Powerful

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

"Beyond the Time Barrier" is the type of late 50s/early 60s Sci-Fi film of which you know, after approximately five minutes already, that it could have been a fantastic contemporary genre highlight if only the cast and crew didn't have to work with such a minimalist budget! Most of the conceptual ideas are really great and well- elaborated, but the cheap looking set pieces and the pitiable special effects have an immensely restraining impact on the overall plausibility and entertainment value. In case you serve an ambitious plot that is dealing with time-traveling and largely takes place in a futuristic dystopia, you can't afford to use paper made spaceships or drawings of the metropolis and you most certainly cannot speak of horribly deformed mutants the entire time without properly showing their faces! So, in an attempt to cover up for the budgetary weakness, Edgar G. Ulmer does what every experienced veteran director would do: replace the action sequences with endless intellectual speeches and complicated time warp theories as much as you can! In 1960, Major William Ellison has the honor and privilege to test-fly a brand new and hi-tech type of army fighter plane. The speed of the aircraft is even a little too successful, as Ellison breaks through the time barrier and ends up in the year 2024. It takes quite a while before our Major properly realizes that he fast- forwarded 64 years into the future, and the technical details are explained to him by three other scientists that went through the same experience. By the way, I didn't understand one iota about those time-traveling theories, but I also figure that incomprehensible speeches are a mandatory aspect of 50s Sci-Fi… Ellison immediately gets confronted with the terrible state of our planet and civilization in the year 2024. Apparently an all- devastating kind of cosmic plague made the entire world population sterile (the last child was born more 20 years ago) and gradually transforms the remaining survivors into mutants. There's also good news, however, as the last fertile woman on earth is a beautiful princess and she has chosen him to re-populate the planet! She – Trirene – is a deaf-mute with telekinetic powers and she can read Ellison's thoughts, which results in at least one (unintentionally?) hilarious sequence: "I know you can read my mind…. Although right now I probably wished you couldn't" and then he gets slapped in the face! Admittedly "Beyond the Time Barrier" principally got made to cash in on the tremendous success of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and also borrows many elements from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", but it's an engaging and occasionally suspenseful tale. I even like to think that some nifty ideas from this film were copied years later in massive Hollywood productions (for example the sterility in "Children of Men"), although I'm probably mistaken.

"Major William Allison" (Robert Clarke) is a test pilot for the United States Air Force who has been assigned to fly an experimental jet into space at speeds never before attempted by mankind. Unfortunately, his mission accidentally takes him 64 years into the future to a time when a plague has decimated most of the population and created hostile mobs of mutants who seek to wreck havoc on the few less infected people living underground. Yet while these people don't quite suffer from the full ravages of the plague the disease has rendered all of them deaf, mute and completely sterile. All but one that is and the arrival of Major Allison gives them hope that perhaps he and a beautiful woman named "Trirene" (Darlene Tompkins) can offer them a chance of repopulating the human species. But there is another opportunity presented with Major Allison's arrival which another group has formulated and it conflicts with the plans of the establishment. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a decent science fiction film for the most part. Admittedly, being produced in 1960 it lacks the special effects of movies made during the present time and the film lacked depth and substance to a certain degree as well. But in any case I kind of enjoyed it and so I rate this movie as about average and recommend it to fans of this particular time and genre.

I wasn't expecting too much when I popped the DVD of "Beyond The Time Barrier" into my DVD player - I thought I would be getting standard 1950s low budget sci-fi. But I was somewhat surprised. While I would not call this a GREAT movie, it is not without merit. For starters, it runs at an acceptable length, without one scene that is pointless. (Though the movie could have spent more time at the start developing the character of the hero - we learn next to nothing about him before his travelling in time.) While the movie is low budget, the limited funds are generally spent well, with some eye-catching sets and some well-chosen locations. The script has some interesting ideas here and there, and it interestingly ends the movie on a note that's not completely happy - quite unlike most other sci-fi films of this period. Fans of 1950s low budget sci fi films will probably enjoy this the most. Others will probably find it a fairly painless way to pass 75 minutes.

U.S. Air Force test pilot Major William Allison (a solid and convincing performance by Robert Clarke) crashes through the time barrier into the grim future of 2024, which is inhabited by the last remnants of the human race in the wake of a lethal plague that decimated most of the earth's population in 1971. Director Edgar G. Ulmer, working from an overly talky, yet still interesting script by Arthur C. Pierce, relates the compelling premise at a reasonably steady pace, offers several haunting images of the desolate empty landscape at the start, and maintains a serious brooding tone throughout. Alas, this movie does get bogged down in too much dull dialogue, but fortunately kicks back to life at the exciting climax and concludes on an intriguing ambivalent note. The sound acting by an able cast keeps the picture on track: The fetching Darlene Tompkins projects a disarmingly sweet charm as the lovely Princess Trirene, Vladimir Sokoloff registers well as wise and kindly leader The Supreme, John Van Dreelen likewise excels as the shrewd Dr. Bourman, and Ulmer's daughter Arianne has a deliciously wicked ball with her juicy role as the snippy and shifty Captain Markova. Meredith M. Nicholson's crisp black and white cinematography boasts plenty of snazzy cutaways. Darrell Calker's robust score does the rousing trick. The hokey (not so) special effects possess a certain lovably rinky-dink appeal. Recommended viewing for sci-fi aficionados.