The passing of Neal Armstrong was a timely reminder for those of us who grew up in the 60s that the future is not what it was.
When Gerry Anderson was in his pomp, we were in a state of perpetual improvement: life was just going to get better and better. Technology seemed to make everything possible and…we were going to the stars. The Moon first, then Mars and then beyond… science fiction was close to fact and the race for space was going to help mankind put earthly conflicts to one side as looking back on our single insignificant planet of origin we finally realised that there was a greater destiny beyond our petty disputes.
Anderson’s puppet shows tracked the technological obsessions of the decade and got more and more confident as he progressed from Stingray to Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. In all three a global entity addressed world-wide issues whether private sector or quasi-governmental… There were global threats too, but these were just confirmation of our need to act in unity.
By the end of the decade as the Moon landing approached, Anderson was successful enough to finally be trusted with a human cast to accompany the breath-taking vehicles of Derek Meddings and co… These were the men who were making our imagined future happen now.
Journey to The Far Side of the Sun (Doppelgänger in the USA) was an attempt at 2001-style inter-spatial-commentary…a look at the inner human condition from the outer-reaches of space. When I first watched the film in the 1970s it left me disappointed because there were no *real* aliens and, whilst the story arc contained the same let down this time – too literal and thin a plot – there is more than enough to enjoy the film as a whole.
Like so many plots from the time, the film starts off with space administrators arguing over how to follow up the discovery of a planet beyond the Sun. The planet is in completely synchronised orbit with the Earth, same distance from the Sun, same vector and thrust… The director of EUROSEC, Jason Webb ( played with panache by Patrick Wymark) makes a passionate case to send a manned expedition but he struggles to convince the other World powers to fund it.
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| Ian Hendry and Patrick Wymark |
The breakthrough is achieved and with NASA’s help, a mission is prepared to be led by experienced astronaut Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes, who gives a good performance as a man faced with his own destiny…literally).
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| Roy Thinnes |
We go through the routines of training and preparation which gives Anderson the opportunity to show the futuristic craft that were his stock in trade. The scenes involving all of the craft are universally excellent as you’d expect, given a bigger budget than usual and his army of un-matched effects experts.
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| Lynn Loring |
This is the best part of the film as the enterprise builds up momentum and we look forward to the surprise of just what is on our planetary double. It also provides Anderson with the chance to develop his human assets as well with details of space cowboy’s struggling marriage – partly undermined by his enforced infertility: the chance of irradiated sperm mutating was too high.
Lynn Loring – Thinnes actual wife – plays Sharon Ross and adds some uncharacteristic adult themes to Anderson’s film. Loring was featured in several nude scenes which were eventually cut, but she displays a very human sexuality in a series of contemporary almost there fashions…
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| Lynn Loring |
The two men are pushed by Webb and it’s hard to see this as anything other than a per functionary attempt to create some tension. The story is pretty basic and might have made a decent hour-long episode of Thunderbirds but it feels a little stretched…
Eventually we have take off and the effects are genuinely special here, not quite a match for 2001 but still pretty good, founded in science-reality and not fantasy. The long trip in suspended animation ends as the space craft approaches the mysterious planet.
For some reason I didn’t catch, they crash land (all the more mysterious given the outcome…) and are rescued by a strange being in a metallic suite.
If you haven’t seen the film look away now…
The men are surprised to find their rescuer speaking perfect English and gradually it is revealed that they have landed on a world almost exactly like our own. Everyone they left behind has a counterpart here and all presume that they had turned the craft round and not completed their mission.
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| Roy Thinnes... Mirror-World |
Kane dies and Ross is left alone trying to convince the reverse Earth Jason Webb that he needs to be returned to his Earth and this will hopefully help his double to come home…
But, it is not to be and, for some spurious vaguely-scientific reason, the landing craft of this world won’t dock with the other Earth’s space ship and Ross crashes back down to another Earth.
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| Roy Thinnes |
That aside, the acting is sincere with Thinnes, Hendry and Wymark being especially impressive. It’s also great to see future UFO stalwarts Ed Bishop and George Sewell and, indeed, some of the kit from this film were reused in that series – a far more satisfying effort form Anderson and perhaps his best.
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| The great Ed Bishop |
Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is now available on DVD and is well worth seeking out… but I think I’ll stick to my VHS copy... back to the future.
