The Human Duplicators (1965)

The most surprising thing about The Human Duplicators (1965) is that it isn't a United Pictures Corporation (UPC) production.  With its mix of espionage and science fiction, low production values and use of past their prime, but still recognisable actors, it certainly looks and feels like one of the low budget science fiction films produced by UPC around the same time.  Even the sets and exteriors used look similar.  Undoubtedly, the similarities are in large part due to the fact that Human Duplicators was written by Arthur C. Pierce, who also wrote the UPC films, which included Dimension 5 (1965) and The Destructors (1966).  These latter two films are very similar to Human Duplicators in terms of their low budget portrayals of secret intelligence organisations, even down to the individual characters, who feel interchangeable between the three films.  The Human Duplicators, however, has the highest science fiction content - while the time travelling of Dimension 5 and the death rays of The Destructors are ultimately simply plot devices, secondary to their espionage plots, here the science fiction elements are central to the film.  

An Italian-US co-production, distributed by the Woolner Brothers, who handled US distribution of a lot of Italian exploitation films at this time, The Human Duplicators has the 'Intergalactic Council' send Dr Kolos (Richard Kiel) to earth in order to facilitate their plans for colonisation.  His job is to take over the cybernetic research and lab of Dr  Dornheimer (George MacCready) - he's one of those maverick scientists with a huge, remote, house with a private lab - and start turning out android duplicates of various scientists, politicians etc, in order to aid the alien takeover.  Starting with Dornheimer himself.  Opposing Kolos is NIA agent Glenn Martin (George Nader), who becomes suspicious of Dornheimer when one of the body of one of the duplicated scientists is found near his house.  The plot does take a few twists and turns, with Kolos questioning his orders after developing feelings for Dornheimer's blind niece, refusing to duplicate her and destroy the original, the android Dornheimer rebelling and deciding to cut the aliens out and stage an android takeover of the earth instead and Martin gets duplicated, his android double sowing confusion with the NIA, before the real Martin breaks out and saves the day.  Somewhat more ambitious in its scope than the UPC films it so resembles, Human Duplicators nevertheless brings nothing parrticularly new to the table, its ambitions undermined by its poverty row budget and flat direction.  Its main point of interest is in seeing Richard Kiel in a leading role - in which he is actually OK, giving one of the film's more animated performances and succeeding in conveying the character's growing reservations over his task.  It is also mildly surprising to see George MacCready, a character actor who was still getting roles in A-list movies, mixed up in such a low budget affair.  Reasonably enjoyable while it is playing, The Human Duplicators just doesn't have enough to make itself linger in the memory afterwards.