Bill and Robin (Stephen Murray, John Van Eyssen), two British boffins in love with the same girl (Lena, Barbara Payton), invent a duplicating machine with predictable romantic consequences. Despite the impressive 'laboratory' sets, the 'science' in this fiction is negligible. No attempt is made to explain the duplicator (i.e. where does the 'raw' material come from?) beyond throwing around some random 'sciency-words' and names of famous physicists, and the final gadget, a convenient 'memory eraser',' is completely fanciful (and enters the story out of nowhere). Both machines exist solely to buttress the limping romantic plot and just as easily could have been magical. The logical flaw in lovelorn Bill's doppelganger-plan is so painfully obvious to the audience and, even if Bill is so far gone as to not think clearly, should have been equally obvious to his steady and rational mentor Dr. Harvey (James Hayter), that the whole second half of the film rings false. All of the characters are flat and contrived (especially Payton, whose tragic life-story is far more interesting than her acting), the 'young' male leads are a decade too old for the part, and Hayter bounces back and forth between a village-doctor who needs science explained in easy terms to a physician who's expertise in spinal surgery is key to keeping duplicated animals alive (there seems to be no relationship between the structure of the gadget Bill concocts to revivify the doubles and what he explains it does). The ending is a complete letdown, as typical of a Hammer Film Production film, the entire lab (inexplicably) goes up in flames (no spoiler here, the film opens with an introduction by Dr. Harvey in front of the gutted remains), abruptly ending the story before anything interesting actually happens. Directed by future horror-helmsman Terrence Fisher, the film looks great but the predictable story-line, completely unrealistic behaviour of the characters (remember: they have just invented a machine that can instantly duplicate anything 'out of thin air'!), and the preposterous 'rom-sci-fi' premise fatally undermines the value of the above-average production values. Watchable only for its novelty as a 1950's 'science-fiction romance'' or as an early Hammer/Fisher opus.
Review of Four Sided Triangle
