing to suggest that this little ship could have approached the speed of light - which, basically, it would have had to do to facilitate this kind of time travel.
But I'm getting too technical. They travelled through time. Somehow. That's all that matters. And the four astronauts ultimately seemed to have a positive impact, and the movie does seem to end on an optimistic note. It's OK. In a lot of ways it's standard 50's sci- fi - hokey by today's standards, but entertaining enough at the time. And if you like beautiful women who all seem to have legs that go on forever - well, what's to complain about? (4/10)