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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018

World Without End (1956)

Starring Hugh Marlowe, Nancy Gates, Nelson Leigh, Rod Taylor, Shawn Smith
Directed by Edward Bernds
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

Four astronauts and their spaceship are propelled 600 years into the future in a freak accident, and return to an Earth decimated by atomic war, forcing the civilized survivors to move underground.

The special effects are fairly weak, and the short skirted outfits the women are outfitted in rather sexist, but I still found this to be a fun example of 1950s sci-fi, with characters I cared about and a screenplay effectively filled with conflict.  Battles between the astronauts and the one-eyed mutants on the surface are well-staged, and the film had something to say about humanity in its focus on the underground people, whose comfort with their settlement and technology was dooming them as a race.  Familiar faces abound in the cast, including a young Rod Taylor, and the design of the underground settlement was believable if somewhat spartan.  I enjoyed it and would recommend it, but it's far from the most distinguished sci-fi picture, which I didn't have a problem with.

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