World Without End
film poster by Reynold Brown
Directed by	Edward Bernds
Written by	Edward Bernds
Produced by	Richard G. Heermance
Starring	Hugh Marlowe Nancy Gates Nelson Leigh Rod Taylor Christopher Dark
Cinematography	Ellsworth Fredericks
Edited by	Eda Warren
Music by	Leith Stevens
Distributed by	Allied Artists Pictures Corporation
Release date	July 30, 1956 March 25, 1956
Running time	80 min
Language	English

World Without End is the title of a science fiction B-movie, released in 1956 by Allied Artists. The first science fiction thriller in Cinemascope, it starred Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor, Nancy Gates, Christopher Dark, and Nelson Leigh and was directed by Edward Bernds.

This film marked an early 'big-screen' performance of Rod Taylor. The Australian-born actor would soon make his mark in science fiction film history, portraying another time traveler in the George Pal production of The Time Machine.

This film chronicles the exploits of four astronauts, whose 1957 spaceship accidentally travels at incredible velocities as they return from a trip circling Mars. They are knocked unconscious, and land on a snow-peaked mountain. They venture out, and discover that they have become victims of time dilation and are now in Earth's future. They theorize, from seeing mass numbers of time-worn graves and after having had their ship's instruments register residual radiation across the planet, that humanity has been largely destroyed by a devastating atomic war in 2188 and that they are at least 200 years after that (they later learn the year is actually 2508). One of the four astronauts, Henry Jaffe, is particularly grief-stricken as he realizes that his wife and children have long since died.

After surviving attacks by giant, horrifying mutant spiders, they are attacked by one of two competing remnants of human society. These are violent, mutated, one-eyed surface dwellers who live in a primitive hunter-gatherer system. They have been deformed by generations of exposure to residual radioactivity, and they cruelly dominate a segment of 'normal' (non-mutated) human tribesmen who dwell among them. The leader of the mutants is the vicious Naga.

Living underground are descendants of those who were lucky enough to relocate permanently beneath the surface when atomic warfare started. These subterraneans live in a high-tech, sophisticated living space. They are a peaceful, reasonable group, led by the elder statesman Timmek (Everett Glass), president of the council of the underground people. However, the men of the underground society have grown feeble and nearly sterile from generations without sunlight or rugged physical activity. On the other hand, the women of the underground are physically vital and ready for romance. One subterranean woman, Elain, admiring a shirtless Herbert Ellis (Rod Taylor), comments that the astronauts are "more muscular than our men". The astronauts become romantically involved with the women, offending Mories, a male member of the underground. He views the astronauts as dangerous marauders bent upon conquest-driven behavior.

The astronauts, led by John Borden (Hugh Marlowe), try to persuade these underground people to arm themselves and fight for the surface, but are unsuccessful. Borden enters into a romantic relationship with Garnet (Nancy Gates), daughter of Timmek, and into conflict with Mories (Booth Coleman) who thought Garnet was to be his. To implicate the time travelers, Mories plants weapons in their quarters, where he murders a man, and injures Deena (Lisa Montell), a non-mutant surface survivor saved by the underground humans. On finding the weapons in their quarters, Timmek orders the astronauts expelled from the underground civilization, but relents when their innocence is proven. Mories' treachery is disclosed, and he flees to the surface where he is quickly killed by the mutants.

Now with the full cooperation of the subterraneans, the astronauts head back to the surface to fight off the mutants, using as their main weapon a bazooka, manufactured for them by the subterraneans. Borden then fights Naga hand-to-hand for leadership of the mutant tribe; Borden wins, and orders the remaining mutants to free the non-mutant humans. The film ends on a hopeful note, with the non-mutant surface dwellers free, and the subterraneans now living in peace with them on the surface. The tag line reads "The Beginning".

The film was partly made in order to re-use footage fro an earlier Allied Artists film, Flight to Mars (1951).^[1]. A number of people worked on the film who went on to have notable careers, including Sam Peckinpah (dialogue director), Rod Taylor, Alberto Vargas (costumes)^[2] and Walter Mirisch (an executive at Allied Artists).

Some later movies bear some similarity to World Without End, and may have been inspired by the film: The Time Travelers (1964 film), by Ib Melchior, Journey to the Center of Time, and Beyond the Time Barrier (1960). The Time Travelers inspired the 1966 TV series The Time Tunnel as well as the 1967 remake Journey to the Center of Time.

• World Without End at IMDb
• The Unknown Movies: World Without End