Timeslip (1956)

Boring

Admirable film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A man is shot and thrown into a river. Rescued, he is rushed to the hospital and during surgery his heart stops for a few seconds. A pushy American reporter who is the science writer for a magazine had taken a photo of him; in the photo the man appears to have a halo. The reporter, Delaney, thinks he recognizes the injured man as a famous nuclear scientist named Rayner. But when Delaney and the cops go to the nuclear lab where Rayner works they find that evidently the injured man is not Rayner as he is still at work. Or is he? The time slip gimmick is really an interesting one but nothing interesting is done with this concept. Delaney and his girlfriend, a photographer for the magazine unravel the rather convoluted plot of evil corporate greed. The ending is a bit of a surprise and quite good. A sufficiently entertaining movie but nothing special.

*Spoiler/plot- Atomic Man, 1955. An atomic scientist makes isotopes(new elements). He gets so radioactive contaminated that he can make jumps into the future only in seconds. A international company substitutes their scientist to sabotage the isotope experiments with a look-a-like. The industrial espionage plot over the making the element tungsten in a atomic reactor produces the drama. *Special Stars- Gene Nelson, Faith Domergue, Peter Arne.*Theme- Some times atomic power is man's solution to his problems. *Trivia/location/goofs- B & W. British. Film Noir. Gene Nelson is recognizable dancer and singer. Faith Domergue is recognizable as being in several famous cult 50's science fiction films. Film's first title was 'Timeslip'. Faith Domergue was promoted to be the next Jane Russel, a brunette sex bomb. *Emotion- This film was a disappointment. It was not a science fiction piece, only an industrial espionage & murder drama. The plot gimmick of time travel is extremely underplayed and is visually crude & confusing to the film viewer. So because of that and since I'm a time travel gimmick aficionado, I would give this film very low marks. It was boring, slow, and pedestrian. Forget it.

This 2nd string low budget British work is interesting in the way it tries to work in a science fiction plot element while having no special effects whatsoever.The idea of a man who has "slipped" in time is an interesting one, but it's wasted on an underwhelming mystery/espionage plot (It seems that certain economic interests are attempting to control the world's tungsten supply - my heart is in my throat!) What saves this one are the performances. It's a British production, and the Brits treat it as if it were Shakespeare - the actors take the wonky and turgid lines they are given and go after them with energy and enthusiasm and class.There are some problems with the casting - I didn't believe the actor who played Delaney was a reporter for a second, and I didn't believe there could be any chemistry between his character and a babe who looks like Faith Domergue either. And the main "heavy" is little more than a Rent-A-Center Sidney Greenstreet (he has the worst delivery of a line in the movie: "Call me a Dago again and I'll...") But it pushes right buttons and a bunch of people run around like maniacs for the last few minutes and the girl gets rescued from the bad guys...so I call it a decent effort.But it is for rabid 50's Sci Fi fans (and fans of Faith Domergue) and people interested in the history of science fiction who want to see every last damn film ever made.

I had read the reviews for The Atomic Man and to be honest didn't make me want to see this movie. I always had this movie very low on my want list and recently purchased a copy from Sinister Cinema. Wow! What a mistake I had made over the years. I really enjoyed this movie.Plot concerns a nuclear scientist, Dr. Raynor, (Peter Arne) who is shot at the opening of the film and dumped in the river. He is found without identification and taken to the hospital. He is not expected to make it, but miraculously pulls through surgery even after "dying" for 7.5 seconds. A newspaper man (Gene Nelson) suspects the recovering man to be Dr. Raynor from a glow in a photograph. When he investigates another man (also Arne) is at the Research Center. Movie goes on a while while the characters try to determine who the man in the hospital is. We find out that a man named Vasquo (Vic Perry) is behind the whole matter. He had Raynor shot and had a plastic surgeon prepare the fake Raynor for the purpose of blowing up Raynor's experiment. While the real Raynor is recovering, we discover he is 7.5 seconds into the future (a really POOR reason is given to how this would happen and an even worse antidote. Okay, we can't always have good scientific reason in our Sci Fi movies.). In the end Vasquo and his incompetent gang are thwarted by Gene Nelson and Faith Domergue. Plot is a little thin on science fiction, but pretty fun throughout.