The Flipside of Dominick Hide (1980)
Dominick Hide, a time traveller from the year 2130, is studying the London transport system of 1980. Time travellers are supposed to be observers, and are strictly forbidden to land their flying saucers. One time traveller who broke this rule accidentally killed a dog, changing history and causing many future people to disappear. Inspired by his Great Aunt Mavis, Dominick decides to find his great great grandfather. He begins to land in 1980, where his strange clothes and speech make him seem an eccentric oddball. His quest brings him into contact with beautiful boutique owner Jane, and they fall in love. As Dominick's visits become more frequent and more prolonged, he increasingly risks his indiscretion being discovered by his boss, Caleb Line, and every moment he spends in the past increases the danger that he will catastrophically change the future
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I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
I love this movie so much
It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
This was a delightful time travel play from 1980, beautifully played by the main actors, and including clever references, and even a sly note about attitudes to homosexuality.One person mentioned about making this a film with Jim Carrey. I think that would be a dreadful mistake. For one thing, Peter Firth's Dominick is a bit odd in 1980, rather than the madcap zany character in many of Carrey's roles. Secondly, the whole production is understated, the only music being Beatles music played by a futuristic hologrammatic trio, and an undistinguished theme song.Appropriately, this, together with its less successful follow up, Another Flip for Dominick, is definitely "of its time", and should be left alone, but the BBC should repeat both, and on a mainstream channel rather than BBC4, on which they were recently shown.
After 24 years, you would expect a low budget play to show its age, but Flipside holds up very well. Of course the references to 1999 are now, thankfully, inaccurate. Large wall TV's, holographic projectors, video phones, a London Underground that shows which stop you are at - really not a bad effort at prediction.But what really stands out is the great attempt to show the evolution of English after 100 years and more, clipping the sentences to a more precise style. And everything is perfect here, and different too - the editing for instance, where there is a gentle fade between Dominick and Ava as they talk, culminating in a merge of both faces. Even the saucer doesn't look too tacky considering budget constraints. And to think that this was just one of a seemingly endless parade of new plays shown each week. Shame on the BBC for not promoting new drama, and new dramatists in this way any more.There is something so nostalgic about the way the play unfolds, and the music is great too.
Just waiting for a release on DVD! Maybe with the sequel?! Let all Sci-Fi fans out there get the possibility to watch this good movie and us who seen it, the possibility to place it on a pedestal or in the bookshelf!
When this film was shown as part of the BBC's 'Play for Today' season I had some French homework to do for school the following day.The story which took time travel, a genre which was and always has been popular with science fiction writers, to a new level. Concentrating on the characters in the story (and an excellent story it is), rather than the sci-fi elements themselves made this compelling viewing. It actually made the science fiction elements appear to be more 'real'.I'm sure if I were to see it again it would seem a little dated, but at the time (and a few years later when it was repeated as a prologue to the inferior, but nonetheless interesting and worth watching sequel 'Another Flip for Dominick') it was way ahead of anything else on the screen (small or large).Needless to say, I failed to complete my French homework and received some extra work to do as a punishment - but it was worth it.