A low-budget kiddie sci-fi flick from the same period that brought us "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers," and interestingly enough starring the same actor, Hugh Marlowe, a sort of older version of that other '50s sci-fi star, Richard Carlson. Four astros headed for Mars go through a time warp in space and end up on Earth after atomic Armaggedon has decimated the planet. This makes things convenient both set- and costume-wise, as all the cities and highways are gone and all that's left on the planet's surface is a bunch of murderous cavemen. Ah, but inside one particular cave, the astros encounter an underground habitat containing what's left of humanity. The plot is sort of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" in reverse. Because the story is actually interesting (the sun-deprived humans are dying out and the astros try to convince them to return to the planet's now-decontaminated surface), it's easy to forgive the theatrical photography, cardboard sets, and the three '50s-type females in their restaurant hostess outfits and bouffant hairdos. One way or the other, the always-dependable Marlowe keeps everything nicely grounded as the leader of the astros. The film looks like it cost $1.98 to make, but a reasonably strong story and decent-enough cast make it worth a glimpse. A young Rod Taylor. the Russell Crowe of his day, plays one of the other astros -- although he's given little to do except to bare his chest and make the ladies swoon.

World Without End has four astronauts on a Mars mission enter a time warp similar to what Charlton Heston and his crew encountered in Planet Of The Apes. Only they figure out before the end that it is earth about 500 years into the future where an atomic war has pretty well decimated the planet.

Fortunately for them the world is not just the savage mutants they inhabit outside. There is a civilization kept alive in earth's caves. But they're a pretty pacific lot and frown on these 20th century types with their weaponry which simply consists of handguns.

The four astronauts are Hugh Marlowe, Nelson Leigh, Christopher Dark, and Rod Taylor who would soon star in his own film about time travel. In the end it turns out that these guys and their knowledge of weapons come in pretty useful after all.

The director of this film Edward Bernds who did this for Allied Artists. Bernds who started out working on Frank Capra films was a director of several Bowery Boy features for Allied Artists formerly Monogram Pictures. This was a man used to working with minuscule budgets and realizing that the film didn't turn out half bad.

And unlike Planet Of The Apes it ends on a somewhat optimistic note.

I pretty much thought I'd seen just about all the sci-fi films of the 1950s and I was happily surprised when I discovered "World Without End" today. It's a wonderful movie--which, inexplicably, has a very mediocre score of 6. Why? I have no idea, as it's intelligently written and enjoyable from start to finish.

The story begins with the folks on Earth learning that one of their spacecraft is missing and presumed destroyed. However, the ship actually was somehow catapulted off course and ended up about 500 years in the future. This future, however, ain't exactly pretty as the surface of the planet is controlled by mutated troglodytes who love to kill. Fortunately, the crew is eventually rescued by a small group of humans who have been living underground since the apocalypse destroyed civilization. Unfortunately, these survivors are a wimpy group (with amazingly hot women, by the way) and are content to just stay and hide. But these 1950s humans aren't about to spend the rest of their days underground and have a bold plan to retake the planet for intelligent beings. What's to come of this?

While a bit of the acting is occasionally a bit suspect and the mutants look a bit silly, for a 50s sci-fi film it's actually exceptionally good--with special effects and production values far ahead of its peers. The film is shot in glorious color and the script is awfully entertaining and features a lot of innovations that you wouldn't expect in some 'shlocky sci-fi film'---which this one certainly isn't. Well worth seeing.