Beyond the Time Barrier ** (1960, Robert Clarke, Darlene Tompkins, Arianne Ulmer) – Classic Movie Review 9294

Director Edgar G Ulmer’s 1960 Sci-Fi time-travel film Beyond the Time Barrier stars Robert Clarke as a 1960 military test pilot called Major William Allison, who is caught in a time warp and lands in 2024, and then finds out that everybody has gone underground to avoid contamination after World War Three. He is captured by mutants and then rescued by a princess, Princess Trirene (Darlene Tompkins).

Cult director Ulmer ingeniously films at a futuristic art and design exhibit at the Texas State Fair park in Dallas, while stock footage from the 1932 Island of Lost Souls further helps Ulmer and his low budget of $125,000 out. There is also filming at Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas, and Eagle Mountain Marine Corps Air Station, Texas, as well as in the studio at United National Studios, Dallas, Texas.

Beyond the Time Barrier is incredibly strange film-making.

The original story and screenplay are by Arthur C Pierce, who appears briefly as one of the mutants escaping from the jail cell in the underground citadel.

Also in the cast are Arianne Ulmer [Arianne Arden] as Captain Markova, Vladimir Sokoloff as The Supreme, Stephen Bekassy as General Karl Kruse, John van Dreelen as Dr Bourman, Boyd ‘Red’ Morgan as Captain, Ken Knox as Colonel Marty Martin and Don Flournoy and Tom Ravick as mutants.

Beyond the Time Barrier is directed by Edgar G Ulmer, runs 75 minutes, is made by Miller Consolidated Pictures, is released by American International Pictures (AIP) (1960) (US) and Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (1961) (UK), is written by Arthur G Pierce (original story and screenplay), is shot in black and white by Meredith M Nicholson, is produced by Robert Clarke and scored by Darrell Calker, with Production Design by Ernst Fegté.

The inverted triangular sets of The Citadel are the leftovers from the exhibition at the 1959 Texas State Fair.

It was filmed at the same time and in the same location as Ulmer’s The Amazing Transparent Man (1960). The combined shooting time for both was only two weeks. Distribution company Pacific International then went bankrupt, and producer Robert Clarke lost all his money.

The film lab put both movies to auction and they were bought by American International Pictures for a fraction of their cost, and made AIP money when they piggy-backed MGM’s publicity for another time travel film The Time Machine (1960) and released Beyond the Time Barrier a month earlier. Clarke ended up with only his salary as an actor for two weeks’ work.

It was released in a double bill with either The Angry Red Planet (1959) or The Amazing Transparent Man (1960).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9294

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