Time Slip (1953)
Radio Times, November 20, 1953: Many writers have been fascinated by the idea of time and the pricks it can play. Very few of us understand the Fourth Dimension - to say nothing of the Fifth and Sixth - but most of us have an uneasy feeling that there is a great deal more to time than just yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
| Production company/ies | Broadcast station(s) | Broadcast date(s) |
|---|---|---|
| BBC | BBC Television Service | November 25, 1953 (8.15pm) |
Production credits
| Producer(s) | Director(s) | Writer(s) | Other notable credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Osborn | Unknown | Charles Eric Maine |
Acting credits
|
Synopsis
Time Slip centres around "John Mallory", who has died, but has been brought to life again by an adrenalin injection. Everything about him is now normal except that his time-sense is out of synchronisation by 4.7 seconds. He understands what is said to him and replies lucidly to questions - 4.7 seconds before they have been put to him. "Dr Slade", a hospital psychiatrist, becomes interested in Mallory's case and determines to cure him. After consultation with an eminent physicist friend of his, George Ingram (uncredited), he decides on the desperate and, to say the least of it, medically unorthodox step of smothering his patient with a pillow, killing him, and bringing him to life again with a more carefully administered injection of adrenalin.
Notes
The BBC Television Service broadcast a short 30-minute play by English writer Charles Eric Maine (born David McIlwain, January 21, 1921 - November 30, 1981) who began writing for and co-editing a science fiction magazine called The Satellite. After serving with the RAF in North Africa during the war, he worked in TV engineering and became involved in editorial work for radio and TV. During 1952, he sold his first radio play, Spaceways, to the BBC. Due to its popularity, it became a novel as well as a movie. The play was broadcast live and was never recorded.
A movie version, named Timeslip, was made in 1955, directed by Ken Hughes, and starring Gene Nelson and Faith Domergue. Maine made significant changes to the story for the film. In 1956 the film was shortened from 93 to 76 minutes and distributed in the US as The Atomic Man. In some areas as a double feature with Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956). In 1957, Maine turned the script into a novel, The Isotope Man. The film was broadcast as Timeslip on July 1, 1983, on BBC 1.
