(re)search my Trash

<body> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="800" cellpadding="0" height="100%"> <tr> <td width="100" rowspan="3" background="../stylepix/square.gif" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="3"></td> <td width="592" height="1%" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="3"></td> <td width="100" rowspan="3" background="../stylepix/squareright.gif" valign="top">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top" height="99%">   <p>Since childhood, Bill (Stephen Murray), Robin (John Van Eyssen) & Lena (Barbara Payton) are the best of friends, but while the 2 boys grow up to be ingenious scientists, Lena shows little potential & even thinks about suicide ... this is when their mutual friend Doc Harvey (James Hayter) gets her a (sort of) job as Bill's & Robin's aide, cook, nurse, mechanic & whatever else there is ...<p>The boys' work gets along greatly, & soon they have created the <i>Reproducer</i>, a little gadget that does exactly what the name suggests ... it reproduces, & pretty much everything too.<p>As soon as they have presented their invention, Robin proposes to Lena, & she agrees to marry him ... buch to Bill's dismay, who wanted her (not him, these were the 1950's) for himself. So, while Robin & Lena are on their honeymoon, he adjuts the <i>Reproducer</i> to reproduce living matter too, with the goal to - you guessed it - eventually reproduce Lena for himself ... absurd as this is, it's even mroe absued that Lena, hearing abut his plans, gives in to his wishes ...<p>The new Lena is called Helen (but is also played by Barbara Payton), & Bill takes her on one romantic vacation after the other to successfully make her his ... but what the brillian scientist failed to notice (but what everybody with half a braincell would have guessed) is that the reproduced Lina is of course reproduced down to the point that she is in love with Robin as well (it is the same woman after all), & as she cannot have Robin, she shows suicidal tendencies.<p>In the end, Bill has the grand idea to brainwash Helen, & what's even more surprising, the woman agrees whole-heartedly (if you ask <i>what ?</i> now ... well, then you are in your right mind, it still happens in the film though). However, during the experiment, the lab catches fire & both Bill /& Helen die, Lena, who has also somehow taken part in the brainwashing, survives, but loses her memory ...<p> <p>Now I don't know wht you might think, but in my book, hard edged science fiction & a tragic lovestory in rural scenery don't go well together (& you can call me a cynic for thinking so), still the movie tries, & spoils its love story with pseudo-scientific Gobbledegook, its sci-fi-elements with pseudo-deep emotions, while managing to create zero tension throughout. But what's worst, the story of the film is downright silly (no buts about it), & the dead-serious treatment of the story doesn't help one bit either.<p>Many film-historians see this film as both Hammer's & director Terence Fisher's first foray into the fantastic - a realm that <i>Hammer</i> & Fisher would soon conquer with <b><a href="curseoffrankenstein(1957).shtml">Curse of Frankenstein</a></b> (1957) & <a href="dracula(1958).shtml"><b>Dracula</b></a> (1958) -, which is right from a purely statistical point of view ... but I think it's safe to say that, if later Hammer classics would have been like <b>Four-Sided Triangle</b>, nobody (including me) would know them nowadays. <p>  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top" height="1%">  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> currentyear = "2005"; </SCRIPT> <SCRIPT language="JavaScript" src="../scripts/endcredits.js"></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> dosworsdonn(); </SCRIPT> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </body>