# ID this very weird old sci-fi film from a half-remembered scene? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 22, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342 "2014-11-22T15:41:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342/1 "2014-11-22T15:41:27Z")
I think I asked this question here in CS a long time ago, and I believe somebody might have even answered it, but … lunkhead me I forgot it. Anyway, definitely a black & white movie, from my very vague recollection I would say it seemed to be 40s or 50s era. The only scene I can recall is four astronauts (or scientists or whatever) - three men and a woman - are in some netherworld dimension room with ceiling so high you couldn’t see them. The room was completely empty and featureless save for one wall with a mosaic of globes all along it. Inside each globe was a miniature city. The astronauts had one globe in their possession that they had to place in an empty socket high up on the wall. Somehow or other, this globe had been dislodged and it caused all of time (except for them) to stop moving. And nothing would happen anywhere in the universe ever again if they didn’t put the globe back. The astronauts make a human pyramid, and the woman _almost_ inserts their globe into the socket, but then there’s a fantastic GONG-ing like a grandfather clock chiming that’s so loud it shakes the room and everyone falls. They’re left back at square one, wondering what to do and how to save the universe. One thing I know for certain, it is not the Twilight Zone episode with the dolls, even though the scenario of forming a human ladder and the gonging that disrupts them is similar. Does this sound familiar to anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342/2 "2014-11-22T18:59:35Z")
I checked under the “Time Freeze” and “Reset Button” pages in Tvtropes and didn’t see anything that looked promising (though oddly enough, I found this movie [The Time Travelers (1964 film) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Travelers_%281964_film%29) that I saw 30 some years ago on TV, and never got around to looking for on purpose). Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342/3 "2014-11-24T01:45:47Z")
Thanks for looking anyway. The one you linked to isn’t it, though I believe I saw that one too. (In hindsight, there was a lot of really strange stuff on at the 4:00 movie on weekday afternoons.) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342/4 "2014-11-24T02:27:56Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > Thanks for looking anyway. The one you linked to isn’t it, though I believe I saw that one too. (In hindsight, there was a lot of really strange stuff on at the 4:00 movie on weekday afternoons.) Did you try searching your old threads to see if anyone had any ideas back then? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342/5 "2014-11-24T02:42:21Z")
I’m sure this isn’t it, but I want to point out that there’s another TZ episode featuring a miniature colony of people on another planet, but that’s about of the plot that resembles what you mentioned. > **[The Little People (The Twilight Zone)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_People_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29)** > > "The Little People" is episode 93 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on March 30, 1962 on CBS. > The time is the space age, the place is a barren landscape of a rock-walled canyon that lies millions of miles from the planet Earth. The cast of characters? You've met them: William Fletcher, commander of the spaceship; his copilot, Peter Craig. The other characters who inhabit this place you may never see, but they're there, as these two gentlemen will ... ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342/6 "2014-11-24T03:30:32Z")
Reminds me of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy episode “Halls of Time” where everyone has an hourglass with the sands of their lives. What could go wrong showing them to a bunch of rotten kids? Also, the whispering gallery of the Soul Hunters from Babylon 5. I thought looking that up would direct me to some movie reference, but no luck. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-very-weird-old-sci-fi-film-from-a-half-remembered-scene/705342/7 "2014-11-24T13:25:32Z")
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but might it be **The Terrornauts**? From the description: > [@](#): > > Dr. Burke tells of his father’s discovery at an archaeological dig in France of a cube that gave him strange dreams as a boy, inspiring him to become an astronomer. The signal is sent and reaches the asteroid. The asteroid has on it a huge installation that receives the radio signal and answers it with a spaceship sent riding down the radio beam to the point of transmission. When the spacecraft arrives at Project Star Talk, it picks up the transmitter shed and carries it, the project staff and the 2 witnesses to the alien installation. The telescope staff’s leader believes, despite eyewitnesses that the transmitter shed exploded, killing the Star Talk team. > > Upon arrival at the asteroid, the team is greeted by a robot that takes them through a series of tests. After each test, they are provided with rewards such as food for the intelligence test, a weapon for the motivation test and a “Knowledge Cube” for the knowledge test. After a tour of a control room, they are then brought to a chamber with a small platform and a figure in a chair, who simply happens to be the long dead caretaker of the base. As they head back to the control room, Ben bumps Sandy onto the platform and she is “transposed” in a puff of smoke to a distant planet peopled by savages who try to kill her. Dr. Burke then follows Sandy to the planet armed with the gun and effects a rescue before she is killed discovering the secret of the Knowledge Cubes in the process. Dr. Burke plugs in to the cube, and the horrible secret is revealed, the planet of savages is the home of the survivors of an interstellar war that is fast approaching Earth, and the Star Talk team are the only ones who can use the advanced weapons of the installation to stop an invading enemy fleet from destroying Planet Earth. The team searches frantically through the huge library of cubes for the instructions to use the weapons of the fort but are unsuccessful. > **[The Terrornauts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terrornauts)** > > The Terrornauts is a 1967 British science fiction film directed by Montgomery Tully and starring Simon Oates and Zena Marshall. It was produced by Amicus Productions and based on the 1960 novel The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinster, adapted for screen by John Brunner. Space scientists foil an alien invasion of Earth. > Project Star Talk is based at a UK radio telescope site; its mission is to listen for radio signals from other intelligences. Dr Joe Burke leads the project, assisted by his sm... The Terrornauts is one weird flick. It has rock-bottom bad production values, and is a terrible movie. The poster is arguably good: > **[The Terrornauts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terrornauts#mediaviewer/File:Terrornautsposter.jpg)** > > The Terrornauts is a 1967 British science fiction film directed by Montgomery Tully and starring Simon Oates and Zena Marshall. It was produced by Amicus Productions and based on the 1960 novel The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinster, adapted for screen by John Brunner. Space scientists foil an alien invasion of Earth. > Project Star Talk is based at a UK radio telescope site; its mission is to listen for radio signals from other intelligences. Dr Joe Burke leads the project, assisted by his sm... But incredibly misleading. The script has high-power SF talent behind it, being based on a story by Murray Leinster, with a screenplay written by John Brunner (!!!) It is, however, awful beyond belief.(I’ve never read “The Wailing Asteroid”, the story it’s supposed to be based on) To quote the Wikipedia page: > [@](#): > > It went out on a double bill with They Came from Beyond Space. This double bill has been called “the two worst films the company ever produced” The film lost money. No surprise. For years the poster for this hung in the MIT Science Fiction Society library. Probably a grim joke. Or someone really liked the poster. The film is in color, by the way. If this really is it, maybe you saw it on a black and white TV?