Four Sided Triangle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Four Sided Triangle
Directed by Terence Fisher
Produced by Michael Carreras
Alexander Paal
Written by Paul Tabori
William F. Temple (novel)
Starring Stephen Murray
Barbara Payton
James Hayter
John van Eyssen
Music by Malcolm Arnold
Cinematography Reg Wyer
Editing by Maurice Rootes
Release date(s) 1953
Running time 81 minutes
Country UK
IMDb profile

Four Sided Triangle is a 1953 British science-fiction film directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer Film Productions.

The film dealt with the moral and scientific themes (not to mention "mad lab" scenes) that were soon to put Hammer Films on the map with the same director's The Curse of Frankenstein. Four Sided Triangle has most in common with Fisher's Frankenstein Created Woman (1967).

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The film opens with Dr. Harvey (or "Doc" as he is known to the locals) relating to the audience an odd tale that took place in his peaceful village.

Bill and Robin are boyhood friends who compete for the affections of Lena, a beautiful girl about their own age. In adulthood, the two men collaborate on the invention of the Reproducer, a machine that can exactly duplicate physical objects.

Lena comes back into the picture, reviving the childhood feelings in the two men. It transpires that they abandon their work on the Reproducer, Robin going away to learn his family's business. Bill is disappointed to discover that Lena loves Robin and intends to marry him.

Seeing the hopelessness of winning Lena for himself, Bill convinces the young woman to allow him to use the Reproducer to create a duplicate of her. The experiment succeeds, and Bill names the woman he has created "Helen."

Unfortunately, the experiment has worked too well, and when Helen is introduced to Robin, she falls hopelessly in love with him too. Bill decides his last chance is to use electro-shock to erase Helen's memory.

Helen agrees to give it a try, and Bill convinces Lena to help him with the procedure, manipulating some of the electronic equipment. The process seems to work, but the apparatus overheats and explodes, causing a terrific fire.

Robin arrives with Dr. Harvey, who has explained the situation to him, and manages to rescue a woman from the fire. Bill and the other woman perish in the flames.

There is some tension around the idea of which woman Robin has saved, Lena or Helen, especially when Dr. Harvey discovers that the woman has no memory. However, Dr. Harvey recalls that Bill had had to start Helen's heart with a device that he attached to the back of her neck, leaving two scars. Robin is relieved to find that there are no marks on the neck of the woman he has rescued: It is Lena.

[edit] Production details

Four-Sided Triangle was filmed on an impoverished budget even by Hammer Studio standards. Although the film is science-fiction, there is almost a total absence of special effects, gadgetry and trick photography. There is one brief and poignant shot of Helen (the duplicate woman) wistfully peering through a window at Lena (her template) who is looking at Robin. This camera set-up (a double exposure) is the only moment in the entire film when Lena and Helen are both shown onscreen at the same time.

In the crucial dual role of Lena and Helen, the actress Barbara Payton (more notorious for her scandalous personal life than acclaimed for her acting talents) is barely adequate. Barbara Payton's clumsy diction and American accent are made even more obtrusive because Lena is supposedly an Englishwoman.

Four-Sided Triangle is adapted from a novel by William F. Temple, but the novel has a different ending. In the film, we are expected to feel relieved because the "real" woman (Lena) has survived instead of the duplicate (Helen). In the original novel, the woman who survived the fire (presumably Lena) marries Robin, and their happy marriage produces two daughters ... but a few years later, she and her young daughters are killed in a railway accident. Dr. Harvey then reveals that this woman had undergone plastic surgery to remove two scars from her neck: it was actually Lena (the "real" woman) who died in the fire, and Helen (the duplicate) who married Robin and gave birth to his daughters. Possibly author Temple may have felt that his readers would not tolerate the survival of an "artificial" woman (or any children born to her), thus prompting him to kill them off in the novel's epilogue.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Source

Hearne, Marcus & Jonathan Rigby. Four Sided Triangle: Viewing Notes (accompanying R2 DVD release)