DIMENSION 5 (1966)

Secret agent Justin Power (Jeffrey Hunter), on the run from enemy military police, gets out of a car driven by a woman, proceeds to punch the woman in the jaw, and escapes the police by touching a device on his belt which makes him dissolve into a pink mist. Actually, the device is a "time converter" which can send its user a few minutes or even days into the past or future. Back at Espionage Inc. headquarters, Justin's boss Cane (Donald Woods) gives him a new assignment: track down Big Buddah, the boss of the Dragons, a Chinese crime gang, who has threatened to destroy Los Angeles with a hydrogen bomb unless the United States takes all of its troops out of Southeast Asia. A Dragon agent named Chang is captured but is afraid to talk for fear of Dragon retaliation. In fact, at an airport, Chang is killed by one of the Dragons posing as a photographer, but Justin is able to flash back in time a few minutes and kill the killer, saving Chang. Justin gets an assistant, the lovely Asian agent Kitty (France Nuyen, pictured at left with Hunter), who has her own personal agenda that might clash with Justin's. When they find out that the H-bomb is being shipped into LA in pieces in three weeks, to be exploded on Christmas day, Justin and Kitty "convert" ahead three weeks at the shipping warehouse, hoping to catch the parts before the Dragons do.

This combo of the spy and science fiction genres is much maligned by critics, but seen in the proper context (colorful 60s B-movie with good-looking leads), I found it quite fun. More than one critic has noted that the time travel plotpoints are a bit half-hearted and could be excised to make a more coherent spy movie; I suppose that's true but it's the SF elements that give the movie a kick and provide a clever gimmick for the climactic sequence. Critics are split on the charms of the leads—some find Hunter bland and listless; others like him but find Nuyen bored and distracted. I like both of them. Hunter, in the middle of his career downturn (though he continued to make B-movies until right up to his untimely death in 1969 at the age of 42), is still handsome and charming, albeit with the occasional misogynist tone so prevalent in 1960s movies, especially spy and adventure films. Nuyen does have a somewhat detached feeling to her performance, but it ultimately ties into her character. The two seem an awkward fit at first, but their low-bubbling chemistry works OK. Harold Sakata (enshrined in movie history as Oddjob in Goldfinger) has the villainous presence down but gives a surprisingly low-key performance (his voice is dubbed by Paul Frees). I enjoyed seeing Donald Woods, a B-movie mainstay through the 30s and 40s, aging well as Cane, and Robert Ito (Jack Klugman's forensics assistant in the 70s TV show Quincy) is good but underused as one of the good guy agents. There's an odd subplot involving a Cantonese restaurant that Justin frequents (for some reason, he demands steak and potatoes instead of Chinese cuisine); one of its employees appears to have been a former lover of Justin's but may be currently in the employ of the Dragons. Some of the exposition is delivered drably, as is the background score, but the swingin' 60s sets are colorful. Despite my better self, I chuckled at the scenes of the trio of Espionage Inc. secretaries staring dreamily at Jeffery Hunter whenever he passed by. Not for all tastes, but fans of 60s B-movies will enjoy themselves. [DVD]