Total Sci-Fi’s Guide to the Incredibly Strange and Obscure in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Movies

The Facts

Written by Charles Eric Maine
Directed by Ken Hughes
Produced by Alec C. Snowden
Music: Richard Taylor, George Melachrino
Cast: Faith Domergue, Gene Nelson, Peter Arne
Running time: 76 minutes (US)/93 minutes (UK)
Also Known As: Timeslip

The Plot

When a shot atomic scientist found floating in a river is revived he finds himself living seven seconds in the future! He’s also got to battle an evil double out to sabotage his work.

The Lowdown

The Atomic Man (released in the UK under the title Timeslip) is a fairly straightforward piece of mid-1950s hokum, built on some daft ‘atomic’ science, but it is notable for one striking thing. American atomic scientist Rayner is revived after seven seconds dead on the operating table: now his mind is seven seconds adrift in time!


When Rayner (Arne) is interviewed by Jill (Domergue), girlfriend of magazine reporter Delaney (Nelson), he answers each question before it’s even asked (as his consciousness is seven seconds in the future). It’s a mad idea that gives the film a memorable and unusual premise that makes it stand out from the more run-of-the-mill science fiction thrillers of the time.

It’s also an idea that has not been thought through properly: Rayner doesn’t react physically to things seven seconds before they happen, only mentally. In fiction, writer Eric Brown explores a similar idea in his novel Engineman in which a disease caused by interstellar travel causes the pilots’ consciousness to lag by a full 24 hours.

Apart from that unique conceit, the bulk of The Atomic Man is a traditional mystery runaround with gangsters and criminal thugs getting in the way of the heroes solving the mystery of the assassination attempt on the atomic scientist and his mysterious doppelganger stand-in. It’s also dotted with silly, inconsequential humour scenes telegraphed by some awful ‘wah-wah’ music.

The film carries an “Introducing Peter Arne” credit. Arne went on to feature in many TV episodes of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including The Avengers, Secret Army and Triangle. The day he took part in costume fittings for the role of Range in the 1983 Doctor Who serial ‘Frontios’, Arne was beaten to death in his London flat. It seems Arne — who was gay — had picked up homeless Italian teacher Giuseppe Perusi, who was found dead soon thereafter having committed suicide after murdering Arne. William Lucas took over Arne’s role in Doctor Who.

When watching The Atomic Man keep your eyes peeled for a couple of brief appearances from a young Charles Hawtrey.

Cult Cast

Faith Domergue was a well-known B-movie actress who appeared in SF classics like This Island Earth (1955) and It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), as well as low budget outings like Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965) and The House of Seven Corpses (1974).

Born in New Orleans, after a near-fatal far crash in 1942 she was sponsored by eccentric movie mogul Howard Hughes — the pair went on to have an affair. As well as SF movies she was well known for playing film noir femme fatales and appearing in Westerns on film and TV. She died from cancer in 1999, aged 74.

Gene Nelson was a clean-cut movie hero who started out as a dancer, appearing on Broadway. He appeared in screen musicals, as well as comedies and thrillers.

In the 1960s Nelson directed an episode of the original Star Trek series, ‘The Gamesters of Triskelion’, as well as two Elvis Presley movies and episodes of other TV shows such as I Dream of Jeannie, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O and Starsky and Hutch. He died in 1996, aged 76.

Director’s Cut

Ken Hughes is best known these days as the director of childhood favourite Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), scripted by children’s author Roald Dahl and based on a novel by James Bond creator Ian Fleming. He was also one of many directors who contributed to the ‘unofficial’ James Bond movie Casino Royale (1966). He worked with Alec Guinness and Richard Harris as writer-director of the historical drama Cromwell (1970). He died in 2001, aged 79, in LA.


WTF? Moment

Just over 30 minutes in, the recovering Rayner is interviewed by a doctor and Delaney, giving seemingly incoherent answers to the questions put to him. Astute viewers, however, quickly figure out that Rayner is answering the next question in the sequence before it is even asked. It takes another 20 minutes for the movie’s heroes to figure out what’s going on. It’s a great gimmick, even if the film doesn’t effectively work it into the solution of the mystery.

Behind-the-Scenes

In the US the film was released under the title The Atomic Man, cut by 17 minutes and put out as the supporting picture on a double bill with the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Writer Charles Eric Maine novelised his script after the film was made as The Isotope Man, the first of three novels featuring his science journalist hero Mike Delaney.

Talent Talk

“I went to England to make that film [The Atomic Man]. It had a good director, and I thought it was a good film although the pace was slow. I used to take my children out to the banks of the river Thames [to] picnic. However, This Island Earth seems to have attained more popularity than anything else I’ve done!” — Faith Domergue, Filmfax#59.


Availability

The Atomic Man is not currently officially available in the US or the UK on VHS or DVD. Sinister Cinema did once issue the film as a DVD-R manufactured on demand [www.sinistercinema.com].

Online Resources

Faith Domergue Timeline
[http://www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/71/Faith+Domergue/index.html]

Faith Domergue Biography
[ http://kinoroll.blogspot.com/2010/10/from-archives.html]

Remake

The idea of someone’s consciousness being adrift in time would make a great basis for a modern high concept science fiction movie, but it would take an exceptional writer, director and actor to pull it off.

The Bottom Line

The Atomic Man would be a rather ordinary scientific thriller if it wasn’t for the central conceit of having a character’s mind existing seven seconds in the future…

By Brian J. Robb