TIMESLIP - "The Atomic Man" - Merton Park Studios (1955)

"The Atomic Man!" What a great title! The movie itself is not all that exciting, but for the price, it's well worth an hour or so of your time! The original UK title was "Timeslip" for reasons you'll find out about soon enough!

Just in case we get disconnected, you should know that "The Atomic Man" can be downloaded for free right HERE from The Internet Archive! What a bargain and a half that is!

Here's how this story goes, they find this guy shot up and almost dead, and when he comes to, he's got a serious case of amnesia, and somebody needs to figure out who he is, and what happened! The man in the picture is Eddie Arne in one of his earliest roles as Dr. Stephen Rayner, the man with a formula to turn dirt grade metal into precious metal!

If for no other reason, this movie is worth watching to see the performance by one of The Dungeon's favourite heroines, Faith Domergue! The three films Faith made before this one in the same year are "Cult Of The Cobra," This Island Earth," and "It Came From Beneath The Sea!" Pretty amazing run!

Faith is newspaper photographer Jill Rabowski and her boyfriend Mike Delaney is played by Gene Nelson! Born Eugene Leander Berg, Gene Nelson started out his career as a dancer! For a guy who was a dancer, and sang in quite a few films, this movie was a real change up for Gene! Except for the opening theme, this movie is almost completely devoid of music! Gene was also a director and directed the John Agar classic, "Hand Of Death!" In this shot, Jill has just taken a picture of the atomic man in his hospital bed, they're not quite sure why he is still alive!

This is a serious film, but some of the fast-paced interaction between  Delaney and Rabowski is often quite comedic, and mostly the highlight of the film!

It's the olde "How can you be in two places at once, if you're not anywhere at all" gig! The man in the hospital bed has been identified by Delaney as Dr. Stephen Rayner, and yet when investigated, it's found out that Dr. Rayner is indeed at work, where he is supposed to be, but for some reason he's got bandages on his face, and a cockamamie story about being bumped from behind in his car and hitting his face on the windshield! There's something fishy going on around here! I smell a rat!!

Delaney accuses Jill Rabowski of not loading the film properly when the photo of Dr. Rayner comes out glowing. It takes a little while, but they will eventually put two and two together!

Vic Perry, the 'world's greatest pickpocket' is the face of bad man Emmanuel Vasquo!

Delaney is not real a crime journalist, he's supposed to be writing articles on science, so when he can't give up the chase, he gets fired, and relocates to the local bar!

I like this part of the story a lot! When he's conscious, Dr. Rayner seems to only speak gibberish!

But as it turns out, he died for 7 1/2 seconds when he was shot, but his brain somehow managed to live through it, so now he lives 7 1/2 seconds in the future, and that's why it sounds like he's talking nonsense, because he's answering the questions before they are asked! Presto Change-o, "Timeslip!"

Jill finds the evidence, photos of the plastic surgery plans for Dr. Rayner in Emmanuel Vasquo's office!

Her big mistake is lollygagging around too long and calling Delaney on the phone from Vasquo's office, when she should have left the buiilding! Now she's in big trouble!!

Don't worry, believe it or not, the happy couple comes out unscathed, and their relationship is stronger than ever! Aaahhhh! It's atomic, it's free, you can't lose, ka-boom!!