Doppelgänger (1969 film)
Encyclopedia
Doppelgänger is a 1969 British science-fiction film directed by Robert Parrish
and starring Roy Thinnes
, Ian Hendry
, Lynn Loring
and Patrick Wymark
. Outside Europe, it is known as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which is now the more popular title. In the film, a joint European-NASA
mission to investigate a planet in a position parallel to Earth
behind the Sun
ends in disaster with the death of one astronaut (Hendry). His colleague (Thinnes) realises that the planet is a mirror image
of Earth, on which all aspects of life run in reverse.
The first major live-action film of Century 21 writers-producers Gerry
and Sylvia Anderson
, noted for Thunderbirds
and other 1960s "Supermarionation
" puppet television series, shooting for Doppelgänger ran from July to October 1968. With Pinewood Studios
as the principal production base, Parrish filmed on location in both England and Portugal. The professional relationship between the Andersons and their director became strained as the shooting progressed, while creative disagreements with cinematographer John Read
resulted in his resignation from Century 21.
The film premiered in August 1969 in the United States and October 1969 in the United Kingdom. Criticism has been directed at the parallel Earth premise, which has been considered clichéd and uninspired in comparison to standing precedent in science fiction. Doppelgänger has been interpreted as a partial pastiche
of major science-fiction films of the 1960s, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey
. However, plot device
s and images perceived as emulating such films have been considered poor adaptations of their originals. It has been viewed as a cult
film.
Actors and props from Doppelgänger re-appear in another Anderson television series, UFO
. Although the Andersons added adult themes to the script in an attempt to distinguish Doppelgänger from their earlier child-orientated productions, cuts removed more explicit content to permit an A
and, later, PG certificate from the British Board of Film Classification
(BBFC). The film has had a limited run on DVD.
in 2069, the unmanned Sun Probe locates a planet that lies on the same orbital path as Earth
but is positioned on the opposite side of the Sun
. Dr Kurt Hassler (Herbert Lom
) of the EUROpean Space Exploration Council (EUROSEC) has been transmitting Sun Probe flight data to a rival power in the East
, but Security Chief Mark Neuman (George Sewell
) uncovers the betrayal and shoots Hassler dead in his laboratory. EUROSEC director Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark
) convinces NASA
representative David Poulson (Ed Bishop
) that the West
must launch astronauts to investigate the planet before Hassler's allies in the East. With EUROSEC member states France and Germany unwilling to offer financial support, Webb obtains majority funding from NASA. American astronaut Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes
) and British astrophysicist Dr John Kane (Ian Hendry
), head of the Sun Probe project, are assigned to the mission.
Launched from the EUROSEC Space Centre in Portugal in the Phoenix spacecraft, Ross and Kane pass the first half of their six-week round trip in stasis
, with "Heart Lung Kidney" machines managing their life functions. Three weeks after launch, the astronauts are revived in the orbit of the planet. Scans for the existence of extraterrestrial life prove to be inconclusive, and Ross and Kane decide to perform a surface landing. While the astronauts descend through the atmosphere, an electrical storm
damages their Dove lander
shuttle, which crashes in a mountainous region that is revealed to be Ulan Bator, Mongolia. When an air-sea rescue
unit returns Ross and Kane, the latter fighting serious injuries, to the EUROSEC Space Centre in Portugal, it is apparent that the Phoenix mission has been terminated after three weeks and that the astronauts have arrived back on Earth.
Neuman and EUROSEC official Lise Hartman (Loni von Friedl) interrogate Ross, who denies that he aborted the mission. Shortly after, Kane dies from the injuries that he sustained in the crash. Eventually, Ross assembles a series of clues that point him to the conclusion that he is not on Earth, but indeed on the unknown planet — a Counter-Earth
that is a mirror image
of his. Many, including his wife, Sharon (Lynn Loring
), are baffled by his claims that all aspects of life on the planet — from the print in books to the plan of his apartment — are reversed. However, Webb is convinced of the truth when Ross demonstrates the ability to read aloud from a book, without hesitation, when its pages are reflected in a mirror. Later, X-rays from Kane's post-mortem examination reveal that his internal organs are located on the wrong side of his body. Ross conjectures that the two Earths lie parallel
, which would mean that the Ross from the Counter-Earth is living through similar experiences on the far side of the Sun.
Webb suggests that Ross recover the flight recorder
from Phoenix, and then return to his Earth. EUROSEC constructs a replacement for Dove that is designed to be compatible with the reversed technologies of Phoenix. Modifications include the reverse-polarisation of electric circuits, although neither Ross nor the scientists can be certain that the differences between the two Earths extend to the direction of electric current. The shuttle is re-christened Doppelganger
, a term denoting a duplicate of a person or object in the original German. Lifting off and entering orbit, Ross attempts to dock with Phoenix. However, Doppelganger experiences a technical malfunction, indicating that current is constant after all. The shuttle detaches from Phoenix and loses contact with EUROSEC, plunging through the atmosphere towards the Space Centre with Ross struggling to disengage automatic landing control
. EUROSEC is unable to repair the fault from the ground, and Doppelganger crashes into a parked spacecraft. Ross is incinerated in the collision and a chain reaction
obliterates the Space Centre, killing personnel and destroying all records of Ross's presence on the Counter-Earth.
Decades later, a bitter Jason Webb, long since dismissed from EUROSEC, has been admitted to a nursing home. In his dementia
, the old man spies his reflection in a mirror. Rolling forwards in his wheelchair, and reaching out to touch his image, Webb dies when he crashes into the mirror.
had directed Crossroads to Crime
, a 1960 B movie
, for distributor Anglo-Amalgamated
. Although talent agent Leslie Grade
had since approached Anderson with a proposal for a film starring actor Arthur Haynes
, discussions between Grade and Anderson had not resulted in a commission. In the summer of 1967, during the production of Anderson's Supermarionation
television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
, Universal Pictures
executive Jay Kanter arrived in London from the United States. Planning to establish a European production office, Kanter expressed his willingness to provide funding for promising film ideas. Lew Grade
, brother to Leslie and Anderson's financier at his TV distributor ITC Entertainment
, arranged a meeting with Kanter for Anderson to pitch a story concept concerning the hypothesis of a "replicated" or "mirror
" Earth. According to Anderson, he "thought, rather naïvely, what if there was another planet the other side of the Sun
, orbiting at exactly the same speed and the same size as Earth? That idea then developed into the planet being a replicated Earth and that's how it ended up, a mirrored planet ... We were perfectly poised — I was Lew Grade's golden boy and the[ Century 21] studio was a big success story."
, Anderson and his wife, Sylvia
, had drafted a 194-page treatment long before the initial meeting with Kanter. The Andersons had originally intended to film the script as a one-hour drama for Associated Television
; Sylvia has explained that since the concept "was too good for a television play
, I suggested to Gerry that we try to develop it as a movie." Responding to claims that Doppelgänger has "dark" scripting, Gerry has stated that he wanted the film to have an interesting premise to entertain audiences. He has also discussed the significance of the title, which was suggested to him by Century 21 co-director John Read
: "that's a German word which means 'a copy of oneself', and the legend goes that if you meet your doppelganger
, it is the point of your death. Following that legend, clearly, I had to steer the film so that I could end it illustrating the meaning of that word."
When Kanter expressed dissatisfaction with the draft, Gerry hired Donald James
, a novelist whom he considered "a classy writer with a good reputation", to strengthen the characterisation. Although the setting of the film remained 2069, the scenes set on the Counter-Earth underwent significant changes as James completed his revisions. Fundamentally, the characters of Ross and Kane switched roles: in the Andersons' draft, it is Ross who is injured in the Dove crash and Kane who is interrogated at the EUROSEC Space Centre. In scenes absent from the completed film, Kane is diagnosed with brain damage
as a result of his apparent insanity, while Ross regains consciousness to find that the accident has made him blind. The return mission to Phoenix fails due not to an electrical fault, but to a structural defect in the second Dove module, which disintegrates in the atmosphere of the Counter-Earth with Kane trapped inside. The EUROSEC Headquarters is left intact, and the attendants at Kane's funeral are his wife (named Susan), the Rosses and Jason Webb.
Although Kanter remained unenthusiastic with the script, he agreed to commission it as a film on the condition that he reserve the right to select a "bankable" (trusted) director. Anderson would have selected David Lane
, who had directed the two Thunderbirds
films, Thunderbirds Are Go
(1966) and Thunderbird 6
(1968). After a ten-week delay to filming, Robert Parrish
, an American director whose latest project had been shelved, accepted the role. An expatriate in the United Kingdom, Parrish's film career up to 1968 had included co-editing Body and Soul
(for which he had received the 1947 Academy Award for Best Film Editing) and co-directing the 1967 James Bond
spoof, Casino Royale
. Anderson has remembered Parrish as "very ingratiating", stating that he "told us he loved the script and said it would be an honour to work with us. Jay Kanter gave Bob the thumbs up and we were in business." Although the box office failure of Casino Royale had prompted Anderson to question Parrish's ability, he has said that Doppelgänger could not have been made without his recruitment: "It wasn't a question of, 'Will we get on with him?' or, 'Is he the right man?' He was a name director, so we signed him up immediately."
Heading the cast of Doppelgänger is Roy Thinnes
in the role of Colonel Glenn Ross of NASA
. Anderson, who perceived a likeness to fellow American actor Paul Newman
, cast Thinnes as the male lead after viewing his performance in the television series The Invaders
(1967-68). In the Andersons' draft script, Ross's first name is Stewart, and he is said to have bee the first man to walk on Mars
. In a 2008 interview, Thinnes said, "I thought [Doppelgänger] was an interesting premise, although now we know that there isn't another planet on the other side of the Sun
, through our space exploration and telescopic abilities. But at that time it was conceivable, and it could have been scary." To conform to the script's characterisation of Ross, and to the detriment of his respiratory health, Thinnes ended up smoking many packets' worth of cigarettes in the course of the production. Reporting on Thinnes' intention to demand a non-smoking clause in his next film contract, in September 1969 Australian newspaper The Age
stated, "He smokes about two packets a day, but the perpetual lighting up of new cigarettes for continuity
purposes was too much."
Ian Hendry
stars as Dr John Kane, British astrophysicist and head of the Phoenix project. Hendry, who had appeared in the television series The Avengers
(1961-69) and, according to Anderson, "was always drinking", performed the stunt sequence depicting the aftermath of the Dove crash while drunk: "... he was pissed as a newt, and it was as much as he could do to stagger away. Despite all that, it looked exactly as it was supposed to on-screen!" In the draft script, Kane's first name is Philip, and his wife is Susan. In scenes deleted from the completed film, a romance between Kane and Lise Hartman, a EUROSEC official portrayed by Austrian actress Loni von Friedl, is played out at Kane's villa and a beach in Portugal.
Lynn Loring
stars as Sharon Ross, the Colonel's wife. The role of the female lead had first been offered to fellow American actress Gayle Hunnicutt
, who quit at the start of the filming after unexpectedly falling ill. Hunnicutt's withdrawal resulted in the casting of Loring, Thinnes' wife since 1967 and star of the television series The F.B.I. (1965-74). Had she remained in the role, Hunnicutt would have appeared in a nude scene scripted to distance the tone of Doppelgänger from that of earlier Anderson productions. In a 1968 interview in the Daily Mail
newspaper, Anderson expressed his intention to change the public's perception of Century 21, who, according to him, had been "typecast
as makers of children's films". On rumours that Doppelgänger would receive an X certificate
from the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) for adult content, he replied, "We want to work with live artists doing subjects unsuitable for children." For the final cut of the film, the original nude shots were replaced with soft alternatives depicting Sharon stepping into and out of a shower.
The draft script describes Sharon as the daughter of a United States Senator, and she is said to be in a romantic affair with EUROSEC public relations officer Carlo Monetti. In the completed film, Italian actor Franco De Rosa briefly stars as Paulo Landi. The affair is implied in one scene but not explored further, prompting Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn, authors of What Made Thunderbirds Go! The Authorised Biography of Gerry Anderson, to suggest that De Rosa starred in a role "all but cut from Doppelgänger". In a deleted scene, Glenn finds Paolo and Sharon in bed together at the Ross's villa, angrily ejects the couple from the room and throws them both into a swimming pool. Archer and Hearn note an additional subplot concerning the Rosses' attempts to conceive a child and the deceit of Sharon, who has been using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy without Glenn's knowledge.
Completing the main cast, Patrick Wymark
stars as Jason Webb, director of EUROSEC. Having selected him on the basis of his performance as John Wilder in the television series The Plane Makers (1963-65) and The Power Game (1965-70), Anderson has stated that Wymark's acting impressed him as much as Hendry's, but also that his similar drinking habits resulted in slurred lines on set. During the filming of one scene, Wymark "had to list these explanations ... and on take after take he couldn't remember that 'two' followed 'one'. We had to do it over and over again." Archer and Hearn identify Wymark's portrayal of Webb, a character described as "John Wilder (2069 model)" in publicity material, as the dominant performance of the film. The draft script describes Webb as a former British Minister of Technology
, who is now romantically involved with his secretary, Pam Kirby.
Among the supporting cast, George Sewell
stars as Mark Neuman, a German Operations Chief in EUROSEC who uncovers Dr Hassler's dealing with Communist China and whose parallel self heads the interrogation of Ross after the Dove crash. His surname in the draft script is Hallam. Finally, Ed Bishop
stars as David Poulson, a NASA official. Bishop replaced English actor Peter Dyneley
, who had voiced characters for Thunderbirds
(1965-66), after the producers decided that Dyneley bore too much of a resemblance to Wymark and that scenes with the characters of both Poulson and Webb would confuse audiences.
started at Pinewood Studios
, Buckinghamshire, on 1 July 1968, ending on 16 October and running alongside filming for Joe 90
. In September, location shooting in Albufeira
, Portugal, had to be completed in a shorter timeframe of two weeks as opposed to a whole month when politician Marcello Caetano deposed incapacitated Prime Minister Antonio Salazar, leaving Parrish concerned that the coup d'état
would cause the production of Doppelgänger to fall behind schedule. Location filming in Borehamwood
, Hertfordshire, used the exterior of Neptune House
(now part of the BBC
Elstree Studios
) to double for the EUROSEC Headquarters in Portugal. Heatherden Hall
(a building at Pinewood Studios) features as the nursing home that is seen to be the residence of the old Jason Webb at the end of the film.
To create the illusion of the parallel Earth
— which is apparent in images such as reversed text — quickly and cheaply, the production team inverted the film negatives
in an optical process known as "flop-over". This technique saved the time and money that would otherwise needed to have been spent building sets and props with specially reversed elements, or organising road closures to film cars driving on the "wrong" side of the road. However, the scenes set in or around the parallel EUROSEC Headquarters required careful rehearsal and co-ordination with cast and crew prior to filming. The incorporation of the flop-over technique results in some continuity errors: for example, the terminals of the Heart Lung Kidney machines onboard Phoenix are initially seen connected to Ross and Kane's left wrists, but this later changes to their right wrists.
The production staff encountered difficulties in transferring from script to screen a scene that depicts an international teleconference
being held on high-resolution viewing monitors. Due to both the limited use of colour images at the time of production, and the need to avoid black-and-white
images to honour the futuristic setting of Doppelgänger, it was decided to have the actors playing the conference delegates positioned behind the set, and have the shapes of the monitors cut out of the set wall. Silver paper reflected light from behind the actors, producing a realistic impression of high-resolution screens. Altered eyelines
strengthen the audience's perception that each delegate is facing a camera rather than the other actors in the scene, and are in different locations around the world. Archer and Hearn promote the teleconference scene as an example of how Anderson "proved once again that his productions were ahead of their time."
[ Sylvia and I] both knew how important the picture was to our careers, and we both desperately wanted to be in the big time." In one filming session, Parrish refused to follow the shooting script, deciding that some of the scenes that had been scripted did not need to appear in the film. When Anderson reminded Parrish that this would be in breach of contract
, the director announced to the cast and crew, "Hell, you heard the producer. If I don't shoot these scenes which I don't really want, don't need and will cut out anyway, I'll be in breach of contract. So what we'll do is shoot those scenes next!" Anderson has discussed how the production of Doppelgänger presented new challenges, explaining, "I had worked for so many years employing directors to do what I told them ... Suddenly I came up against a Hollywood movie director who didn't want to play and we ended up extremely bad friends." In his 2002 biography, Anderson stated, "The only regret I have about the Doppelgänger situation is that I hired Bob Parrish in the first place." Of Parrish, Sylvia Anderson has said that his direction was "uninspired. We had a lot of trouble getting what we wanted from him."
One dispute among the founders of Century 21 — Gerry and Sylvia Anderson
, Reg Hill
and John Read
— emerged from the filming of other scenes, including one in which the character of Lise Hartman washes herself in a shower. Read, the director of photography, had complied with Parrish's instructions to light the sequence in silhouette
. Anderson, who had intended the scene to present actress Loni von Friedl in the nude, demanded a re-shoot, insisting that Read honour his obligations not just to Parrish as director but also to his Century 21 partners. According to Sylvia Anderson, "Gerry was very keen to show that he was part of the 'Swinging Sixties' and felt that seeing a detailed nude shot — as he visualised it — was more 'with it' than the more subdued version." Anderson clashed with Read and Parrish for a second time when special effects shots of Phoenix in space were filmed with a hand-held camera
: "I was furious because I knew enough about space travel to know that in a vacuum
a spacecraft will travel as straight as a die ... [Parrish] told me that people were not familiar with space travel and therefore they would expect to see this kind of movement." Refusing to re-shoot the scenes on the grounds that Parrish's instructions had precedence over Anderson's, Read resigned from both Century 21 and the production of Doppelgänger at the behest of the Andersons and Hill. Anderson has elaborated, "Clearly John was in a difficult position. I do now understand how he must have felt, but in my heart I feel he couldn't play a double role."
, Berkshire, which had been prepared for shooting on the final Supermarionation
series, The Secret Service
. Supervising director Derek Meddings
supervised the completion of more than 200 shots, including the sequence presenting the destruction of the EUROSEC Headquarters at the end of the film. A six-foot (1.8 m) Phoenix scale model
, which emulated the design of the NASA
multi-stage Saturn V
rocket, had to be rebuilt after igniting and almost injuring a technician. For authenticity, the effects staff mounted the Phoenix lift-off shots outdoors, in a section of the Century 21 car park, to film against a genuine sky backdrop. Archer and Hearn describe the sequence as "one of the most spectacular" of its sort produced at the Century 21 Studios. Sylvia Anderson
, who believes that it is indistinguishable from a Cape Kennedy launch, comments that she is "still impressed by the magic of the effects. Technology has come a long way since the early Seventies, but Derek's effects have endured."
Although Century 21 had constructed a life-size Dove capsule in Slough, it could not be used for filming at Pinewood Studios
due to an arrangement with the National Association of Theatrical Television and Kine Employees
(NATTKE) to build and use such props exclusively on-site. Once the original had been incinerated, carpenters at Pinewood rebuilt the prop, although Anderson remains disappointed with the finished product, which he considered inferior. Reviewing the scale models of Doppelgänger, Martin Anderson of the Den of Geek website describes the Phoenix command module as "beautifully ergonomic without losing too much NASA-ness", and the Dove lander module as "a beautiful fusion of JPL gloss with classic lines". He argues that the Phoenix launch sequence remained the finest example of Meddings' effects until his work on the 1979 James Bond
film Moonraker
, and praises his efforts in light of the absence of computer animation
in the 1960s.
recorded his score, his favourite of all his musical contributions to the Anderson productions, in three days from 27 to 29 March 1969. Fifty-five musicians attended the first studio session, 44 the second and 28 the last. The track titled "Sleeping Astronauts", which accompanies the scenes of Ross and Kane's journey through the Solar System
, features an Ondes Martenot
, played by French ondiste Sylvette Allart. Archer and Hearn credit "Sleeping Astronauts" as "one of the most enchanting pieces Gray ever wrote", and state that the soundtrack, which has not been commercially released, evokes a "traditional Hollywood feel" that is in contrast to the 2069 setting of Doppelgänger. The inspiration for the title sequence
came from the theme of espionage connected to Dr Hassler: a miniature camera is seen concealed inside the character's ocular prosthesis
in what Archer and Hearn describe as an imitation of the style of 1960s James Bond
films.
had been completed and the Andersons' upcoming television series, The Secret Service
, had entered pre-production. The final cut had a mediocre reception from Universal Pictures
executives, leading to the postponement of the film's release for 12 months. It received an A
certificate from the British Board of Film Classification
(BBFC) on 26 March 1969, dispelling rumours of an X rating and fulfilling the Andersons' objective that Doppelgänger would be suitable for children if viewed with adults. To obtain an A certificate, cuts trimmed some of the more explicit violence and sexual detail, shortening the running time from the original 104 minutes.
Doppelgänger opened at the London Odeon Cinema
in Leicester Square
on 8 October 1969, having premiered on 27 August in the United States. On 1 November, it appeared in Detroit, Michigan
, starting another round of presentations in American cinemas. The film received a disappointing box office reception on general release.
British distributors Rank
released the film under its original name in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. The title Journey to the Far Side of the Sun has been adopted in the United States and Australia since Universal Pictures determined that the audiences of these countries might not understand the meaning of the term "doppelganger
". Simon Archer and Stan Nicholls
, authors of Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Biography, argue that Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which has superseded Doppelgänger as the more popular title, provides a clearer explanation of the plot, but suggest that it lacks the "intrigue and even poetic quality of Doppelgänger".
format, for UK release, are known to exist. While the British Film Institute
(BFI) retains one, the other is in the possession of Fanderson
, the official fan organisation dedicated to the Gerry Anderson
productions. The original prints of Doppelgänger position Ian Hendry
before Roy Thinnes
in the opening credits. In the Journey to the Far Side of the Sun format, Thinnes is billed before Hendry. Certain UK prints alter the final scene featuring the old Jason Webb with the addition of a short voice-over from Thinnes in character as Ross, who is heard speaking a line that he said to Webb earlier in the film: "Jason, we were right. There are definitely two identical planets."
For broadcasts in the United Kingdom, Doppelgänger has been aired under the title Journey to the Far Side of the Sun and has been formatted accordingly. Transmissions have often contained inverted picture due to a mistake made in transferring an original print to videotape. Prior to a screening in the 1980s, a telecine
operator viewed the print and, being unfamiliar with the plot, concluded that the scenes set on the parallel Earth had been reversed in error. An additional "flop-over" edit restored the image to normal, which became the standard for all broadcasts but compromised the plot: if Doppelgänger is screened in this modified form, the viewer is led to conclude that the Dove crashes witnesses the parallel Ross landing on the non-parallel Earth.
format, Doppelgänger has been released on NTSC
Region 1 DVD in both 1998 and, in a digitally-remastered presentation, in 2008. The 2008 release included PAL
Region 2 for the first time, although the film is marketed as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun rather than Doppelgänger. No additional material is present on the Region 1 releases, although the Region 2 edition contains a film trailer. While the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA) has certified the film G since its 1969 theatrical release, on its 2008 home release the BBFC re-rated Doppelgänger PG from the original A for "mild violence and language".
status.
in October 1969, John Russell Taylor
praised the concept of the film as "quite ingenious" but suggested that the title and pre-release marketing had revealed too much of the plot for the film to sustain the interest of its audience. Commenting in New York
magazine in November, Judith Christie introduced Doppelgänger as "a science-fiction film that comes up with a fascinating premise three-quarters of the way along and does nothing with it." She praised the production as being "nicely gadget-ridden" and raising questions on the conflict between politics and science, but also criticised the film for containing "scrappy bits of dumb sex scenes" due to poor editing.
Variety
magazine cited a confusing plot, and related the crash of the Dove module to the coherence of the scriptwriting in its declaration that, "Astronauts take a pill to induce a three-week sleep during their flight. Thereafter the script falls to pieces in as many parts as their craft." Although it was argued to be better than average for its genre in The Miami News
in September 1969 and The Montreal Gazette in April 1972, in December 1969 the Pittsburgh Press
dismissed the film as "a churned out science-fiction yarn ... Let's hope there's only one movie like this one", and ranked it among the worst films of the year. The Montreal Gazette claimed that, although the quality deteriorates towards the end of the film, "until then it's a reasonably diverting futuristic melodrama
."
's direction and Derek Meddings
' special effects. However, the dialogue, which was described as "robust and prosaic", was stated to sit "ill-at-ease with the metaphysical
ponderings". Anderson also expressed concern about the editing, stating that each special effects shot precedes another shot "with that 'Hornby
' factor, slowing up the narrative unnecessarily". Doppelgänger is awarded a rating of three stars out of five, and is summarised as "an interesting journey with many rewards". Glenn Erickson
, commenting in 2008 on the website DVD Talk
, argued that Doppelgänger "takes an okay premise but does next to nothing with it. We see 100 minutes of bad drama and good special effects, and then the script opts for frustration and meaningless mystery." He complained of unappealing cinematography, comparing it to the premise of Thunderbirds
in so far as "people stand and talk a lot", while defining the script as being composed of "at least 60 percent hardware-talk and exposition
... How people move about — airplane, parachute, centrifuge
— is more important than what they're doing."
On the subject of effects, Erickson asserted that sequences such as the "thuddingly generic, drama-challenged main rocket launch" detract from the human factor of the film due to poor editing. Other design elements were criticised: viewing the costumes as dated, Erickson added that "at home, the actors are defeated by the Barbie
doll house surroundings", and suggested that the visuals of Doppelgänger match an ethos of "the future will be a shopping mall". Although he considered Doppelgänger a "good" film (a rating higher than "fair" but lower than "excellent"), Erickson argued that the opportunities presented by the parallel Earth
concept were squandered in the determination to turn the Anderson production into "an excuse to show cool rocket toys".
Doppelgänger is given a rating of two-and-a-half stars out of five in a negative review published on the Film4
website, which praises the effects work and costume design but criticises the scenes with the character of Dr Hassler for their irrelevance to the main plot, and the subtext of the Rosses' strained marriage as an unnecessary diversion from the narrative. Although Ross and Kane's mission through space is described as a "brief, trippy light show", the review questions the originality of having a parallel Earth as the focus, and the depth of the script's vision: "Anderson's has to be the cheapest alternate Earth ever. Whereas audiences might expect a world where the Roman Empire
never fell or the Nazis won World War II
, here the shocking discovery is that people write backwards. That's it." Doppelgänger is only recommended for fans of the Anderson productions, and is considered "an occasionally interesting failure".
Gary Westfahl
of the webzine SF Site asserts that the use of a near-perfect parallel Earth is uninspired, referring to the setting as "the most boring and unimaginative alien world imaginable". Among other reviews, TV Guide
magazine describes Doppelgänger as a "strange, little film" with an "overwritten script", and considers the subplot concerning Dr Hassler's treachery to be distracting. It awards a rating of two stars out of four. To Chris Bentley, writer of episode guides on the Anderson productions, Doppelgänger is a "stylish and thought-provoking science-fiction thriller".
Sylvia Anderson
suggests that American audiences, who were less familiar with the Supermarionation
productions of Century 21 than British viewers, received the film with greater enthusiasm. She explains, "It was all too easy to compare our real actors with our puppet characters and descriptions such as 'wooden', 'expressionless', 'no strings attached' and 'puppet-like' were cheap shots some of the UK critics could not resist ... Typecasting
is the lazy man's friend, and boy, were we typecast in Britain." On her feelings about Doppelgänger, she commented in 1992, "I saw it on TV a couple of years ago and I was very pleased with it. I thought it came over quite well."
mission in July 1969. The subject of the Moon landing dominated a review in The Milwaukee Journal from that September, in which Bennett F. Waxse noted comparisons with Doppelgänger: "... the spacemen find a few bugs in their 'LM
' and crash on the planet. And do they ever have their hands full in getting back to Earth!" Writing that the proliferation of technical dialogue hampers the acting, he concluded, "... the makers of this space exploiter may get lots of mileage at the box office, but Neil
[Armstrong], Buzz
[Aldrin] and Mike
[Collins] did it better on TV."
It has also been suggested that the appearance in 1968 of 2001: A Space Odyssey
and Planet of the Apes
established an unattainable standard for other films of the science-fiction genre. Erickson argued that the film is inferior to 2001: A Space Odyssey for its depiction of a realistic "working future" in which humans remain attached to commercialism
. Comparing the visual style of Doppelgänger to that used by film director Stanley Kubrick
, he noted similarities in the use of close-up eye shots and various "psychedelic
" images, but regretted that "all these borrowings are fluff without any deeper meaning." In the Film4 review, the final scenes featuring the character of Jason Webb are described as "hell-bent on recreating the enigmatic finale of 2001 by using a mirror, a wheelchair and a tartan blanket." Martin Anderson discusses connections between Doppelgänger and other science-fiction films of the 1960s and 70s, such as Solaris
, noting a "lyrical" tone in the dialogue. However, ultimately Doppelgänger "doesn't bear comparison with Kubrick or [Solaris director Andrei] Tarkovsky
."
Erickson contrasts perceived failures on the part of the script with the efforts of Nigel Kneale
for the 1958 BBC
serial Quatermass and the Pit
and the 1964 film adaptation of the 1901 H.G. Wells novel The First Men in the Moon
. Both Douglas Pratt and the Institute of Contemporary Arts
in London liken the concept of the alternative Earth to the plot of "The Parallel
", a 1963 episode of the American television series The Twilight Zone
. In the episode, astronaut Major Robert Gaines returns to Earth to find that his world has undergone many changes, some trivial and some drastic, concluding that he has arrived in a parallel universe. Critic S. T. Joshi
compares the theme of duplication in Doppelgänger to the premise of the 1956 Don Siegel
film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which characters' fears that their relatives have been abducted and replaced with alien impostors are justified with the appearance of the Pod People
, an extraterrestrial species with the power to form doppelgangers that are almost indistinguishable from real humans.
offered the Andersons further opportunities to film in live action. Their first television series not based on puppetry was UFO
, which commenced broadcast in the United Kingdom in September 1970. Doppelgänger is considered an immediate precursor to UFO, and has also been described as a "trial run" for the second Anderson live-action series, Space: 1999
. UFO featured actors, costumes, props, locations and music that had appeared in Doppelgänger. Of the film cast, Ed Bishop
, Keith Alexander
, Cy Grant
, Martin King
and Jeremy Wilkin
had had an association with the Andersons from earlier productions: all had provided voices for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
with the exception of Alexander, who had voiced characters for the penultimate Supermarionation series, Joe 90
. With 11 other cast members, all but Grant and King appeared in at least one episode of UFO, a series in which Bishop appeared in the lead role of SHADO Commander Ed Straker.
Special effects elements from Doppelgänger that re-appeared in UFO included the scale models of the Phoenix spacecraft and Dove shuttle. Futuristic cars (which consultants from the Ford corporation based on the chassis of the Zephyr Zodiac
) and jeeps (adapted from British Leyland Mini Moke
s) were also re-cycled. Neptune House
, one of the filming locations for Doppelgänger, became the face of the Harlington-Straker Film Studios home to SHADO. Tracks from Barry Gray
's Doppelgänger score that are heard in UFO include "Sleeping Astronauts" and "Strange Planet", the latter serving as the ending theme music. The teleprinter
images that appeared in the Doppelgänger titles formed a creative element that was imitated for the opening credits of UFO.
In a retrospective of Anderson's career published on the IGN
website, it is stated that the discussion of politics and economics in Doppelgänger contrast with the conventions of 1960s science fiction. Furthermore, such aspects are reflected in the atmosphere of UFO in so far as the characters "were constantly having to deal with the pressures of having to show progress under the scrutiny of accountants and elected officials, much the same way NASA
was starting to in the US." Commenting on the parallels between the film and the television series, Anderson makes another connection to Kubrick: turning his attention to scripting, he argues, "the most interesting common ground between the two projects remains the bleak ending(s) and the slight flirtation with the acid-induced imagery and mind fucks of 2001 [: A Space Odyssey]."
Robert Parrish
Robert R. Parrish was an American actor, film editor, film director, and writer. He received an Academy Award for Film Editing for the 1947 film, Body and Soul....
and starring Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes is an American television and film actor best known for his portrayal of lonely hero David Vincent in the ABC 1967-68 television series The Invaders. He also played Alfred Wentworth in the pilot episode of Law & Order...
, Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry was an English film and television actor. He is best known for his work on several British TV series of the early 1960s such as The Avengers, and for his roles in 1970s films such as Get Carter .-Career:Hendry was born in Ipswich, Suffolk and educated at Culford School...
, Lynn Loring
Lynn Loring
Lynn Loring is an American actress and producer.She first started acting at the age of seven, playing the role of Patti Barron on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow. She played the role until 1961, when she graduated from high school and explored other opportunities...
and Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark , was a British, stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Born Patrick Carl Cheeseman in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England...
. Outside Europe, it is known as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which is now the more popular title. In the film, a joint European-NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
mission to investigate a planet in a position parallel to Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
behind the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
ends in disaster with the death of one astronaut (Hendry). His colleague (Thinnes) realises that the planet is a mirror image
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
of Earth, on which all aspects of life run in reverse.
The first major live-action film of Century 21 writers-producers Gerry
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
and Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, noted for Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
and other 1960s "Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
" puppet television series, shooting for Doppelgänger ran from July to October 1968. With Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
as the principal production base, Parrish filmed on location in both England and Portugal. The professional relationship between the Andersons and their director became strained as the shooting progressed, while creative disagreements with cinematographer John Read
John Read (producer)
John Read is a British television producer, cinematographer and director.He is widely associated with the productions of Gerry Anderson. Having served as director of photography on Four Feather Falls , Crossroads to Crime , Supercar , Stingray and Thunderbirds , Read worked on the latter series'...
resulted in his resignation from Century 21.
The film premiered in August 1969 in the United States and October 1969 in the United Kingdom. Criticism has been directed at the parallel Earth premise, which has been considered clichéd and uninspired in comparison to standing precedent in science fiction. Doppelgänger has been interpreted as a partial pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of major science-fiction films of the 1960s, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
. However, plot device
Plot device
A plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
s and images perceived as emulating such films have been considered poor adaptations of their originals. It has been viewed as a cult
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
film.
Actors and props from Doppelgänger re-appear in another Anderson television series, UFO
UFO (TV series)
UFO is a 1970-1971 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth, created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.UFO first aired in the UK and Canada...
. Although the Andersons added adult themes to the script in an attempt to distinguish Doppelgänger from their earlier child-orientated productions, cuts removed more explicit content to permit an A
History of British film certificates
-Overview:The UK's film ratings are decided by the British Board of Film Classification and have been since 1912. Previously, there were no agreed rating standards, and local councils imposed their own - often differing - conditions or restrictions...
and, later, PG certificate from the British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
(BBFC). The film has had a limited run on DVD.
Plot
Travelling through the Solar SystemSolar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
in 2069, the unmanned Sun Probe locates a planet that lies on the same orbital path as Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
but is positioned on the opposite side of the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. Dr Kurt Hassler (Herbert Lom
Herbert Lom
Herbert Lom is a Czech film actor, best known for his role as former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movie series.-Life and career:...
) of the EUROpean Space Exploration Council (EUROSEC) has been transmitting Sun Probe flight data to a rival power in the East
Eastern world
__FORCETOC__The term Eastern world refers very broadly to the various cultures or social structures and philosophical systems of Eastern Asia or geographically the Eastern Culture...
, but Security Chief Mark Neuman (George Sewell
George Sewell
George Sewell was an English actor.-Early life and early career:The son of a Hoxton printer and a florist; Sewell left school at age 14 and worked briefly in the printing trade before switching to building work, specifically the repair of bomb-damaged houses...
) uncovers the betrayal and shoots Hassler dead in his laboratory. EUROSEC director Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark , was a British, stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Born Patrick Carl Cheeseman in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England...
) convinces NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
representative David Poulson (Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
) that the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
must launch astronauts to investigate the planet before Hassler's allies in the East. With EUROSEC member states France and Germany unwilling to offer financial support, Webb obtains majority funding from NASA. American astronaut Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes is an American television and film actor best known for his portrayal of lonely hero David Vincent in the ABC 1967-68 television series The Invaders. He also played Alfred Wentworth in the pilot episode of Law & Order...
) and British astrophysicist Dr John Kane (Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry was an English film and television actor. He is best known for his work on several British TV series of the early 1960s such as The Avengers, and for his roles in 1970s films such as Get Carter .-Career:Hendry was born in Ipswich, Suffolk and educated at Culford School...
), head of the Sun Probe project, are assigned to the mission.
Launched from the EUROSEC Space Centre in Portugal in the Phoenix spacecraft, Ross and Kane pass the first half of their six-week round trip in stasis
Stasis (fiction)
Stasis , or hypersleep, is a science fiction concept akin to suspended animation. Whereas suspended animation usually refers to a greatly reduced state of life processes, stasis implies a complete cessation of these processes, which can be easily restarted or restart spontaneously when stasis is...
, with "Heart Lung Kidney" machines managing their life functions. Three weeks after launch, the astronauts are revived in the orbit of the planet. Scans for the existence of extraterrestrial life prove to be inconclusive, and Ross and Kane decide to perform a surface landing. While the astronauts descend through the atmosphere, an electrical storm
Electrical storm
Electrical storm may refer to:* A thunderstorm* A medical condition of chaotic electrical activity of the heart, usually manifested by ventricular tachycardia* "Electrical Storm" , song by U2...
damages their Dove lander
Lander (spacecraft)
A lander is a spacecraft which descends toward and comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body. For bodies with atmospheres, the landing is called atmospheric reentry and the lander descends as a re-entry vehicle...
shuttle, which crashes in a mountainous region that is revealed to be Ulan Bator, Mongolia. When an air-sea rescue
Air-sea rescue
Air-sea rescue is the coordinated search and rescue of the survivors of emergency water landings as well as people who have survived the loss of their sea-going vessel. ASR can involve a wide variety of resources including seaplanes, helicopters, submarines, rescue boats and ships...
unit returns Ross and Kane, the latter fighting serious injuries, to the EUROSEC Space Centre in Portugal, it is apparent that the Phoenix mission has been terminated after three weeks and that the astronauts have arrived back on Earth.
Neuman and EUROSEC official Lise Hartman (Loni von Friedl) interrogate Ross, who denies that he aborted the mission. Shortly after, Kane dies from the injuries that he sustained in the crash. Eventually, Ross assembles a series of clues that point him to the conclusion that he is not on Earth, but indeed on the unknown planet — a Counter-Earth
Counter-Earth
The Counter-Earth is a hypothetical body of the Solar system first hypothesized by the presocratic philosopher Philolaus to support his non-geocentric cosmology, in which all objects in the universe revolve around a Central Fire...
that is a mirror image
Mirror image
A mirror image is a reflected duplication of an object that appears identical but reversed. As an optical effect it results from reflection off of substances such as a mirror or water. It is also a concept in geometry and can be used as a conceptualization process for 3-D structures...
of his. Many, including his wife, Sharon (Lynn Loring
Lynn Loring
Lynn Loring is an American actress and producer.She first started acting at the age of seven, playing the role of Patti Barron on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow. She played the role until 1961, when she graduated from high school and explored other opportunities...
), are baffled by his claims that all aspects of life on the planet — from the print in books to the plan of his apartment — are reversed. However, Webb is convinced of the truth when Ross demonstrates the ability to read aloud from a book, without hesitation, when its pages are reflected in a mirror. Later, X-rays from Kane's post-mortem examination reveal that his internal organs are located on the wrong side of his body. Ross conjectures that the two Earths lie parallel
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
, which would mean that the Ross from the Counter-Earth is living through similar experiences on the far side of the Sun.
Webb suggests that Ross recover the flight recorder
Flight recorder
A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of an aircraft accident or incident. For this reason, flight recorders are required to be capable of surviving the conditions likely to be encountered in a severe aircraft...
from Phoenix, and then return to his Earth. EUROSEC constructs a replacement for Dove that is designed to be compatible with the reversed technologies of Phoenix. Modifications include the reverse-polarisation of electric circuits, although neither Ross nor the scientists can be certain that the differences between the two Earths extend to the direction of electric current. The shuttle is re-christened Doppelganger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
, a term denoting a duplicate of a person or object in the original German. Lifting off and entering orbit, Ross attempts to dock with Phoenix. However, Doppelganger experiences a technical malfunction, indicating that current is constant after all. The shuttle detaches from Phoenix and loses contact with EUROSEC, plunging through the atmosphere towards the Space Centre with Ross struggling to disengage automatic landing control
Autoland
In aviation, autoland describes a system that fully automates the landing phase of an aircraft's flight, with the human crew merely supervising the process.-Description:...
. EUROSEC is unable to repair the fault from the ground, and Doppelganger crashes into a parked spacecraft. Ross is incinerated in the collision and a chain reaction
Chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events....
obliterates the Space Centre, killing personnel and destroying all records of Ross's presence on the Counter-Earth.
Decades later, a bitter Jason Webb, long since dismissed from EUROSEC, has been admitted to a nursing home. In his dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
, the old man spies his reflection in a mirror. Rolling forwards in his wheelchair, and reaching out to touch his image, Webb dies when he crashes into the mirror.
Production
For his first contribution to live-action film, Gerry AndersonGerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
had directed Crossroads to Crime
Crossroads to Crime
Crossroads to Crime is a 1960 British crime film, the directorial debut of Gerry Anderson and the only motion picture of his production company, AP Films...
, a 1960 B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
, for distributor Anglo-Amalgamated
Anglo-Amalgamated
Anglo-Amalgamated Productions was a British film production company run by Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy that operated from 1945 to the 1970s. Much of the output was low budget and often second features, many produced at Merton Park Studios...
. Although talent agent Leslie Grade
Leslie Grade
Leslie Grade was a British talent agent and executive with The Grade Organisation. He was born Laszlo Winogradsky in Tokmak, Ukraine, Russian Empire...
had since approached Anderson with a proposal for a film starring actor Arthur Haynes
Arthur Haynes
Arthur Haynes was an English comedian and star of The Arthur Haynes Show, a comedy sketch series produced by ATV from 1957 until his death from a heart attack in 1966...
, discussions between Grade and Anderson had not resulted in a commission. In the summer of 1967, during the production of Anderson's Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...
, Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
executive Jay Kanter arrived in London from the United States. Planning to establish a European production office, Kanter expressed his willingness to provide funding for promising film ideas. Lew Grade
Lew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
, brother to Leslie and Anderson's financier at his TV distributor ITC Entertainment
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
, arranged a meeting with Kanter for Anderson to pitch a story concept concerning the hypothesis of a "replicated" or "mirror
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
" Earth. According to Anderson, he "thought, rather naïvely, what if there was another planet the other side of the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
, orbiting at exactly the same speed and the same size as Earth? That idea then developed into the planet being a replicated Earth and that's how it ended up, a mirrored planet ... We were perfectly poised — I was Lew Grade's golden boy and the
Writing
With the assistance of scriptwriter Tony WilliamsonTony Williamson (television writer)
Tony Williamson was a prolific British television writer, most active from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. He wrote primarily for the action/adventure and espionage genres...
, Anderson and his wife, Sylvia
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, had drafted a 194-page treatment long before the initial meeting with Kanter. The Andersons had originally intended to film the script as a one-hour drama for Associated Television
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
; Sylvia has explained that since the concept "was too good for a television play
Television play
From the 1950s until the early 1980s, the television play was a popular television programming genre in the United Kingdom, with a shorter span in the United States. The genre was often associated with the social realist-influenced British drama style known as "kitchen sink realism", which depicted...
, I suggested to Gerry that we try to develop it as a movie." Responding to claims that Doppelgänger has "dark" scripting, Gerry has stated that he wanted the film to have an interesting premise to entertain audiences. He has also discussed the significance of the title, which was suggested to him by Century 21 co-director John Read
John Read (producer)
John Read is a British television producer, cinematographer and director.He is widely associated with the productions of Gerry Anderson. Having served as director of photography on Four Feather Falls , Crossroads to Crime , Supercar , Stingray and Thunderbirds , Read worked on the latter series'...
: "that's a German word which means 'a copy of oneself', and the legend goes that if you meet your doppelganger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
, it is the point of your death. Following that legend, clearly, I had to steer the film so that I could end it illustrating the meaning of that word."
When Kanter expressed dissatisfaction with the draft, Gerry hired Donald James
Donald James
Donald James was the author of the bestselling novels Vadim, Monstrum, The Fortune Teller and The Fall of the Russian Empire as well as non-fiction books such as The Penguin Dictionary of the Third Reich...
, a novelist whom he considered "a classy writer with a good reputation", to strengthen the characterisation. Although the setting of the film remained 2069, the scenes set on the Counter-Earth underwent significant changes as James completed his revisions. Fundamentally, the characters of Ross and Kane switched roles: in the Andersons' draft, it is Ross who is injured in the Dove crash and Kane who is interrogated at the EUROSEC Space Centre. In scenes absent from the completed film, Kane is diagnosed with brain damage
Brain damage
"Brain damage" or "brain injury" is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors...
as a result of his apparent insanity, while Ross regains consciousness to find that the accident has made him blind. The return mission to Phoenix fails due not to an electrical fault, but to a structural defect in the second Dove module, which disintegrates in the atmosphere of the Counter-Earth with Kane trapped inside. The EUROSEC Headquarters is left intact, and the attendants at Kane's funeral are his wife (named Susan), the Rosses and Jason Webb.
Although Kanter remained unenthusiastic with the script, he agreed to commission it as a film on the condition that he reserve the right to select a "bankable" (trusted) director. Anderson would have selected David Lane
David Lane (director)
David Lane is a British television and film director, best known for his association with series produced by Gerry Anderson's AP Films.Lane directed several episodes of the Thunderbirds television series, including "Attack of the Alligators!", as well as the two cinema films Thunderbirds are GO and...
, who had directed the two Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
films, Thunderbirds Are Go
Thunderbirds Are GO
Thunderbirds Are Go is a 1966 British science-fiction film based on Thunderbirds, a 1960s television series starring marionette puppets and featuring scale model effects in a filming process dubbed "Supermarionation"...
(1966) and Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
(1968). After a ten-week delay to filming, Robert Parrish
Robert Parrish
Robert R. Parrish was an American actor, film editor, film director, and writer. He received an Academy Award for Film Editing for the 1947 film, Body and Soul....
, an American director whose latest project had been shelved, accepted the role. An expatriate in the United Kingdom, Parrish's film career up to 1968 had included co-editing Body and Soul
Body and Soul (1947 film)
Body and Soul is a 1947 film noir which tells the story of a boxer who becomes involved with crooked promoters. It stars John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere and William Conrad....
(for which he had received the 1947 Academy Award for Best Film Editing) and co-directing the 1967 James Bond
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
spoof, Casino Royale
Casino Royale (1967 film)
Casino Royale is a 1967 comedy spy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures starring an ensemble cast of directors and actors. It is set as a satire of the James Bond film series and the spy genre, and is loosely based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel.The film stars David Niven as the...
. Anderson has remembered Parrish as "very ingratiating", stating that he "told us he loved the script and said it would be an honour to work with us. Jay Kanter gave Bob the thumbs up and we were in business." Although the box office failure of Casino Royale had prompted Anderson to question Parrish's ability, he has said that Doppelgänger could not have been made without his recruitment: "It wasn't a question of, 'Will we get on with him?' or, 'Is he the right man?' He was a name director, so we signed him up immediately."
Casting
| Supporting cast | |
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Keith Alexander Keith Alexander (actor) Keith Alexander is a British actor and voice actor.Alexander's television credits include Softly, Softly , The New Avengers , Minder and The Day of the Triffids... |
Flight Director |
| Peter Burton Peter Burton Peter Burton was an English film and television actor born in Bromley, England. His biggest claim to fame is being the first actor to portray Major Boothroyd, better known as Q, in the first James Bond film, Dr. No... |
Medical Technician 1 |
| Anthony Chinn Anthony Chinn Anthony Chinn , the child of Chinese and Brazilian parents, was a supporting actor who appeared in over fifty films and television shows throughout a career which spanned more than four decades. His first film appearance was in the UK in 1957 when he was 27... |
Air-Sea Rescue Operator |
| Nicholas Courtney Nicholas Courtney William Nicholas Stone Courtney was an English television actor, most famous for playing Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:... |
Medical Technician 2 |
| John Clifford | Gantry Technician |
| Peter van Dissel | Bonn Delegate Mallory |
| Cy Grant Cy Grant Cy Grant was a Guyanese actor, singer, writer and poet, who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television... |
Dr Gordon |
| Alan Harris | Public Relations Photographer |
| Jon Kelley | Male Nurse |
| Annette Kerr Annette Kerr Annette Kerr is an English actress born in 1920. She has made numerous appearances in films and on television.Kerr is also frequently referred to in The Kenneth Williams Diaries edited by Russell Davies and it seems he was very fond of her and they were good friends who also worked with each other... |
Female Nurse |
| Martin King Martin King (actor) Martin King is a British actor, voice actor and former continuity announcer.His television credits include Dixon of Dock Green , Crossroads , Detective and The Troubleshooters... |
Dove Service Technician |
| Herbert Lom Herbert Lom Herbert Lom is a Czech film actor, best known for his role as former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movie series.-Life and career:... |
Dr Kurt Hassler |
| Philip Madoc Philip Madoc Philip Madoc is a Welsh actor who has had many television and film roles.One prominent role was the title character in the BBC Wales drama The Life and Times of David Lloyd George... |
Dr Pontini |
| George Mikell George Mikell George Mikell is an actor and writer most well known for his performances in The Guns of Navarone and The Great Escape... |
Paris Delegate Clavel |
| Basil Moss Basil Moss Basil Moss is a British character actor, who featured regularly on television in the 1960s and on radio in the 1970s.-Early life:He was educated at St Paul's School, which he followed with actor's training.-Acting career:... |
Monitoring Station Technician |
| Norma Ronald Norma Ronald Norma Ronald was a British actress best known for her appearances as "Mildred Murfin" in the 1960s BBC Radio comedy series The Men from the Ministry, as "Miss Ealand" in the Science Fiction television series UFO and as Sir John Wilder's ever-resourceful secretary Kay Lingard in both The Plane... |
Secretary Pam Kirby |
| Vladek Sheybal Vladek Sheybal Vladek Sheybal , born Władysław Sheybal, was a Polish character actor, whose career lasted from the 1950s into the 1980s. He was probably best known for his portrayal of the chess grandmaster Kronsteen in the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love, a role for which he had been personally... |
Psychologist Dr Beauville |
| John Stone John Stone (actor) -Career:Born in Cardiff, Wales as John Hailstone, Stone was educated at Brighton College. He made his first West End appearance in One Wild Oat by Vernon Sylvaine, 1948... |
London Delegate |
| Jeremy Wilkin Jeremy Wilkin Jeremy Wilkin is a British actor, possibly best known for his contributions to the television productions of Gerry Anderson.... |
Launch Control Technician |
Heading the cast of Doppelgänger is Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes is an American television and film actor best known for his portrayal of lonely hero David Vincent in the ABC 1967-68 television series The Invaders. He also played Alfred Wentworth in the pilot episode of Law & Order...
in the role of Colonel Glenn Ross of NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
. Anderson, who perceived a likeness to fellow American actor Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, cast Thinnes as the male lead after viewing his performance in the television series The Invaders
The Invaders
The Invaders, a Quinn Martin Production , is an ABC science fiction television program created by Larry Cohen that ran in the United States for two seasons, from January 10, 1967 to March 26, 1968...
(1967-68). In the Andersons' draft script, Ross's first name is Stewart, and he is said to have bee the first man to walk on Mars
Manned mission to Mars
A manned mission to Mars has been the subject of science fiction, engineering, and scientific proposals throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century...
. In a 2008 interview, Thinnes said, "I thought [Doppelgänger] was an interesting premise, although now we know that there isn't another planet on the other side of the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
, through our space exploration and telescopic abilities. But at that time it was conceivable, and it could have been scary." To conform to the script's characterisation of Ross, and to the detriment of his respiratory health, Thinnes ended up smoking many packets' worth of cigarettes in the course of the production. Reporting on Thinnes' intention to demand a non-smoking clause in his next film contract, in September 1969 Australian newspaper The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
stated, "He smokes about two packets a day, but the perpetual lighting up of new cigarettes for continuity
Continuity (fiction)
In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time...
purposes was too much."
Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry was an English film and television actor. He is best known for his work on several British TV series of the early 1960s such as The Avengers, and for his roles in 1970s films such as Get Carter .-Career:Hendry was born in Ipswich, Suffolk and educated at Culford School...
stars as Dr John Kane, British astrophysicist and head of the Phoenix project. Hendry, who had appeared in the television series The Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
(1961-69) and, according to Anderson, "was always drinking", performed the stunt sequence depicting the aftermath of the Dove crash while drunk: "... he was pissed as a newt, and it was as much as he could do to stagger away. Despite all that, it looked exactly as it was supposed to on-screen!" In the draft script, Kane's first name is Philip, and his wife is Susan. In scenes deleted from the completed film, a romance between Kane and Lise Hartman, a EUROSEC official portrayed by Austrian actress Loni von Friedl, is played out at Kane's villa and a beach in Portugal.
Lynn Loring
Lynn Loring
Lynn Loring is an American actress and producer.She first started acting at the age of seven, playing the role of Patti Barron on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow. She played the role until 1961, when she graduated from high school and explored other opportunities...
stars as Sharon Ross, the Colonel's wife. The role of the female lead had first been offered to fellow American actress Gayle Hunnicutt
Gayle Hunnicutt
Gayle, Lady Jenkins , known by her birth name Gayle Hunnicutt, is an American actress.-Personal life:Hunnicutt was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Colonel Sam Lloyd Hunnicutt and Virginia Hunnicutt, and attended the University of California, Los Angeles. She worked as a fashion model...
, who quit at the start of the filming after unexpectedly falling ill. Hunnicutt's withdrawal resulted in the casting of Loring, Thinnes' wife since 1967 and star of the television series The F.B.I. (1965-74). Had she remained in the role, Hunnicutt would have appeared in a nude scene scripted to distance the tone of Doppelgänger from that of earlier Anderson productions. In a 1968 interview in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
newspaper, Anderson expressed his intention to change the public's perception of Century 21, who, according to him, had been "typecast
Typecasting (acting)
In TV, film, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character; one or more particular roles; or, characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ethnic groups...
as makers of children's films". On rumours that Doppelgänger would receive an X certificate
History of British film certificates
-Overview:The UK's film ratings are decided by the British Board of Film Classification and have been since 1912. Previously, there were no agreed rating standards, and local councils imposed their own - often differing - conditions or restrictions...
from the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) for adult content, he replied, "We want to work with live artists doing subjects unsuitable for children." For the final cut of the film, the original nude shots were replaced with soft alternatives depicting Sharon stepping into and out of a shower.
The draft script describes Sharon as the daughter of a United States Senator, and she is said to be in a romantic affair with EUROSEC public relations officer Carlo Monetti. In the completed film, Italian actor Franco De Rosa briefly stars as Paulo Landi. The affair is implied in one scene but not explored further, prompting Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn, authors of What Made Thunderbirds Go! The Authorised Biography of Gerry Anderson, to suggest that De Rosa starred in a role "all but cut from Doppelgänger". In a deleted scene, Glenn finds Paolo and Sharon in bed together at the Ross's villa, angrily ejects the couple from the room and throws them both into a swimming pool. Archer and Hearn note an additional subplot concerning the Rosses' attempts to conceive a child and the deceit of Sharon, who has been using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy without Glenn's knowledge.
Completing the main cast, Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark , was a British, stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Born Patrick Carl Cheeseman in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England...
stars as Jason Webb, director of EUROSEC. Having selected him on the basis of his performance as John Wilder in the television series The Plane Makers (1963-65) and The Power Game (1965-70), Anderson has stated that Wymark's acting impressed him as much as Hendry's, but also that his similar drinking habits resulted in slurred lines on set. During the filming of one scene, Wymark "had to list these explanations ... and on take after take he couldn't remember that 'two' followed 'one'. We had to do it over and over again." Archer and Hearn identify Wymark's portrayal of Webb, a character described as "John Wilder (2069 model)" in publicity material, as the dominant performance of the film. The draft script describes Webb as a former British Minister of Technology
Minister of Technology
The Minister of Technology was a position in the government of the United Kingdom, sometimes abbreviated as "MinTech". The Ministry of Technology was established by the incoming government of Harold Wilson in October 1964 as part of Wilson's ambition to modernise the state for what he perceived to...
, who is now romantically involved with his secretary, Pam Kirby.
Among the supporting cast, George Sewell
George Sewell
George Sewell was an English actor.-Early life and early career:The son of a Hoxton printer and a florist; Sewell left school at age 14 and worked briefly in the printing trade before switching to building work, specifically the repair of bomb-damaged houses...
stars as Mark Neuman, a German Operations Chief in EUROSEC who uncovers Dr Hassler's dealing with Communist China and whose parallel self heads the interrogation of Ross after the Dove crash. His surname in the draft script is Hallam. Finally, Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
stars as David Poulson, a NASA official. Bishop replaced English actor Peter Dyneley
Peter Dyneley
Peter Dyneley was a British actor, born in Hastings, East Sussex, England.Although appearing in many smaller roles in both film and television, he is best remembered for his performance as the voice of Jeff Tracy in the Gerry Anderson 1960s TV series Thunderbirds and the subsequent movies...
, who had voiced characters for Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
(1965-66), after the producers decided that Dyneley bore too much of a resemblance to Wymark and that scenes with the characters of both Poulson and Webb would confuse audiences.
Filming
Fifteen weeks of principal photographyPrincipal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
started at Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
, Buckinghamshire, on 1 July 1968, ending on 16 October and running alongside filming for Joe 90
Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
. In September, location shooting in Albufeira
Albufeira
Albufeira is a Portuguese municipality in the Faro District, Algarve region. Its name came from the Arabic: البحيرة . The city has a population of 13,646. The municipality has a population of 35,281 inhabitants and a total area of 140.6 km²...
, Portugal, had to be completed in a shorter timeframe of two weeks as opposed to a whole month when politician Marcello Caetano deposed incapacitated Prime Minister Antonio Salazar, leaving Parrish concerned that the coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
would cause the production of Doppelgänger to fall behind schedule. Location filming in Borehamwood
Borehamwood
-Film industry:Since the 1920s, the town has been home to several film studios and many shots of its streets are included in final cuts of 20th century British films. This earned it the nickname of the "British Hollywood"...
, Hertfordshire, used the exterior of Neptune House
Neptune House
Neptune House is an office block situated in the grounds of BBC Elstree Centre in Clarendon Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.The imposing office block dates from the 1960s and is distinctive by its glass-fronted entrance. Neptune House has featured in several popular television series, most notably...
(now part of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Elstree Studios
Elstree Studios
"Elstree Studios" refers to any of several film studios that were based in the towns of Borehamwood and Elstree in Hertfordshire, England, since film production begun in 1927.-Name:...
) to double for the EUROSEC Headquarters in Portugal. Heatherden Hall
Heatherden Hall
Heatherden Hall is a grade II Victorian Country House located in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England. It stands in the grounds of Pinewood Studios and is used as offices, movie sets, and as a wedding venue....
(a building at Pinewood Studios) features as the nursing home that is seen to be the residence of the old Jason Webb at the end of the film.
To create the illusion of the parallel Earth
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
— which is apparent in images such as reversed text — quickly and cheaply, the production team inverted the film negatives
Negative (photography)
In photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that...
in an optical process known as "flop-over". This technique saved the time and money that would otherwise needed to have been spent building sets and props with specially reversed elements, or organising road closures to film cars driving on the "wrong" side of the road. However, the scenes set in or around the parallel EUROSEC Headquarters required careful rehearsal and co-ordination with cast and crew prior to filming. The incorporation of the flop-over technique results in some continuity errors: for example, the terminals of the Heart Lung Kidney machines onboard Phoenix are initially seen connected to Ross and Kane's left wrists, but this later changes to their right wrists.
The production staff encountered difficulties in transferring from script to screen a scene that depicts an international teleconference
Teleconference
A teleconference or teleseminar is the live exchange and mass articulation of information among several persons and machines remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system...
being held on high-resolution viewing monitors. Due to both the limited use of colour images at the time of production, and the need to avoid black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
images to honour the futuristic setting of Doppelgänger, it was decided to have the actors playing the conference delegates positioned behind the set, and have the shapes of the monitors cut out of the set wall. Silver paper reflected light from behind the actors, producing a realistic impression of high-resolution screens. Altered eyelines
Eyeline match
An eyeline match is a film editing technique associated with the continuity editing system. It is based on the premise that the audience will want to see what the character on-screen is seeing. The eyeline match begins with a character looking at something off-screen, there will then be a cut to...
strengthen the audience's perception that each delegate is facing a camera rather than the other actors in the scene, and are in different locations around the world. Archer and Hearn promote the teleconference scene as an example of how Anderson "proved once again that his productions were ahead of their time."
Disputes
In the course of the production, the creative approaches of Anderson and Parrish came into conflict. Anderson remembered that, "On two or three occasions we had to go and see Jay Kanter so he could mediate between us ...Breach of contract
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance....
, the director announced to the cast and crew, "Hell, you heard the producer. If I don't shoot these scenes which I don't really want, don't need and will cut out anyway, I'll be in breach of contract. So what we'll do is shoot those scenes next!" Anderson has discussed how the production of Doppelgänger presented new challenges, explaining, "I had worked for so many years employing directors to do what I told them ... Suddenly I came up against a Hollywood movie director who didn't want to play and we ended up extremely bad friends." In his 2002 biography, Anderson stated, "The only regret I have about the Doppelgänger situation is that I hired Bob Parrish in the first place." Of Parrish, Sylvia Anderson has said that his direction was "uninspired. We had a lot of trouble getting what we wanted from him."
One dispute among the founders of Century 21 — Gerry and Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, Reg Hill
Reg Hill
Reginald E. Hill was a British television producer and was most prominently associated with the work of puppet animator Gerry Anderson.-Professional life:...
and John Read
John Read (producer)
John Read is a British television producer, cinematographer and director.He is widely associated with the productions of Gerry Anderson. Having served as director of photography on Four Feather Falls , Crossroads to Crime , Supercar , Stingray and Thunderbirds , Read worked on the latter series'...
— emerged from the filming of other scenes, including one in which the character of Lise Hartman washes herself in a shower. Read, the director of photography, had complied with Parrish's instructions to light the sequence in silhouette
Silhouette
A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Although the art form has been popular since the mid-18th century, the term “silhouette” was seldom used until the early decades...
. Anderson, who had intended the scene to present actress Loni von Friedl in the nude, demanded a re-shoot, insisting that Read honour his obligations not just to Parrish as director but also to his Century 21 partners. According to Sylvia Anderson, "Gerry was very keen to show that he was part of the 'Swinging Sixties' and felt that seeing a detailed nude shot — as he visualised it — was more 'with it' than the more subdued version." Anderson clashed with Read and Parrish for a second time when special effects shots of Phoenix in space were filmed with a hand-held camera
Hand-held camera
Hand-held camera or hand-held shooting is a filmmaking and video production technique in which a camera is held in the camera operator's hands as opposed to being mounted on a tripod or other base. Hand-held cameras are used because they are conveniently sized for travel and because they allow...
: "I was furious because I knew enough about space travel to know that in a vacuum
Vacuum
In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...
a spacecraft will travel as straight as a die ... [Parrish] told me that people were not familiar with space travel and therefore they would expect to see this kind of movement." Refusing to re-shoot the scenes on the grounds that Parrish's instructions had precedence over Anderson's, Read resigned from both Century 21 and the production of Doppelgänger at the behest of the Andersons and Hill. Anderson has elaborated, "Clearly John was in a difficult position. I do now understand how he must have felt, but in my heart I feel he couldn't play a double role."
Effects
The production base for special effects remained the Century 21 Studios in SloughSlough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
, Berkshire, which had been prepared for shooting on the final Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series, The Secret Service
The Secret Service
The Secret Service is a British children's espionage television series, made as a Century 21 production for ITC Entertainment and broadcast in 1969...
. Supervising director Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
supervised the completion of more than 200 shots, including the sequence presenting the destruction of the EUROSEC Headquarters at the end of the film. A six-foot (1.8 m) Phoenix scale model
Scale model
A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...
, which emulated the design of the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
multi-stage Saturn V
Saturn V
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
rocket, had to be rebuilt after igniting and almost injuring a technician. For authenticity, the effects staff mounted the Phoenix lift-off shots outdoors, in a section of the Century 21 car park, to film against a genuine sky backdrop. Archer and Hearn describe the sequence as "one of the most spectacular" of its sort produced at the Century 21 Studios. Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, who believes that it is indistinguishable from a Cape Kennedy launch, comments that she is "still impressed by the magic of the effects. Technology has come a long way since the early Seventies, but Derek's effects have endured."
Although Century 21 had constructed a life-size Dove capsule in Slough, it could not be used for filming at Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
due to an arrangement with the National Association of Theatrical Television and Kine Employees
National Association of Theatrical Television and Kine Employees
The National Association of Theatrical Television and Kine Employees was an entertainment trade union in the United Kingdom.The union was founded in the aftermath of a strike at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1890, as the United Kingdom Theatrical and Music Hall Operatives' Union...
(NATTKE) to build and use such props exclusively on-site. Once the original had been incinerated, carpenters at Pinewood rebuilt the prop, although Anderson remains disappointed with the finished product, which he considered inferior. Reviewing the scale models of Doppelgänger, Martin Anderson of the Den of Geek website describes the Phoenix command module as "beautifully ergonomic without losing too much NASA-ness", and the Dove lander module as "a beautiful fusion of JPL gloss with classic lines". He argues that the Phoenix launch sequence remained the finest example of Meddings' effects until his work on the 1979 James Bond
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
film Moonraker
Moonraker (film)
Moonraker is the eleventh spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Clery, and Richard Kiel...
, and praises his efforts in light of the absence of computer animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
in the 1960s.
Post-production
Composer Barry GrayBarry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
recorded his score, his favourite of all his musical contributions to the Anderson productions, in three days from 27 to 29 March 1969. Fifty-five musicians attended the first studio session, 44 the second and 28 the last. The track titled "Sleeping Astronauts", which accompanies the scenes of Ross and Kane's journey through the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
, features an Ondes Martenot
Ondes Martenot
The ondes Martenot , also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales, is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin...
, played by French ondiste Sylvette Allart. Archer and Hearn credit "Sleeping Astronauts" as "one of the most enchanting pieces Gray ever wrote", and state that the soundtrack, which has not been commercially released, evokes a "traditional Hollywood feel" that is in contrast to the 2069 setting of Doppelgänger. The inspiration for the title sequence
Title sequence
A Title Sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television programs present their title, key production and cast members, or both, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound...
came from the theme of espionage connected to Dr Hassler: a miniature camera is seen concealed inside the character's ocular prosthesis
Ocular prosthesis
An ocular prosthesis or artificial eye replaces an absent natural eye following an enucleation, evisceration, or orbital exenteration. The prosthetic fits over an orbital implant and under the eyelids. Often referred to as a glass eye, the ocular prosthesis roughly takes the shape of a convex...
in what Archer and Hearn describe as an imitation of the style of 1960s James Bond
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
films.
Theatrical release
When production on Doppelgänger ended in October 1968, all 30 episodes of Joe 90Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
had been completed and the Andersons' upcoming television series, The Secret Service
The Secret Service
The Secret Service is a British children's espionage television series, made as a Century 21 production for ITC Entertainment and broadcast in 1969...
, had entered pre-production. The final cut had a mediocre reception from Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
executives, leading to the postponement of the film's release for 12 months. It received an A
History of British film certificates
-Overview:The UK's film ratings are decided by the British Board of Film Classification and have been since 1912. Previously, there were no agreed rating standards, and local councils imposed their own - often differing - conditions or restrictions...
certificate from the British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
(BBFC) on 26 March 1969, dispelling rumours of an X rating and fulfilling the Andersons' objective that Doppelgänger would be suitable for children if viewed with adults. To obtain an A certificate, cuts trimmed some of the more explicit violence and sexual detail, shortening the running time from the original 104 minutes.
Doppelgänger opened at the London Odeon Cinema
Odeon Leicester Square
The Odeon Leicester Square is a cinema which occupies the centre of the eastern side of Leicester Square, London, dominating the square with its huge black polished granite facade and high tower displaying its name. Blue neon outlines the exterior of the building at night. It was built to be the...
in Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
on 8 October 1969, having premiered on 27 August in the United States. On 1 November, it appeared in Detroit, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, starting another round of presentations in American cinemas. The film received a disappointing box office reception on general release.
British distributors Rank
Rank Organisation
The Rank Organisation was a British entertainment company formed during 1937 and absorbed in 1996 by The Rank Group Plc. It was the largest and most vertically-integrated film company in Britain, owning production, distribution and exhibition facilities....
released the film under its original name in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. The title Journey to the Far Side of the Sun has been adopted in the United States and Australia since Universal Pictures determined that the audiences of these countries might not understand the meaning of the term "doppelganger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
". Simon Archer and Stan Nicholls
Stan Nicholls
Stan Nicholls has been a full-time writer since 1981. He is the author of many novels and short stories but is best known for the internationally acclamied Orcs: First Blood series....
, authors of Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Biography, argue that Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which has superseded Doppelgänger as the more popular title, provides a clearer explanation of the plot, but suggest that it lacks the "intrigue and even poetic quality of Doppelgänger".
Television broadcasts
Two prints of Doppelgänger in its original 35 mm35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
format, for UK release, are known to exist. While the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
(BFI) retains one, the other is in the possession of Fanderson
Fanderson
Fanderson is the official appreciation society for the works of Gerry Anderson. It is a not-for-profit organisation endorsed by Anderson Entertainment Ltd, Gerry Anderson Productions plc and ITC Entertainment Group Ltd...
, the official fan organisation dedicated to the Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
productions. The original prints of Doppelgänger position Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry
Ian Hendry was an English film and television actor. He is best known for his work on several British TV series of the early 1960s such as The Avengers, and for his roles in 1970s films such as Get Carter .-Career:Hendry was born in Ipswich, Suffolk and educated at Culford School...
before Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes
Roy Thinnes is an American television and film actor best known for his portrayal of lonely hero David Vincent in the ABC 1967-68 television series The Invaders. He also played Alfred Wentworth in the pilot episode of Law & Order...
in the opening credits. In the Journey to the Far Side of the Sun format, Thinnes is billed before Hendry. Certain UK prints alter the final scene featuring the old Jason Webb with the addition of a short voice-over from Thinnes in character as Ross, who is heard speaking a line that he said to Webb earlier in the film: "Jason, we were right. There are definitely two identical planets."
For broadcasts in the United Kingdom, Doppelgänger has been aired under the title Journey to the Far Side of the Sun and has been formatted accordingly. Transmissions have often contained inverted picture due to a mistake made in transferring an original print to videotape. Prior to a screening in the 1980s, a telecine
Telecine
Telecine is transferring motion picture film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in the post-production process....
operator viewed the print and, being unfamiliar with the plot, concluded that the scenes set on the parallel Earth had been reversed in error. An additional "flop-over" edit restored the image to normal, which became the standard for all broadcasts but compromised the plot: if Doppelgänger is screened in this modified form, the viewer is led to conclude that the Dove crashes witnesses the parallel Ross landing on the non-parallel Earth.
Home releases
Previously available in laserdiscLaserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
format, Doppelgänger has been released on NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
Region 1 DVD in both 1998 and, in a digitally-remastered presentation, in 2008. The 2008 release included PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
Region 2 for the first time, although the film is marketed as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun rather than Doppelgänger. No additional material is present on the Region 1 releases, although the Region 2 edition contains a film trailer. While the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
(MPAA) has certified the film G since its 1969 theatrical release, on its 2008 home release the BBFC re-rated Doppelgänger PG from the original A for "mild violence and language".
Reception
Since its original release, Doppelgänger has had a mixed critical reception in both the United Kingdom and the United States, although Archer and Nicholls argue that it has attained cultCult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
status.
1960s and 1970s
In a review published in The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in October 1969, John Russell Taylor
John Russell Taylor
John Russell Taylor is an English critic and author. He is the author of critical studies of British theatre; of critical biographies of such important figures in Anglo-American film as Alfred Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, and Ingrid Bergman; of Strangers in Paradise: The...
praised the concept of the film as "quite ingenious" but suggested that the title and pre-release marketing had revealed too much of the plot for the film to sustain the interest of its audience. Commenting in New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine in November, Judith Christie introduced Doppelgänger as "a science-fiction film that comes up with a fascinating premise three-quarters of the way along and does nothing with it." She praised the production as being "nicely gadget-ridden" and raising questions on the conflict between politics and science, but also criticised the film for containing "scrappy bits of dumb sex scenes" due to poor editing.
Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine cited a confusing plot, and related the crash of the Dove module to the coherence of the scriptwriting in its declaration that, "Astronauts take a pill to induce a three-week sleep during their flight. Thereafter the script falls to pieces in as many parts as their craft." Although it was argued to be better than average for its genre in The Miami News
The Miami News
The Miami News was the dominant evening newspaper in Miami, Florida for most of the 20th century, its chief concurrent competitor being the morning-edition of The Miami Herald. The paper started publishing in May 1896 as a weekly called The Miami Metropolis. The Metropolis had become a daily paper...
in September 1969 and The Montreal Gazette in April 1972, in December 1969 the Pittsburgh Press
Pittsburgh Press
The Pittsburgh Press is an online newspaper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, currently owned and operated by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Historically, it was a major afternoon paper...
dismissed the film as "a churned out science-fiction yarn ... Let's hope there's only one movie like this one", and ranked it among the worst films of the year. The Montreal Gazette claimed that, although the quality deteriorates towards the end of the film, "until then it's a reasonably diverting futuristic melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
."
Post-1970s
In a 2008 review published on the website Den of Geek, Martin Anderson praised Robert ParrishRobert Parrish
Robert R. Parrish was an American actor, film editor, film director, and writer. He received an Academy Award for Film Editing for the 1947 film, Body and Soul....
's direction and Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
' special effects. However, the dialogue, which was described as "robust and prosaic", was stated to sit "ill-at-ease with the metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
ponderings". Anderson also expressed concern about the editing, stating that each special effects shot precedes another shot "with that 'Hornby
Hornby Railways
Hornby Railways is the leading brand of model railway in the United Kingdom. Its roots date back to 1901, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was produced in 1920. In 1938, Hornby launched its first 00 gauge train...
' factor, slowing up the narrative unnecessarily". Doppelgänger is awarded a rating of three stars out of five, and is summarised as "an interesting journey with many rewards". Glenn Erickson
Glenn Erickson
Glenn Erickson is an American film editor and film critic. He started in the film industry in 1975 as an editor of low budget films and later worked in minor technical crew capacities in such major films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941...
, commenting in 2008 on the website DVD Talk
DVD Talk
DVD Talk is a website for DVD enthusiasts founded in January 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman when DVDs and DVD players were first beginning to hit the market.The site started as an online forum, an email newsletter, and a page of DVD news and reviews...
, argued that Doppelgänger "takes an okay premise but does next to nothing with it. We see 100 minutes of bad drama and good special effects, and then the script opts for frustration and meaningless mystery." He complained of unappealing cinematography, comparing it to the premise of Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
in so far as "people stand and talk a lot", while defining the script as being composed of "at least 60 percent hardware-talk and exposition
Exposition (literary technique)
At the beginning of a narrative, the exposition is the author's providing of some background information to the audience about the plot, characters' histories, setting, and theme. Exposition is considered one of four rhetorical modes of discourse, along with argumentation, description, and narration...
... How people move about — airplane, parachute, centrifuge
Centrifuge
A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by an electric motor , that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis...
— is more important than what they're doing."
On the subject of effects, Erickson asserted that sequences such as the "thuddingly generic, drama-challenged main rocket launch" detract from the human factor of the film due to poor editing. Other design elements were criticised: viewing the costumes as dated, Erickson added that "at home, the actors are defeated by the Barbie
Barbie
Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration....
doll house surroundings", and suggested that the visuals of Doppelgänger match an ethos of "the future will be a shopping mall". Although he considered Doppelgänger a "good" film (a rating higher than "fair" but lower than "excellent"), Erickson argued that the opportunities presented by the parallel Earth
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
concept were squandered in the determination to turn the Anderson production into "an excuse to show cool rocket toys".
Doppelgänger is given a rating of two-and-a-half stars out of five in a negative review published on the Film4
Film4
Film4 is a free digital television channel available in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4, that screens films.-Programming:...
website, which praises the effects work and costume design but criticises the scenes with the character of Dr Hassler for their irrelevance to the main plot, and the subtext of the Rosses' strained marriage as an unnecessary diversion from the narrative. Although Ross and Kane's mission through space is described as a "brief, trippy light show", the review questions the originality of having a parallel Earth as the focus, and the depth of the script's vision: "Anderson's has to be the cheapest alternate Earth ever. Whereas audiences might expect a world where the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
never fell or the Nazis won World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, here the shocking discovery is that people write backwards. That's it." Doppelgänger is only recommended for fans of the Anderson productions, and is considered "an occasionally interesting failure".
Gary Westfahl
Gary Westfahl
Gary Westfahl is a scholarly author and reviewer of science fiction. He has written reviews for the Los Angeles Times, Internet Review of Science Fiction and Locus Online. He is a professor at the University of California in Riverside....
of the webzine SF Site asserts that the use of a near-perfect parallel Earth is uninspired, referring to the setting as "the most boring and unimaginative alien world imaginable". Among other reviews, TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
magazine describes Doppelgänger as a "strange, little film" with an "overwritten script", and considers the subplot concerning Dr Hassler's treachery to be distracting. It awards a rating of two stars out of four. To Chris Bentley, writer of episode guides on the Anderson productions, Doppelgänger is a "stylish and thought-provoking science-fiction thriller".
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
suggests that American audiences, who were less familiar with the Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
productions of Century 21 than British viewers, received the film with greater enthusiasm. She explains, "It was all too easy to compare our real actors with our puppet characters and descriptions such as 'wooden', 'expressionless', 'no strings attached' and 'puppet-like' were cheap shots some of the UK critics could not resist ... Typecasting
Typecasting (acting)
In TV, film, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character; one or more particular roles; or, characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ethnic groups...
is the lazy man's friend, and boy, were we typecast in Britain." On her feelings about Doppelgänger, she commented in 1992, "I saw it on TV a couple of years ago and I was very pleased with it. I thought it came over quite well."
Allusions
Archer and Nicholls cite among possible causes of the commercial failure of Doppelgänger its "quirky, offbeat nature" and the loss of public interest in space exploration after the Apollo 11Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
mission in July 1969. The subject of the Moon landing dominated a review in The Milwaukee Journal from that September, in which Bennett F. Waxse noted comparisons with Doppelgänger: "... the spacemen find a few bugs in their 'LM
Apollo Lunar Module
The Apollo Lunar Module was the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft built for the US Apollo program by Grumman to carry a crew of two from lunar orbit to the surface and back...
' and crash on the planet. And do they ever have their hands full in getting back to Earth!" Writing that the proliferation of technical dialogue hampers the acting, he concluded, "... the makers of this space exploiter may get lots of mileage at the box office, but Neil
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....
[Armstrong], Buzz
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history...
[Aldrin] and Mike
Michael Collins (astronaut)
Michael Collins is a former American astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew in space twice. His first spaceflight was Gemini 10, in which he and command pilot John Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins...
[Collins] did it better on TV."
It has also been suggested that the appearance in 1968 of 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
and Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes (1968 film)
Planet of the Apes is a 1968 American science fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. The film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly and Linda Harrison...
established an unattainable standard for other films of the science-fiction genre. Erickson argued that the film is inferior to 2001: A Space Odyssey for its depiction of a realistic "working future" in which humans remain attached to commercialism
Commercialism
Commercialism, in its original meaning, is the practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business. Today, however, it primarily refers to the tendency within open-market capitalism to turn everything into objects, images, and services sold for the purpose of generating profit...
. Comparing the visual style of Doppelgänger to that used by film director Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, he noted similarities in the use of close-up eye shots and various "psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
" images, but regretted that "all these borrowings are fluff without any deeper meaning." In the Film4 review, the final scenes featuring the character of Jason Webb are described as "hell-bent on recreating the enigmatic finale of 2001 by using a mirror, a wheelchair and a tartan blanket." Martin Anderson discusses connections between Doppelgänger and other science-fiction films of the 1960s and 70s, such as Solaris
Solaris (1972 film)
Solaris is a 1972 film adaptation of the novel Solaris , directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled, because the scientist crew have fallen to...
, noting a "lyrical" tone in the dialogue. However, ultimately Doppelgänger "doesn't bear comparison with Kubrick or [Solaris director Andrei] Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
."
Erickson contrasts perceived failures on the part of the script with the efforts of Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
for the 1958 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
serial Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass...
and the 1964 film adaptation of the 1901 H.G. Wells novel The First Men in the Moon
The First Men in the Moon
The First Men in the Moon is a 1901 scientific romance novel by the English author H. G. Wells. The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon undertaken by the two protagonists, the impoverished businessman Mr Bedford and the brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr. Cavor...
. Both Douglas Pratt and the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in London liken the concept of the alternative Earth to the plot of "The Parallel
The Parallel
"The Parallel" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:An astronaut, Major Robert Gaines, is orbiting the Earth in his space capsule. However, at one point the systems malfunction and he blacks out, waking up on Earth...
", a 1963 episode of the American television series The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
. In the episode, astronaut Major Robert Gaines returns to Earth to find that his world has undergone many changes, some trivial and some drastic, concluding that he has arrived in a parallel universe. Critic S. T. Joshi
S. T. Joshi
Sunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...
compares the theme of duplication in Doppelgänger to the premise of the 1956 Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which characters' fears that their relatives have been abducted and replaced with alien impostors are justified with the appearance of the Pod People
Pod People (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)
Pod people is a nickname given to an alien species featured in the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1978 remake of the same name and the 1993 film Body Snatchers.-History from the novel:The Pod People are a race of nomadic,...
, an extraterrestrial species with the power to form doppelgangers that are almost indistinguishable from real humans.
Legacy
Despite the polarised critical reception and commercial failure of Doppelgänger, Lew GradeLew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
offered the Andersons further opportunities to film in live action. Their first television series not based on puppetry was UFO
UFO (TV series)
UFO is a 1970-1971 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth, created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.UFO first aired in the UK and Canada...
, which commenced broadcast in the United Kingdom in September 1970. Doppelgänger is considered an immediate precursor to UFO, and has also been described as a "trial run" for the second Anderson live-action series, Space: 1999
Space: 1999
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...
. UFO featured actors, costumes, props, locations and music that had appeared in Doppelgänger. Of the film cast, Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
, Keith Alexander
Keith Alexander (actor)
Keith Alexander is a British actor and voice actor.Alexander's television credits include Softly, Softly , The New Avengers , Minder and The Day of the Triffids...
, Cy Grant
Cy Grant
Cy Grant was a Guyanese actor, singer, writer and poet, who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television...
, Martin King
Martin King (actor)
Martin King is a British actor, voice actor and former continuity announcer.His television credits include Dixon of Dock Green , Crossroads , Detective and The Troubleshooters...
and Jeremy Wilkin
Jeremy Wilkin
Jeremy Wilkin is a British actor, possibly best known for his contributions to the television productions of Gerry Anderson....
had had an association with the Andersons from earlier productions: all had provided voices for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...
with the exception of Alexander, who had voiced characters for the penultimate Supermarionation series, Joe 90
Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
. With 11 other cast members, all but Grant and King appeared in at least one episode of UFO, a series in which Bishop appeared in the lead role of SHADO Commander Ed Straker.
Special effects elements from Doppelgänger that re-appeared in UFO included the scale models of the Phoenix spacecraft and Dove shuttle. Futuristic cars (which consultants from the Ford corporation based on the chassis of the Zephyr Zodiac
Ford Zephyr
The Ford Zephyr was a car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United Kingdom. Between 1950 and 1972, it was sold as a more powerful six-cylinder saloon to complement the four-cylinder Ford Consul: from 1962 the Zephyr itself was offered in both four- and six-cylinder versions.The Zephyr...
) and jeeps (adapted from British Leyland Mini Moke
Mini Moke
The Mini Moke is a vehicle based on the Mini and designed for the British Motor Corporation by Sir Alec Issigonis. The name comes from "Mini"—the car with which the Moke shares many parts—and "Moke", which is an archaic dialect term for donkey...
s) were also re-cycled. Neptune House
Neptune House
Neptune House is an office block situated in the grounds of BBC Elstree Centre in Clarendon Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.The imposing office block dates from the 1960s and is distinctive by its glass-fronted entrance. Neptune House has featured in several popular television series, most notably...
, one of the filming locations for Doppelgänger, became the face of the Harlington-Straker Film Studios home to SHADO. Tracks from Barry Gray
Barry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
's Doppelgänger score that are heard in UFO include "Sleeping Astronauts" and "Strange Planet", the latter serving as the ending theme music. The teleprinter
Teleprinter
A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
images that appeared in the Doppelgänger titles formed a creative element that was imitated for the opening credits of UFO.
In a retrospective of Anderson's career published on the IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
website, it is stated that the discussion of politics and economics in Doppelgänger contrast with the conventions of 1960s science fiction. Furthermore, such aspects are reflected in the atmosphere of UFO in so far as the characters "were constantly having to deal with the pressures of having to show progress under the scrutiny of accountants and elected officials, much the same way NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
was starting to in the US." Commenting on the parallels between the film and the television series, Anderson makes another connection to Kubrick: turning his attention to scripting, he argues, "the most interesting common ground between the two projects remains the bleak ending(s) and the slight flirtation with the acid-induced imagery and mind fucks of 2001 [: A Space Odyssey]."
External links
- Trailer at TVGuide.com