"Beyond The Time Barrier" was the first of two features shot back to back by director Edgar G. Ulmer ("The Amazing Transparent Man" followed) in April-May 1959, at the Texas State fairgrounds at Fair Park in Dallas. Pacific International's presence meant that star Robert Clarke doubled as producer (having previously directed "The Hideous Sun Demon," the lead in Ulmer's 1951 "The Man from Planet X"), but collected only an actor's salary when the company went bankrupt after the pictures wrapped (more than a year passed before AIP picked them up for a nice profit). Scripting was Dallas native Arthur C. Pierce, author of "The Cosmic Man," "Invasion of the Animal People," "Women of the Prehistoric Planet," "Cyborg 2087," and "Dimension 5," all low budget wonders that have mostly achieved cult status. This low budget knockoff of "The Time Machine" (shooting title "The Last Barrier") was already in the can before George Pal began principal photography on his adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel, and AIP made no secret of the connection with their final title, since both pictures were essentially released the same month. Clarke's test pilot takes off for a short flight 1000 miles above the earth but lands only a few hours later in a dilapidated area which used to be the air base. It's not long before he ventures near an underground city, whose inhabitants capture and decontaminate him, as the surface of this world is covered with mutants suffering the long term effects of radiation. It takes a long while before the pilot learns that he had unknowingly passed through a bridge in time and now resides in the year 2024, his new mission to return to his own period to try to prevent the fallout from a plague caused by cosmic bombardment that have rendered this earth sterile and doomed. The footage of imprisoned mutants was taken from an earlier Ulmer production, "Journey Beneath the Desert," but the rest was rather uninspired, though the attractive presence of newcomer Darlene Tompkins makes her mute role most welcome (Ulmer's daughter Arianne has a major part as a female scientist from the year 1973). Unlike earlier forays into the future such as "World Without End" we see few members of this society and virtually nothing to indicate its supposedly vast size, and only two have the power of speech, the sympathetic Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff) and hostile Captain (Red Morgan), who believes the incredulous pilot to be a spy. Clarke had endured a similar encounter in 1952's "Captive Women," and later entries like "The Time Travelers" and "Journey to the Center of Time" also used the same outline.
Review of Beyond the Time Barrier
