Four Sided Triangle

1997. FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE (1953-England). With Barbara Payton, James Hayter, STEPHEN MURRAY. Directed by TERENCE FISHER. Here is a highly original and spine-tingling science fiction drama which builds to a shattering climax. The setting is a small British village where, ever so typically, “nothing ever happens.” It is the story of three people who were inseparable as children and who have grown into young adulthood. Robin is a “solid, dependable, conscientious” child of the rich. Bill is the “wild and impetuous” son of a drunken bully. Between them is the beautiful and desirable Lena. As they emerged from childhood, Lena went off to America while Robin and Bill studied at Cambridge and developed into brilliant scientists. Lena returns home to find them obsessively working to perfect an invention: a “reproductor,” which can make exact replicas of anything in the world. “You’ve achieved something immense,” Robin and Bill are told before being reminded, “You’ve got to watch every step.” Their machine has potentially earth-shattering importance in that it might be used to produce food to feed the hungry or medicine to cure the sick. In the wrong hands, however, it could be employed to manufacture bombs, guns and instruments of death. As the story progresses, both Robin and Bill discover that they are deeply love with Lena. Before the troubled Bill can declare his feelings, she and Robin announce their engagement. Bill is heartbroken. In his despondency he finds himself “driven by a force he couldn’t control.” If only his beloved had a twin, he thinks. No matter if she be a real human being, or a machine-produced clone…The opening sequence is lifted almost verbatim from the 1940 masterpiece, “Our Town.” 73 minutes Science Fiction