Four Sided Triangle (1953)
Four Sided Triangle (1953), directed by Terence Fisher.
Three childhood friends, reunited as adults, build a matter replicator in an old shed, anticipating the computer startup garage-works of later decades. Romance? With two men and one woman, not all can be made happy. What if they replicated the woman? Even if she consented, wouldn't both versions still love the same man?
This is in no sense an important or exceptional film. I review it only because I thought I knew 1950s science fiction films and had never heard of it until recently.
Its good features:
The pastoral English village setting is appealing.
An early effort from Hammer Films, it is not developed like an SF film at all. The presentation is matter-of-fact, more about the characters than anything else. I always admire the seriousness of Hammer stories, no matter how fantastical the topic.
Matter duplicators and transmitters have been important devices in SF since then: philosophical tools for exploring identity and transformations. Is this the first film to use them?
In this sort of story we expect the perfectly replicated woman to be actually altered in some sinister way, with an otherworldly stain or shadow on her soul. But no: she really is an exact copy, and that is the problem.
Rather good Malcolm Arnold score, better than the film deserves.
It's a chance to see Barbara Payton, a minor actress who partied too hard with many famous people, had a scandalous career and a brutally tragic decline and fall. You can read the details in the IMDB bio and wikipedia.
At this time she'd gone to England to try to restart her career. As a B-movie actress she does an entirely respectable job in this minor film.
Netflix has the DVD.
