Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

robert-temple-1 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.

lemon_magic 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.

krell-10 This film was shown in the USA as "The Atomic Man." A man is chased, shot and falls into a river. When the police pull him out, a news photographer takes a picture of him that shows a glowing halo around him. Mike Delaney, a reporter, recognizes the injured man as a renowned scientist from the United States. During an operation to remove the bullet the man dies for 7.5 seconds. He is revived, and seems to have lost his mind.When his doctor and Delaney try to question him, his answers make no sense. Finally it is realized he is answering the questions 7.5 seconds prior to their being asked. He's slipped in time. He doesn't remember much. He thinks a man named Vasco was responsible for his being shot.Delaney puts the police on the problem of the identity of the injured man. They find a man of that name alive and mostly well working in an atomic laboratory on a secret experiment. He's not completely well since he claims he was rear ended in an automobile accident which explains the bandages on his face . This statement makes Delaney suspicious so his continues investigation doggedly to the point of being fired for his efforts.In hospital an attempt to x-ray the scientist completely exposes the x-ray film. The radiologists discover he is radioactive. During his investigations Delaney is convinced that the injured man is "The Isotope Man" but is fired by his boss. His girlfriend, Rabowski, continues to help him. They find that Vasco represents a South American Tungsten company. This gives Rabowski an idea and she breaks into their offices, finds out they are to blame and is captured.In the climax of the film, Delaney rescues Rabowski, has a shootout with the villains, gains the upper hand in furious fight. He drags the villain Vasco to the research center as the experiment to create tungsten is about to be conducted. Vasco become frantic and screams to the scientists to stop the experiment. Vasco's man had placed enough plutonium in the reactor to have destroyed half of London in an atomic blast. Fortunately this was detected and London was spared.This film is more an industrial espionage adventure than a pure science fiction film. The issue of the scientist having slipped in time due to his death is certainly an exciting plot device.This is an enjoyable film even now if you can make allowances for the period of time during which it was made. I saw it first in 1956 and was impressed enough to look this film up recently. It was a lot more frightening when I was 7 years old watching it in an all night drive-in.

mike1964 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.