Wow! What a day, but, that's enough about me, here's what you're really here for! To me, tonight's feature "Four Sided Triangle" is the first Hammer Sci-Fi production! It was released two months earlier than "Spaceways", and this film has really got some Sci-Fi elements, and although it's not in space, duplicating humans is a pretty far-out concept to me! I liked this movie, although they sure could have dirtied it up some!! Director for both movies Terence Fisher, and producer Michael Carreras were pretty busy guys back in the day, that's for sure!! SOUNDCLIP NOT AVAILABLE
It's a real simple story! Lena, Robin and Bill are all best friends growing up together. Both the boys are quite fond of Lena!!
The boys grow up to be scientists, and one day Dr. Harvey, played by James Hayter brings Lena to their lab. The boys have been working on a machine that can duplicate anything and Lena decides to join the research team!
Okay, can you see where this is going?? That's Bill on the left played by Stephen Murray, and Robin on the right played by John Van Eyssen!
Robin and Lena end up getting married, but Bill still loves her too!
So after spending a lot of time in the lab by himself, Bill manages to duplicate a live creature, a bunny rabbit, and decides that he should be able to make a copy of Lena for himself!!
Lena and Dr. Harvey help him, and the whole experiment goes quite well, and he gets his own copy of Lena, and names her Helen. Unfortunately, when it's all said and done, she is too perfect a copy, because she still loves Robin too!!! Poor pitiful Bill!! This film reminds me of some kind of extended length "Twilight Zone" episode!
Lena was played by the beautiful Barbara Payton who would only make three more movies because her career was spiraling out of control into a crazy world of too much booze and prostitution. 14 years later Barbara Payton would be dead at the age of 39, supposedly from heart and liver failure!Oscar winning composer Malcolm Arnold does a fine job in what appears to be his only horror or Sci-Fi outing! Malcolm won the Oscar in 1957 for his score on "The Bridge On The River Kwai!" He probably never looked back after that!
Agreed! Among all of Hollywood's short-lived platinum blondes, Barbara Payton's fate was by far the grimmest.
ReplyDeleteOn your recommendation I ordered this from Netflix. While it seemed an extended "Twilight Zone" or even "Outer Limits," episode, it was very enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I have liked about British science fiction is that they use plot and characters to fill in for lack of special effects (See "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" for example)
Thank you for the post.
Hey Lacey,
ReplyDeleteEven though we don't advertise or reap any monetary gain by plugging Netflix, I do believe they do a great service for all us movie lovers, now if they could just get copies of the 100 or so movies we still need to do! Thanx, your comments and info are always appreciated!!