I recall seeing this waaaaay back on the saturday afternoon movie show (do they still have sat. aft. movies?) It was a black & white film, I seem to recall most of the principles speaking with british accents, definitely 1950s sc-fi.
The premise (what I can recall of it): A group of scientists (including the 1950s archetypes - mustahioed elder lead scientist, shrinking violet brunette woman, a brash heroic guy, and a cocky smart-alec - they all wear what look like pleather spacesuits.) are in a lab are testing a time-traversing scanner. They observe what looks like a movie screen but it depicts events taking place on another planet in a distant era of time.
One of the scientists (the cocky smart-alec) abruptly approaches the ‘screen’ and discovers that it is actually a portal - he steps right into it, and onto the other world. Too excited to be cautious, he gallivants around on this other world and is then attacked by menacing bald-headed savages. The other scientists (who have been trying to coax him into returning back to the lab) rush to his rescue, jumping through the movie screen/dimensional portal and fending off the savages. (I think the cocky scientist gets killed, but I can’t be sure.)
Alas! The portal collapses, and the band of intrepid scientists are marooned on the alien world.
The scientists meet up with a friendlier band of savages who have hair, and who are at war with the bald-headed savages. The nice savages have a cavernous sanctuary where they are safe from the bald-headed savages. The mustachioed lead scientist determines that this planet is in imminent danger of being destroyed in a matter of weeks, and they must build a new movie screen/dimensional gateway to get back to Earth. They enlist the aid of the nice-guy savages
There is a montage scene showing the scientists & nice savages busily working on building a new gateway. There are several shots of a prominently-displayed sign reading “WORK! WORK! Only (x) days left!” (indicating the waning amount of days left before the imminent apocailypse.) Soon, an exact replica of the lab the scientists were originally using exists in the nice savages’ lair (a miracle of low-budget film-making!)
The scientsts begin to activate the new gateway, but - alack! The mean bald-headed savages manage to break into the lair and attack! There is much carnage (sanitized for 1950s sensibilities), but the scientists & some of the more prominent nice savages manage to barricade themselves into the new lab long enough to open a new moviescreen gateway to the old lab. (Apparently no one has missed the quartet of scientists in the many, many weeks they were stranded on another world; the lab is empty and the time machine is still running.) They all cross over and escape the baldies.
There’s a twist ending of course. For reasons I cannot recall, the scientists realize that they cannot remain on Earth. The moviescreen/gateway shows a projection of a new, more stable world, and everyone solemnly marches through the portal into the new world. Fade out & credits.
That’s the gist of it from what I can remember from what must be 30 years ago (when I saw it on TV). Obviously, there are many, many holes in my recollection of it. But…does this sound even slightly familiar to anybody?
