Robert Clarke

(On Cable TV, April 2022) Now here’s a curio – a largely forgotten Science Fiction film originally meant as a mockbuster alongside The Time Machine, but that stumbled into something interesting on its own. The production history of Beyond the Time Barrier is one of competent people brought together for a low-budget production (the American Pictures International logo being enough of a giveaway, even if they merely distributed the picture rather than produced it) and the result reflects that span of expertise. The plot, makeup, effects and acting are just fine – but they co-exist right alongside far less impressive bits of plot, makeup, effects and acting. The narrative is actually not too bad despite the unconvincing justification: an air force pilot finds himself marooned in the future after a scientific experiment, and meets a number of survivors of a global catastrophe who need him to repopulate the Earth. But this isn’t just an early forebear to A Boy and His Dog – there are savage mutants to contend with and (in a rather good extrapolation of what’s possible in that universe) other stranded time-travelers with their own plans for his time-travelling jet. If you can remain indulgent about much of the film’s production values, there’s some intriguing material here. I’m not exaggerating when I say that a similar premise could still work today, considering the kinship between this film and the much more recent The Tomorrow War (2021). This late-career entry from well-regarded director Edgar G. Ulmer has a few great moments, with Robert Clarke doing fine as the square-jawed hero and Darlene Tompkins looking really cute as the female lead. I’m not going to suggest that Beyond the Time Barrier is a hidden gem of some sort: It still pales in comparison to the better-known The Time Machine. But it’s more effective than many of the low-budget Science Fiction films of the time, and it still works well for modern audiences. Call it a solid success at a time when the SF genre didn’t have that many of them.