Doppelgänger [Journey to the Far Side of the Sun] *** (1969, Roy Thinnes, Ian Hendry, Patrick Wymark, Lynn Loring) – Classic Movie Review 10,063

Director Robert Parrish’s 1969 Doppelgänger [Journey to the Far Side of the Sun] is an involving, often imaginative British science-fiction film, set 100 years ahead in 2069.

It stars Roy Thinnes as Colonel Glenn Ross, the 21^st century spaceman who is astonished to find a planet the same as Earth hidden on the far side of the sun, our planet’s Doppelgänger in fact, or fiction actually.

Patrick Wymark plays Jason Webb, the man who discovers the planet and despatches American astronaut Glenn Ross (Thinnes) and British scientist John Kane (Ian Hendry) off there to the far side of the sun to investigate.

Doppelgänger [Journey to the Far Side of the Sun] is written and produced by the Thunderbirds-Space 1999 team of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, and filmed by their production company Century 21. It comes with a strong premise, solid acting, a fine production led by Bob Bell’s strong set design, and terrific special effects work by visual effects director Derek Meddings.

Thinnes ‘s wife Lynn Loring replaced a sick Tisha Sterling as Sharon Ross.

Also in the cast are Herbert Lom, George Sewell, Ed Bishop, Loni von Friedl, Franco De Rosa [Franco Derosa], Philip Madoc, Vladek Sheybal, George Mikell, and Cy Grant.

Doppelgänger was shot between July and October 1968 at Pinewood Studios and on location in England and Portugal. It is the first major live-action film produced by the Andersons.

American production head Jay Kanter was dissatisfied with the Andersons’ draft script, so Gerry Anderson hired novelist Donald James, who made substantial changes to the characters and story.

Distributors Universal Pictures were unenthusiastic about film, causing its release to be delayed by a year. It was distributed by The Rank Organisation in Europe as Doppelgänger but renamed Journey to the Far Side of the Sun in the US and Australia after Universal judged audiences there might not know the meaning of the word Doppelgänger. The box office was poor.

Anderson recalled: ‘I thought, rather naively, what if there was another planet the other side of the Sun, orbiting at exactly the same speed and the same size as Earth? That idea then developed into the planet being a replicated Earth and that’s how it ended up, a mirrored planet.’

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,063

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