The Borderland, written and directed by Leslie Stevens.
When experimenting with strong magnetic fields, scientists discover how to open a passage to another dimension. A side-effect of entering that dimension is reversal of objects into their mirror images. In the first scene the chief scientist puts his hand in the field, with inconvenient results. Could have been worse.
This is a good setup and uses several intriguing elements:
The meeting of science and spiritualism. The rich man funding the research will use either path to contact his dead son.
When dealing with new aspects of time and space we have to start taking premonitions seriously. Are they real, or just the familiar projections of our hopes and fears?
The business manager looks for ways of exploiting the 4th dimension. He never explains what he has in mind.
The Control Voice becomes sentimental in the closing narration: "There are worlds beyond and worlds within which the explorer must explore, but there is one power which seems to transcend space and time, life and death. It is a deeply human power which holds us safe and together when all other forces combine to tear us apart — we call it the power of love".
The climax reminds me of Blair Brown pulling William Hurt out of the Elsewhere into the Here at the end of Altered States (1980).
On the down side, even with this rich set of ideas, the episode is padded. We have a long dinner table exposition and then an experimental procedure at the power plant which is repeated many times. The gear is impressive and everyone takes it seriously, dramatically flipping those switches and calling out the steps. But it goes on and on.
Even so, this builds to an impressive, exciting climax, with our scientist caught between dimensions, witnessing strange and confusing realities, while his wife and friends frantically struggle to bring him back.
The cast includes:
Flashing-eyed Mark Richman, a familiar TV actor. He is the chief scientist and first inter-dimensional explorer.
Nina Foch (The Ten Commandments (1956)) is his wife and co-worker. Her acting classes were called "life-changing" by her students and she was a noted script-doctor.
Gene Raymond (Mr & Mrs Smith (1941), The Locket (1946)) is the semi-shady business partner.
Gladys Cooper is the would-be psychic medium, age 75 and unafraid to show her natural face in close-ups. Last seen in The Song of Bernadette (1943), Mr. Lucky (1943), The Bishop's Wife (1947), Separate Tables (1958).
Alfred Ryder is her devious assistant and another familiar TV character, often in exotically weird roles. I best remember him from Star Trek The Man Trap.
As always with the series the effects are economical but strangely appropriate.
Photographed by John M. Nickolaus.
No Blu-ray commentary track for this episode.