1956 World Without End

• Directed by: Edward Bernds
• Written by: Edward Bernds
• Stars: Hugh Marlowe, Nancy Gates, Nelson Leigh
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJDz1Ht1R0w

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

What starts out as a manned mission to orbit Mars takes an unexpected turn when the craft goes through a time warp and they’re propelled into the year 2508 where Earth is populated by mutants and very few normal humans. But it’s really science fiction, not much horror. For such a short film, they fit a lot into it as far as storytelling. The effects and so forth are very dated, but it’s fun and entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open with an atomic explosion and credits roll.

XRM has lost contact, and the men at the Pentagon are concerned. Henry Jaffe’s last report was cut off in mid-transmission, but we soon see him and the other men on their spaceship– they have lost contact as well. John, the captain, wishes they could land on Mars, but that’s not the mission. They set course to return to Earth after successfully orbiting Mars, and we watch as the ship accelerates. John, Henry, Doc, and Herb all sit up and watch Mars fade into the background– BOOM! Suddenly, there’s an explosion, and everything gets crazy.

Everyone passes out, and when they wake up, they’ve already landed. It’s clearly not Mars, and the gravity seems normal, so they go outside. The radiation level is three times what the Earth’s should be; they were at a crazy speed, so they could be anywhere. Hank has a family back home, and he’s whiny about getting back to them.

They find a cave with giant spiders inside– good thing they brought pistols. They’re surprised, but no one gets hurt. They move on and camp for the night. We see that they’re being watched by what appear to be cavemen. The one-eyed cyclopean cavemen attack in the night, but the pistols again come in handy.

Then they come to a graveyard with tombstones in English. Some of the dates end with 2188, so this is actually Earth in the future. Doc says that if you go fast enough, time slows down, so they seem to have proven that to be true. An atomic war in 2188 would account for the radiation levels. Those one-eyed monsters must be what remains of humanity. What other monsters might exist here?

The cavemen attack in number this time, and the four men hide in a cave. In the back of the cave is a super-hard metal door that opens to a clean-looking hallway. The group is taken to a council of humans led by Timmek. The people know all about space-time warps being possible, or at least they did before the big atomic war. Timmek explains that it’s 2508 AD now. Timmek’s daughter, Garnet, leads them to a nice dinner.

Garnet explains about Deena, the daughter of the mutants outside, but she wasn’t born deformed. She escaped and the underground community took her in.

It soon becomes clear that these people are cowardly pacifists – or at least very complacent and content, afraid to go to the surface or reclaim the planet, even though they are technologically capable. Meanwhile, John gets cozy with Garnet. Mories, one of the leaders, likes Garnet and is jealous of John already. All the women seem to be really interested in the strong, virile men from the past.

Mories makes up some stories about the men from the past planning a coup and taking over, and Timmek falls for it. John asks Timmek to give them weapons and supplies to retake the surface, but Timmek suspects they have bad intentions. Timmek refuses to make them the weapons.

Mories takes the men’s pistols, kills James in the process, and hides them to frame the men for killing James. The four outsiders are taken into custody and put on trial. Timmek banishes them back to the surface. Deena knows the truth, but Mories attacks her, too. She tells Timmek about Mories before passing out. Mories runs outside, where he’s quickly killed by the Mutates.

Timmek realizes mistake and orders his people to assist the four men with retaking the surface. The weapons they make aren’t very good, so Hank comes up with the idea of making a bazooka.

The four men go outside, alone, armed with a single rocket launcher. The Mutates are terrified of the big noisy thing. Turns out, some of the people outside aren’t mutants, but normal people enslaved by the Mutates. Deena joins them to help translate, but in the next attack, Hank gets a spear in the back, but he’ll be okay. Naga, the mutant leader, threatens to kill his normal-hostages.

John challenges Naga to an axe-to-axe fight. John is smart and has two eyes, so he wins fairly easily. John is now the “chief” of the mutates and orders the release of the slaves and hostages.

Within a few months, the underground people come up to live with the human-looking ex-slaves, who are learning English. Maybe the human race will survive after all!

Brian’s Commentary

The plot borrows a lot from “The Time Machine,” and was actually sued by the Estate of H.G. Wells for infringement. One of the cast, Rod Taylor, eventually starred in the film version of “The Time Machine” (1960). The time-travelling spaceship was a newer idea, as this film predates “The Planet of the Apes” book by several years. It was also an obvious visual influence for “Star Trek,” which was also several years off.

There’s not much horror here beyond oversized spiders and one-eyed mutants, but overall, it was pretty good.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s no Planet of the Apes, but the concept is the same. A group of astronauts end up on Earth of the future. There’s no doubt this influenced that story as well as Star Trek the original series and many other science fiction movies and shows of the late 1950s and 1960s. For only an hour and 20 minutes, a lot happens in it. And I learned a new word, “palavering.” I’d never seen this one before, and I’m glad I did. It was quite entertaining.