Another escapee from the prenatal writer’s workshop. If you can get through the first two-thirds of this crapfest you’ll be rewarded by numerous unintended laughs throught the final third. The actors somehow got out of this with their credibility intact. Look for a thirteen year old Patty Duke among the unfortunate cast members. The Ralph Carmichael Jazz soundtrack doesn’t fit this junk for a second.
Dr.Tony Nelson (James Congdon) is trying to amp up the electrical impulses of the brain to do necessary things like pass a pencil through steel. His near success manages to burn down the building. Needing a job he heads to a research center where his brother Scott (Robert Lansing) is part of a scientific team trying to come up with a metal that can’t be penetrated. It’s called Cargonite named after the center’s head who takes all the credit.
Now there’s an asinine romantic triangle that forms between Scott, Tony and Linda Davis (Lee Meriwether). Tony is about to leave town as he tells Linda that he once stole Scott’s fiancee away from him. That lasted a month. Rather than go through all the boring details of this storyline I’ll skip to the “scientific stuff.
Scott’s brain has been effected by the experiments. His Dr., Brian Schwartz can’t figure it out. One night Scott sneaks into the lab and breaks into Tony’s locker and tries the force field himself. While trying to push a rod through the Cargonite he also puts his hand through it. He hears someone coming in and hides under the desk. It’s Roy Parker (Robert Strauss). He’s scheming to get a lab of his own and steals Tony’s notes. He presents them to Carson as his own.
Meanwhile Tony comes into the lab and discovers Scott. Crawling right along Scott goes into a deserted town and puts his hand through a mailbox and then a few store windows. The next day’s newspaper has a headline about a fifty thousand dollar bank robbery.
Scott’s starting to go bonkers and visits Dr.Schwartz. He grabs him. His hands go through him. Scratch one doctor. He dies instantly of old age. The next day he calls on Carson who tells him about Parker. Scott demands his own lab and some big bucks but decides to kill Carson instead. Then he breaks into Tony’s locker again and steals the force field and hides it so he can’t be stopped. Let the murder spree…and the laughs begin.
Robert Lansing had been in a few TV episodes. This is his movie debut. He had better luck later on TV as General Frank Savage on “Twelve O’Clock” High” (1964-65) and as Control on “The Equalizer” (1985-89).
Where’s the fourth dimension?
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