- DOPPELGANGER
- (vt Journey to the Far Side of the Sun)Film (1969). Century 21 Productions/Universal. Prods Gerry and Sylvia ANDERSON. Dir Robert Parrish, starring Ian Hendry, Roy Thinnes, Patrick Wymark, Lyn Loring, Herbert Lom. Screenplay by the Andersons, Donald James. 101 mins, cut to 94 mins (US). Colour.The first live-action feature from the Anderson production team responsible for a number of tv series featuring puppets in sf adventure scenarios, D, though panned by most critics, displays its illogical plot with some style. Scientists discover a counter-Earth, an exact duplicate of Earth that is always hidden on the opposite side of the Sun - a centuries-old idea that popped up occasionally in pulp sf, as in Split Image (1955) by Reed DE ROUEN. An expedition is mounted to reach the counter-Earth, and the confusions of the subsequent story, involving sabotage, characters meeting themselves and apparent conspiracy between the two planets, are compounded by the fact that the story is told in flashbacks by a scientist in a mental asylum, giving a Dr Caligari-like ambiguity to the whole film.JB/PN
Science Fiction and Fantasy Encyclopedia. Academic. 2011.