Sometimes, you just need a cheesy science fiction movie.  I am not sure what the parameters are for triggering such a need.  In point of fact, I am making up this imperative.  However, when I stumbled upon Beyond the Time Barrier (1960), something about it felt right.  Part of this is undeniably due to my love for Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999).  Beyond the Time Barrier has never appeared on the famous movie riffing show (at least not that I am aware of), but it would make for excellent fodder for it.  The other reason for me picking what I knew was going to be a silly movie has to do with my Faith.  Its description talks of traveling forward through time to a post-apocalyptic civilization when the future of humanity is in jeopardy because of reproductive issues.  My Catholic brain sensed an opportunity to have a pro-life analysis.  Sadly, such an approach is not warranted, although almost any situation can be considered pro-life if you give me a few moments.  Instead, what we have is a campy flick with amateur special effects, mutant makeup that you or me could do, and some kind of faux utopia where everyone is deaf and mute, except for a few people, for some reason.

The only way Major William Allison (Robert Clarke) is Beyond the Time Barrier in the beginning is if you count him making it to the Air Force base at the appointed hour.  He is a pilot for the United States Air Force, and he is about to take an experimental jet, called the X-80, on an important flight . . . I guess.  The scientists of 1960 want him to get into a sub-orbital trajectory and then go really fast, or something.  He takes to the skies and does everything they ask, but something happens.  When he lands back at the same airfield, everything is abandoned and in a decrepit state.  His presence, though, has not gone unnoticed.  As he crests a hill, to one side he sees a decimated city-scape, and to the other there is a futuristic set of buildings with an Eye of Sauron like light beaming from one of the towers.  Observing him from what is referred to as “The Citadel” is the Captain (Red Morgan) and the Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff).  As it turns out, they are the only two of their civilization that have the ability to speak.  The rest are the aforementioned deaf-mutes.  The Captain takes Major Allison for a spy and uses a kind of long-distance incapacitation ray on the supposed intruder.  When Major Allison comes to, he is inside a man-sized glass tube, and begins screaming for his release.  It is Princess Trirene (Darlene Tompkins) who lets him out him and brings him before the Supreme.  The Captain is there, too, and he accuses Major Allison of espionage, even while the pilot protests his ignorance of what has happened.  The Supreme does not offer any real explanations, but sends Major Allison to the dungeons where they keep the mutants.  He must fight a number of them before they give up and explain how they are mad at him because he is one of the people that left the rest behind to experience the plague.  Before this conversation can go any further, he is released once more with the assistance of Princess Trirene, only to have the Supreme explain to the bewildered newcomer that he is to be her mate.  I also forgot to mention that she is the only one in the society who can procreate, and that she is able to read minds.  Major Allison is also given free range of the Citable, even though the Captain still does not trust him.  Major Allison visits with Princess Trirene, who psychically understands that his intentions are mostly pure.  However, he asks that he be taken to a number of scientists that are allowed to exist in the Citadel.  These are Dr. Bourman (John van Dreelen) and General Karl Kruse (Stephen Bekassy), along with another pilot, Captain Markova (Arianne Arden).  Because these people, too, have dropped in to 2024 (the year Major Allison traveled to) from a different point in the past, they can speak.  They explain to Major Allison that cosmic radiation caused a plague that forced a large portion of the Earth’s population to flee to interstellar colonies.  Those left behind created underground cities, but not before the previously described mutations took hold.  Dr. Bourman and General Kruse want Major Allison to return to 1960 in order to prevent any of these horrors from taking place.  The Captain and Supreme, on the other hand, think such a venture pointless and try to get Major Allison to stay.  Ultimately, the pilot chooses to leave.  With Captain Markova providing a distraction by releasing the mutants in the prison, Major Allison plans to take Princess Trirene with him as Dr. Bourman and General Kruse lead the way to freedom.  However, Dr. Bourman and General Kruse have plans of betraying Major Allison and using the X-80 to return to their own years.  In the course of this struggle, Princess Trirene is shot and killed.  Major Allison takes her to see the Supreme one last time, who gives Major Allison her ring to bring back to 1960.  With this, Major Allison takes off and, er, flies in the opposite direction in order to reverse the time jump.  Incredibly, this is successful, but Major Allison lands unconscious and is taken in for medical observation.  When they finally reveal his face, they find he has aged sixty-five years.  The film ends with his dire warning about taking steps to prevent the awful events that will wreck the future.

I wonder if my Catholic forebears living in 1960 when Beyond the Time Barrier was released would look upon changes the Church made to the liturgy as awful events that should be prevented?  I mention this because there is a moment when one of Major Allison’s fellow officers says “And the Lord be with you” before taking off the first time.  It got me thinking about how within the last fifteen years or so, which is hardly any time at all in the eyes of the Church, we changed the response during Mass to “The Lord be with you” from “And also with you” to “And with your spirit.”  Sometimes I forget the new words and say the old ones, but that is rare.  What does any of this have to do with the movie?  Nothing at all, but I blame that on the film.  It is not long, and in the precious few minutes it has to tell its story, it does not give the Catholic reviewer much to analyze.  There is one moment that I could discuss when the Supreme is begging Major Allison to stay, but he chooses to attempt another time jump.  Major Allison says that he values his freedom more than anything the Supreme has to offer, though I am not really sure what the conundrum is for the man from the past.  At one-point, Major Allison claims that he cannot imagine a reality different than the one in 2024.  Whatever is the imprisonment he is trying to avoid, God created us for freedom.  The hope is that we choose Him, which is ultimate freedom, but these are too lofty of ideas for this movie.

What I am saying about Beyond the Time Barrier is that it is kind of silly.  I do not want to call it dumb because I do not want to be mean, at least not purposely.  It is very much a movie of its time, and there are vastly better ones.