You will meet yourself face-to-face when Earth meets its duplicate in outer space!

Man has conquered the moon with the epic Apollo 11 flight! Now take another momentous journey!


A previously unknown planet is discovered within our solar system, orbiting on the far side of the sun exactly opposite the position of the Earth, and at precisely the same speed. The European space agency Eurosec, headed by Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark), whose solar probe made the discovery, decides to send a manned mission to investigate, teaming America's top astronaut Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes) and British astro-physicist John Kane (Ian Hendry). Their voyage aboard the space vehicle Phoenix is supposed to take six weeks, but when the ship returns to orbit in only three weeks -- ending in a crash of their landing vehicle that kills Kane -- Eurosec can only conclude that Ross has engaged in some sort of sabotage. The astronaut is at a loss as to how they could have done a round-trip in just three weeks, until he makes a startling discovery -- that everything that he sees, from the layout of rooms and buildings to all of the writing around him, is reversed, left to right and right to left. It takes Ross, amid his confusion, to arrive at the only possible conclusion -- that he and Kane did, indeed, journey to the new planet, and that world is a duplicate of Earth (and visa versa) down to the last molecule, a perfect mirror-image; and that world dispatched its own mission, with its own Ross and Kane. He and Webb, and Eurosec, scarcely have time to absorb the implications of this discovery -- if true -- as they prepare for a return flight for Ross, despite enormous risks and some potentially very dangerous unknowns in getting him back to the Phoenix.


Doppelgänger is a 1969 British science-fiction film directed by Robert Parrish and starring Roy Thinnes, Ian Hendry, Lynn Loring and Patrick Wymark. Outside Europe, it is known as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which is now the more popular title.[1][2] In the film, a joint European-NASA mission to investigate a planet in a position parallel to Earth behind the Sun ends in disaster with the death of one of the astronauts (Hendry). His colleague (Thinnes) discovers that the planet is a mirror image of Earth.
The first major live-action film of Century 21 writers-producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson,[3] noted for Thunderbirds and other 1960s "Supermarionation" puppet television series, shooting for Doppelgänger ran from July to October 1968. With Pinewood Studios as the principal production base, Parrish filmed on location in both England and Portugal. The professional relationship between the Andersons and their director became strained as the shooting progressed,[4] while creative disagreements with cinematographer John Read resulted in his resignation from Century 21.[2]
Doppelgänger premiered in August 1969 in the United States and October 1969 in the United Kingdom. Although the film in general has been praised for the quality of its special effects and set design, the parallel Earth plot device has attracted criticism, with some commentators judging it to be clichéd and uninspired in comparison to the precedent established by previous science fiction. In addition, while Doppelgänger has frequently been interpreted as a pastiche of major science-fiction films of the 1960s, including 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), certain plot devices and imagery used have been dismissed as weak imitations of the originals. It has been termed a cult film.[5]
Actors and props from Doppelgänger would re-appear in a later Anderson TV series, UFO.[1][6] Although the Andersons incorporated adult themes into their script in an effort to distinguish the film from their previous children's TV productions, cuts to more mature content were required to permit an A and, later, PG certificate from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The film has only had a limited DVD run.


When production on Doppelgänger ended in October 1968, all 30 episodes of Joe 90 had been completed and the Andersons' upcoming television series, The Secret Service, had entered pre-production.[10] The final cut had a mediocre reception from Universal Pictures executives, leading to the postponement of the film's release for 12 months.[10] It received an A certificate from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) on 26 March 1969,[8][27] dispelling rumours of an X rating and fulfilling the Andersons' objective that Doppelgänger would be suitable for children if viewed with adults.[9] To obtain an A certificate, brief cuts were made to shots of contraceptive pills, shortening the running time from the original 104 minutes.[27][28]
Doppelgänger opened at the London Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square on 8 October 1969,[8] having premiered on 27 August in the United States.[29] On 1 November, it appeared in Detroit, Michigan, starting another round of presentations in American cinemas.[29] The film received a disappointing box office reception on general release.[10]
British distributors Rank released the film under its original name in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.[2] The title Journey to the Far Side of the Sun has been adopted in the United States and Australia[2] since Universal Pictures determined that the audiences of these countries might not understand the meaning of the term "doppelganger".[5] Simon Archer and Stan Nicholls, authors of Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Biography, argue that Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which has superseded Doppelgänger as the more popular title,[2] provides a clearer explanation of the plot, but suggest that it lacks the "intrigue and even poetic quality of Doppelgänger"


In a review published in The Times in October 1969, John Russell Taylor praised the concept of the film as "quite ingenious" but suggested that the title and pre-release marketing had revealed too much of the plot for the film to sustain the interest of its audience.[2] Commenting in New York magazine in November, Judith Christie introduced Doppelgänger as "a science-fiction film that comes up with a fascinating premise three-quarters of the way along and does nothing with it."[33] She praised the production as being "nicely gadget-ridden" and raising questions on the conflict between politics and science, but also criticised the film for containing "scrappy bits of dumb sex scenes" due to poor editing.[33]
Variety magazine cited a confusing plot, and related the crash of the Dove module to the coherence of the scriptwriting in its declaration that, "Astronauts take a pill to induce a three-week sleep during their flight. Thereafter the script falls to pieces in as many parts as their craft."[34] In his 1975 work A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Films, Jeff Rovin stated that the film was "confusing but colourful" and commended it for its "superb special effects".[35] Although it was argued to be better than average for its genre in The Miami News in September 1969[36] and The Montreal Gazette in April 1972,[37] an edition of the Pittsburgh Press in December 1969 dismissed the film as "a churned out science-fiction yarn ... Let's hope there's only one movie like this one", and ranked it among the worst films of the year.[38] The review published in The Montreal Gazette stated that, although the quality deteriorates towards the end of the film, "until then it's a reasonably diverting futuristic melodrama

Release Date: November 10, 1969

Distrib: Universal