Timeslip (1956)

A man is shot and thrown into a river. Rescued, he is rushed to the hospital and during surgery his heart stops for a few seconds. A pushy American reporter who is the science writer for a magazine had taken a photo of him; in the photo the man appears to have a halo. The reporter, Delaney, thinks he recognizes the injured man as a famous nuclear scientist named Rayner. But when Delaney and the cops go to the nuclear lab where Rayner works they find that evidently the injured man is not Rayner as he is still at work. Or is he? The time slip gimmick is really an interesting one but nothing interesting is done with this concept. Delaney and his girlfriend, a photographer for the magazine unravel the rather convoluted plot of evil corporate greed. The ending is a bit of a surprise and quite good. A sufficiently entertaining movie but nothing special.

With a title like "The Atomic Man" and it being in the public domain, I sure had my doubts about this one. You'd think, being made in the 1950s that it was some sort of space monster film or perhaps a film about communism--but it isn't. It's actually a very well written and taut sc-fi mystery--with a strong emphasis on mystery. And, it's very much worth your time.The film begins with a guy being left for dead--and thrown in the river. He's rescued and on the brink of death--and the doctors expect to lose him...which they do TEMPORARILY. While they are operating on him, his heart stops and they give up the surgery--and suddenly, he spontaneously begins breathing and begins a slow recovery! When he awakens, he's an oddity. He looks like a famous scientist--but the scientist is accounted for and is certainly NOT near death. And, he talks strangely...very strangely. How does all this fit into the total picture--that's the mystery. To try to sort all this out is a pushy reporter--the sort of guy who was almost a cliché in the 1930s in films. Yet, somehow Gene Nelson manages to make it work--along with his girlfriend (Faith Domergue).Now that I mentioned Nelson and Domergue, that brings up the production itself. Despite these two American actors in the major roles, the rest of the film is very British--made by Brits, filmed in Britain and with British extras. The reason was that in the 1950s and 60, many European film companies brought in Americans to star in their films--figuring it would help box office appeal (especially in the States). Well, in this case it sure worked well because the plot was intelligent, well written and a nice production all around--so nice, I was very tempted to give this little film a 9! My advice is to download (for free and perfectly legal) the film from archive.org--a site often linked to film listings on IMDb or from Amazon (which IS linked to IMDb). Well worth your time and full of wonderful suspense--especially at the end.

*Spoiler/plot- Atomic Man, 1955. An atomic scientist makes isotopes(new elements). He gets so radioactive contaminated that he can make jumps into the future only in seconds. A international company substitutes their scientist to sabotage the isotope experiments with a look-a-like. The industrial espionage plot over the making the element tungsten in a atomic reactor produces the drama. *Special Stars- Gene Nelson, Faith Domergue, Peter Arne.*Theme- Some times atomic power is man's solution to his problems. *Trivia/location/goofs- B & W. British. Film Noir. Gene Nelson is recognizable dancer and singer. Faith Domergue is recognizable as being in several famous cult 50's science fiction films. Film's first title was 'Timeslip'. Faith Domergue was promoted to be the next Jane Russel, a brunette sex bomb. *Emotion- This film was a disappointment. It was not a science fiction piece, only an industrial espionage & murder drama. The plot gimmick of time travel is extremely underplayed and is visually crude & confusing to the film viewer. So because of that and since I'm a time travel gimmick aficionado, I would give this film very low marks. It was boring, slow, and pedestrian. Forget it.

Timeslip is also known as The Atomic Man, which I shall use for this review and is the title on the VHS copy I have (NTSC).An assumed dead man is recovered from the Thames with a bullet in his back and a radioactive halo around his body. This man turns out to be a top nuclear scientist and he also has a double who us trying to stop his experiments in artificial tungsten. He isn't dead after all. The radioactivity has caused him to be 7 and a half seconds ahead of everybody else, so he answers questions before there are asked. He double is caught at the end, as are some gangsters also involved in the plot.This is more a gangster movie than a sci-fi, but that certainly didn't spoil my enjoyment.The cast includes 1950's sci-fi regular Faith Domergue (This Island Earth, It Came From Beneath the Sea), Gene Nelson, Peter Arne and Leonard Williams.The Atomic Man is worth checking out. Quite good.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.