MOVIE REVIEW: “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun” (1969)

I woke up this morning in a vaguely Derek Meddings mood, and wanted to watch something he was involved in. The only thing I had on hand was a copy of “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun”, also known in some markets as “Doppelganger,” so I decided to re-watch that. Of course I’ve seen it a zillion times - this is the kind of B-movie that was late-night gold when I was growing up. Shown infrequently at 3AM on Cable, it’s just a near-perfect example of what’s good and what’s bad about ‘60s SF movies

It’s got a genuinely interesting story, a very solid C-list cast, workman style direction, a surprisingly ethereal soundtrack, and special effects that would still look pretty special all the way in to the 1990s.

PLAY BY PLAY

In the not-too-distant future - probably 15 or 20 years hence, so let’s call it somewhere between 1984 and 1989 - Europe has their own international space agency, called “Eurosec” (European Space Exploration Community), which is headquartered out of Portugal. Herbert Lom and Dr. John Kane (Ian Hendry) are checking some information in a very impressively secure Connery/Bond-looking set. Lom looks at some info, admits he was wrong about the data, apologizes, and leaves.

Back at home, Lom opens up a secret cabinet in his bathroom and pulls out one of his own eyes - it’s fake. Inside it is a camera, which he was using to take photos of the classified info.

Cue opening credits.

After the teaser, we see Dr. Kane and Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark) calling a teleconference with the member nations of Eurosec to announce some new info. There’s also a NASA liaison there played by Ed Bishop, a longtime member of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson stable. They produced and co-wrote this movie. They reveal that a recent probe has discovered a 10th planet in our solar system, exactly opposite the sun from earth. (Hence the title). They propose launching a manned expedition to this new world before the news gets out.

The Council disagrees vehemently, and NASA refuses to pony up the dough to help pay for it.

Webb cleverly uses their security breach to shift the situation in his favor. They don’t know who the spy is, but they strongly suspect Herbert Lom. They entrap Lom, and then kill him *after* he’s transmitted some of the info pertaining to Planet 10. Now that the unnamed bad guys - assumed to be the Soviets, but is it really? Something later in the film calls that in to question - the US has no choice but to pony up a billion dollars to move the mission ahead. In exchange, NASA requires full information sharing, and they demand an American astronaut be sent along on the EUROSEC mission. Webb agrees.

I can’t tell you how fun it is to see these scenes. The backroom political deals and manipulation like this is far, far more fun than we get to see in most movies of the period where everyone is driven by pure or merely scientific motivations. Seeing how the deal is made fills a void so gaping in SF movies that most people don’t even realize it exists. The boy’s club nature of the scenes between Webb, Bishop, and the nebulous international security guy who’s been just