Beyond the Time Barrier
Encyclopedia
Beyond the Time Barrier is a 1959 Cold War
era black and white time travel
science fiction film
filmed in ten days in Texas. It was produced by and starred Robert Clarke
and was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Ulmer's wife Shirley acted as a script editor whilst their daughter Arianne Arden co-starred as a Russian pilot.
Major Bill Allison (Robert Clarke) flies an experimental aircraft to sub-orbital spaceflight
successfully but loses radio contact. He lands at his airbase that now is abandoned and seems old and unused. Mystified by his surroundings, he sees a futuristic city on the horizon where he is rendered unconscious and captured by the inhabitants.
Allison discovers that he has entered a wormhole
through time and has landed in the year 2024 that contains survivors from a cosmic plague that hit the Earth starting in 1971. The inhabitants of the dystopia
who are dying out live in an underground city called The Citadel. They are led by the Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff) and his mute and telepathic granddaughter Princess Trirene (18-year old, at the time, Darlene Tompkins). Against them are the literal outsiders, the bald violent mutant
s who seek to kill everyone they can. Also present are similar accidental time travelers labeled "scapes"; the Russian Captain Markova (Arianne Ulmer) who came from 1973 and General Kruse (Stephen Bekassy) and Professor Bourman (John Van Dreelen) who have come from 1994 to escape the plague of the time.
so sought a director of vision that he could work with. He had previously worked with director Edgar G. Ulmer on The Man from Planet X
and respected his work. As Clarke's funds were coming from Texas, the backers made him film his movie there where conveniently motion picture unions did not have any influence. Clarke filmed in the Texas Centennial Exhibition Fair Park
buildings and obtained cooperation from the US Air Force and Texas Air National Guard
allowing him to film at Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base
and the abandoned Marine Corps Air Station Eagle Mountain Lake
as well as use footage of an F-102 Delta Dart for the test plane. The film's action sequences uses Air Force weapons of the time, M1 carbine
s and M1911A1 pistols with the actors taking care not to fire the weapons directly at each other. The film's working title
was The Last Barrier.
Production designer Ernst Fegté
designed a triangular motif to be used in the futuristic sets filmed in the empty showground buildings where surplus parachutes had to be hung up in the background to stop echoes.
Clarke chose Darlene Tompkins over several contenders including Yvette Mimieux
(who appeared in The Time Machine
) and Leslie Parrish
for the mute and psychic
Trirene. Ulmer selected his daughter Arianne for the role of Captain Alicia Markova, whose name came from the ballerina of the same name
. Ulmer choreographed her daughter's movements similar to a ballet dance that required her to loosen her flight suit
.
When giving her speech inciting the mutants to revolt in a Soviet uprising, Arianne deliberately used voice inflections similar to Laurence Olivier
reciting the St. Crispin's Day Speech speech from Henry V
. American International Pictures (AIP) added scenes to the mutant uprising sequence from their Journey to the Lost City. One of the mutants was played by the screenwriter Arthur C. Pierce
. Pierce was also involved in the production and worked as an assistant editor.
Tompkins recalled that the actors playing the mutants, whose makeup was done by Jack Pierce, taught her how to play cribbage
on the set dressed in their costumes. Tompkins also was asked to do a nude swimming scene for overseas release which was done by a body double. During initial filming of her swimming in a flesh colored bathing suit, the film crew used the swimming pool of the motel they were staying at; their night filming was disrupted by a fire at the motel.
Former football player Boyd Morgan
did the stunts and played the Captain of the Guard. Darrell Calker
, the music chief of Walter Lantz
's cartoons, provided an effective film score.
AIP's James H. Nicholson
was keen on releasing the film based on his teenage daughters' recommendation following their viewing a screening of the film and sent him to his partner Samuel Z. Arkoff
who asked Clarke what he wanted to do with the film. Clarke said he wanted to produce several films for AIP but Arkoff said AIP didn't use contract producers. Clarke found a similar but newer and inexperienced film company called Pacific International Pictures (PIP) or Miller-Consolidated Pictures
who were keen on using Clarke and releasing his films. However, PIP went bankrupt and AIP was able to purchase two of Clarke's films held by PIP for just the laboratory costs and release them under the AIP banner. AIP exploited
MGM's publicity for their The Time Machine
releasing their film a month before MGMs. Poor Clarke didn't get anything except his actor's salary.
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
era black and white time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
filmed in ten days in Texas. It was produced by and starred Robert Clarke
Robert Clarke
Robert Irby Clarke was an American actor best known for his cult classic science fiction films of the 1950s.-Early life:...
and was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Ulmer's wife Shirley acted as a script editor whilst their daughter Arianne Arden co-starred as a Russian pilot.
Plot
U.S. Air Force test pilotTest pilot
A test pilot is an aviator who flies new and modified aircraft in specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques or FTTs, allowing the results to be measured and the design to be evaluated....
Major Bill Allison (Robert Clarke) flies an experimental aircraft to sub-orbital spaceflight
Sub-orbital spaceflight
A sub-orbital space flight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it does not complete one orbital revolution....
successfully but loses radio contact. He lands at his airbase that now is abandoned and seems old and unused. Mystified by his surroundings, he sees a futuristic city on the horizon where he is rendered unconscious and captured by the inhabitants.
Allison discovers that he has entered a wormhole
Wormhole
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
through time and has landed in the year 2024 that contains survivors from a cosmic plague that hit the Earth starting in 1971. The inhabitants of the dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
who are dying out live in an underground city called The Citadel. They are led by the Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff) and his mute and telepathic granddaughter Princess Trirene (18-year old, at the time, Darlene Tompkins). Against them are the literal outsiders, the bald violent mutant
Mutant
In biology and especially genetics, a mutant is an individual, organism, or new genetic character, arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is a base-pair sequence change within the DNA of a gene or chromosome of an organism resulting in the creation of a new character or trait not...
s who seek to kill everyone they can. Also present are similar accidental time travelers labeled "scapes"; the Russian Captain Markova (Arianne Ulmer) who came from 1973 and General Kruse (Stephen Bekassy) and Professor Bourman (John Van Dreelen) who have come from 1994 to escape the plague of the time.
Production
Producer Robert Clarke had been exhausted by both directing and acting in his The Hideous Sun DemonThe Hideous Sun Demon
The Hideous Sun Demon was the directorial debut of Robert Clarke, star of many of the 1950s best science fiction films. The movie became an Atomic Age cult classic. Clarke wrote, directed and produced The Hideous Sun Demon...
so sought a director of vision that he could work with. He had previously worked with director Edgar G. Ulmer on The Man from Planet X
The Man from Planet X
The Man From Planet X is a 1951 science fiction film.It was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer who had directed the very first Bela Lugosi/Boris Karloff teamup picture The Black Cat in 1934.-Plot:...
and respected his work. As Clarke's funds were coming from Texas, the backers made him film his movie there where conveniently motion picture unions did not have any influence. Clarke filmed in the Texas Centennial Exhibition Fair Park
Fair Park
Dallas Fair Park is a recreational and educational complex located in Dallas, Texas . The complex is registered as a Dallas Landmark, National Historic Landmark and is home to nine museums, six performance facilities, a lagoon, and the largest Ferris wheel in North America...
buildings and obtained cooperation from the US Air Force and Texas Air National Guard
Texas Air National Guard
The Texas Air National Guard is the air force militia of the U.S. state of Texas and a component of the Texas Military Forces...
allowing him to film at Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base
Carswell Air Force Base
Carswell Air Force Base, was a United States Air Force Strategic Air Command base located about northwest central of Fort Worth, Texas, United States; the air force base is mostly within the Fort Worth city limits and has portions within Westworth and White Settlement...
and the abandoned Marine Corps Air Station Eagle Mountain Lake
Marine Corps Air Station Eagle Mountain Lake
Marine Corps Air Station Eagle Mountain Lake was a United States Marine Corps air station that was located northwest of Fort Worth, Texas during World War II. Commissioned on December 1, 1942 the air station was originally supposed to be the home of the Marine Corps glider program...
as well as use footage of an F-102 Delta Dart for the test plane. The film's action sequences uses Air Force weapons of the time, M1 carbine
M1 Carbine
The M1 carbine is a lightweight, easy to use semi-automatic carbine that became a standard firearm for the U.S. military during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and was produced in several variants. It was widely used by U.S...
s and M1911A1 pistols with the actors taking care not to fire the weapons directly at each other. The film's working title
Working title
A working title, sometimes called a production title, is the temporary name of a product or project used during its development, usually used in filmmaking, television production, novel, video game, or music album.-Purpose:...
was The Last Barrier.
Production designer Ernst Fegté
Ernst Fegté
Ernst Fegté was a German art director. He won an Academy Award and was nominated for three more in the category Best Art Direction.He was born in Hamburg, Germany and died in Los Angeles, California....
designed a triangular motif to be used in the futuristic sets filmed in the empty showground buildings where surplus parachutes had to be hung up in the background to stop echoes.
Clarke chose Darlene Tompkins over several contenders including Yvette Mimieux
Yvette Mimieux
Yvette Carmen Mimieux is a retired American movie and television actress.-Early life and career:Yvette Mimieux was born in Los Angeles, California, to a French father and Mexican mother, Carmen Montemayor...
(who appeared in The Time Machine
The Time Machine (1960 film)
The Time Machine is a 1960 American science fiction film based on the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells in which a man in Victorian England constructs a time-travelling machine which he uses to travel to the future...
) and Leslie Parrish
Leslie Parrish
Leslie Parrish is an American actress. She worked under her birth name, Marjorie Hellen, until she changed it in 1959.-Education:...
for the mute and psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
Trirene. Ulmer selected his daughter Arianne for the role of Captain Alicia Markova, whose name came from the ballerina of the same name
Alicia Markova
Dame Alicia Markova, DBE, DMus, was an English ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the...
. Ulmer choreographed her daughter's movements similar to a ballet dance that required her to loosen her flight suit
Flight suit
A flight suit is a full body garment, worn while flying aircraft such as military airplanes, gliders and helicopters. These suits are generally made to keep the wearer warm, as well as being practical , and durable . Its appearance is usually similar to a jumpsuit. A military flight suit may also...
.
When giving her speech inciting the mutants to revolt in a Soviet uprising, Arianne deliberately used voice inflections similar to Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
reciting the St. Crispin's Day Speech speech from Henry V
Henry V (play)
Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...
. American International Pictures (AIP) added scenes to the mutant uprising sequence from their Journey to the Lost City. One of the mutants was played by the screenwriter Arthur C. Pierce
Arthur C. Pierce
Arthur C. Pierce was an American screenwriter and director specialising in low budget science fiction films.-Biography:...
. Pierce was also involved in the production and worked as an assistant editor.
Tompkins recalled that the actors playing the mutants, whose makeup was done by Jack Pierce, taught her how to play cribbage
Cribbage
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points...
on the set dressed in their costumes. Tompkins also was asked to do a nude swimming scene for overseas release which was done by a body double. During initial filming of her swimming in a flesh colored bathing suit, the film crew used the swimming pool of the motel they were staying at; their night filming was disrupted by a fire at the motel.
Former football player Boyd Morgan
Boyd Morgan
Boyd Franklin Morgan was an American football running back in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins...
did the stunts and played the Captain of the Guard. Darrell Calker
Darrell Calker
Darrell Wallace Calker was a composer and arranger who worked on films and animated cartoons.-Biography:...
, the music chief of Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz
Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...
's cartoons, provided an effective film score.
AIP's James H. Nicholson
James H. Nicholson
James Harvey Nicholson was an American film producer. He is best known as the co-founder, with Samuel Z. Arkoff, of American International Pictures.-Biography:...
was keen on releasing the film based on his teenage daughters' recommendation following their viewing a screening of the film and sent him to his partner Samuel Z. Arkoff
Samuel Z. Arkoff
Samuel Zachary Arkoff was an American producer of B movies.-Life and career:Born in Fort Dodge, Iowa to a Russian Jewish family, Arkoff first studied to be a lawyer. Along with business partner James H. Nicholson and producer-director Roger Corman, he produced eighteen films...
who asked Clarke what he wanted to do with the film. Clarke said he wanted to produce several films for AIP but Arkoff said AIP didn't use contract producers. Clarke found a similar but newer and inexperienced film company called Pacific International Pictures (PIP) or Miller-Consolidated Pictures
Miller-Consolidated Pictures
Miller-Consolidated Pictures was a film production company. Formed by John Miller in 1959, the company specialized in low-budget films. The company also had many known names on its board, including exploitation film presenter Kroger Babb, who was in charge of marketing.-Selected filmography:*...
who were keen on using Clarke and releasing his films. However, PIP went bankrupt and AIP was able to purchase two of Clarke's films held by PIP for just the laboratory costs and release them under the AIP banner. AIP exploited
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
MGM's publicity for their The Time Machine
The Time Machine (1960 film)
The Time Machine is a 1960 American science fiction film based on the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells in which a man in Victorian England constructs a time-travelling machine which he uses to travel to the future...
releasing their film a month before MGMs. Poor Clarke didn't get anything except his actor's salary.