Beyond the Time Barrier (1960) on Netflix
In 1960, pilot Major Bill Allison takes the X-80 on a sub-orbital flight. He lands at an empty airbase and wakes in an underground city whose people want him to father children.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb5.3/102,537 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
Major Bill Allison, a test pilot for the United States Air Force, takes the experimental X-80 up on a sub-orbital flight and loses radio contact with the ground. The airbase he comes back to stands old and empty, and a city on the horizon draws him toward it. He is knocked out and taken below ground to the Citadel, a sealed place whose inhabitants will not speak to him. Their leader, the Supreme, rules with a second-in-command called the Captain; those two alone can hear and speak. Everyone else in the city, the Supreme's granddaughter Trirene among them, is a deaf-mute, and all of them are sterile except possibly Trirene. As a telepath, Trirene reads Allison's mind and decides he is no spy, though the Captain believes otherwise.
Cast
- John Van Dreelenas Dr. Bourman
- Arianne Ulmeras Capt. Markova
- Ken Knoxas Col. Marty Martin
- Jack Hermanas Dr. Richman
- William Shephardas Gen. York
- James 'Ike' Altgensas Secretary Lloyd Patterson
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Edgar G. Ulmer shot Beyond the Time Barrier back-to-back in Dallas, Texas with another low-budget science fiction film, The Amazing Transparent Man; the combined filming schedule for both films was only two weeks.
- Producer Robert Clarke cast Darlene Tompkins as the mute, psychic Trirene over several contenders, among them Yvette Mimieux, who appeared in The Time Machine, and Leslie Parrish.
- Darlene Tompkins was asked to perform a nude swimming scene for the film's overseas release. She refused, and the swimming scenes were shot with a body double instead.
- The crew shot Tompkins's swimming scenes in the motel pool where they were staying, with her in a flesh-colored bathing suit, and the night filming was disrupted by a fire at the motel.
- Producer Robert Clarke won cooperation from the United States Air Force and Texas Air National Guard, which let him film at Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base and the abandoned Marine Corps Air Station Eagle Mountain Lake.
- The film used real footage of a Convair F-102 Delta Dagger standing in for the fictional X-80 test plane flown by Major Bill Allison.
- Production designer Ernst Fegté used a triangular motif for the futuristic sets built in vacant showground buildings, and surplus parachutes were hung in the background to muffle echoes.
