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The Time Machine (1960 film)
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The Time Machine (AKA H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) is a 1960 science fiction film based on H. G. Wells's 1895 novel of the same name about a man from Victorian England who travels far into the future. It starred Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux. The film was produced by George Pál, who also filmed a 1953 version of Wells' The War of the Worlds. Pál always wanted to make a sequel to his 1960 film, but it was not remade until 2002 when Wells' great-grandson Simon Wells directed a film with the same title.
The film received an Oscar for time-lapse photographic effects showing the world changing rapidly.
Plot
On January 5, 1900, four upper-class friends arrive for a dinner in London, but their host, H. George Wells (Rod Taylor), is absent.
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Encyclopedia
The Time Machine (AKA H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) is a 1960 science fiction film based on H. G. Wells's 1895 novel of the same name about a man from Victorian England who travels far into the future. It starred Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux. The film was produced by George Pál, who also filmed a 1953 version of Wells' The War of the Worlds. Pál always wanted to make a sequel to his 1960 film, but it was not remade until 2002 when Wells' great-grandson Simon Wells directed a film with the same title.
The film received an Oscar for time-lapse photographic effects showing the world changing rapidly.
Plot
On January 5, 1900, four upper-class friends arrive for a dinner in London, but their host, H. George Wells (Rod Taylor), is absent. One of the guests, Filby, reads a note from George, asking them to start without him if he has not arrived by 8 pm. As they begin, George, staggers in, exhausted and disheveled. He collapses into a chair and begins to recount his adventures since they last met on New Year's Eve 1899.
A week earlier, George discusses time as the fourth dimension with friends, among them David Filby (Alan Young) and Dr Philip Hillyer (Sebastian Cabot). He shows them a tiny machine that he claims can travel in time. He tells them it is experimental, that his larger version can carry a man "into the past or the future". When activated, the device first blurs, then disappears. The others dismiss it as a trick and leave. Filby warns George that if it was not a trick, it is not for them "to tempt the laws of Providence." They agree to meet again next Friday.
George heads to his lab where the full-scale model is waiting. He sits in it, pushes the lever forward, and watches time pass at an accelerated rate. To his amusement, he observes the changing of women's fashion on a mannequin in the window of a shop across the street. He stops at September 13, 1917. He meets a man in uniform whom he mistakes for David Filby; it turns out to be his grown son James. He informs George that his father had died in the "war". George returns to the machine and travels to June 19, 1940. There are barrage balloons and bombing. He cannot believe the war has lasted so long, then realizes "this was a new war." His next stop is August 18, 1966. He is puzzled to see people hurrying into a fallout shelter amid the blare of air raid sirens. An older, grey-haired James Filby tries to get him into the shelter, warning him that "the mushrooms will be sprouting." There is an explosion, the sky turns red, and lava oozes down the street. George restarts the machine just in time to avoid being incinerated. The lava covers the machine, cools and hardens, forcing George to travel far into the future before it erodes away.
He stops the machine on October 12, 802,701, next to a low building with a large sphinx on top. George explores the idyllic pastoral paradise and spots young adults by a river. A woman is drowning, but the others are indifferent. George rescues her, but is surprised by her lack of gratitude or other emotion. She calls herself Weena (Yvette Mimieux) and her people the Eloi.
As night falls, George is surprised to find out that the Eloi have no government, no laws, and little curiosity. Wanting to learn why, he asks to see their books. When he finds them all covered in dust and rotted by mold, he is outraged:
"What have you done? Thousands of years of building and rebuilding, creating and recreating so that you can let it crumble to dust. A million years of sensitive men dying for their dreams, for what?!!! So you can swim, and dance, and play.
George returns to where his time machine was, but it has been dragged into the building, behind locked metal doors. Weena follows George and insists they go back inside, for fear of the Morlocks. As George tries to recover his machine, a Morlock grabs Weena, but George saves her.
The next day, Weena shows George openings in the ground like air shafts. She then takes him to a museum, where "rings that talk" tell of a centuries-long nuclear war. One group of survivors remained underground in shelters while the rest decided to "take their chances in the sunlight, slim as those chances might be." George starts climbing down a shaft, but turns back when a siren sounds. Weena and the Eloi walk towards the open building in a trance, conditioned to seek refuge from a non-existent attack. When the siren stops, the doors close, trapping Weena and some others inside.
To rescue her, George climbs down a shaft and reaches a large cave. In one chamber, he sees human skeletons and learns the terrible truth: the Morlocks eat the Eloi. The Morlocks are shown to be hulking, ape-like creatures. George finds they are sensitive to light and uses matches to keep them at bay, eventually fashioning a makeshift torch. A Morlock knocks it away, but one of the male Eloi summons up the courage to punch the Morlock. Weena pitches in as well. George sets the Eloi to setting fire to material in the cave, driving off the Morlocks, then leads the Eloi up the shafts to safety. Under George's direction, they drop tree branches into the shafts to feed the fire. There is an explosion, and the area caves in.
Finding the doors to the building now open, George goes to get his machine, but they close behind him. A Morlock attacks, but George manages to activate the machine and travel into the future, watching the Morlock turn to dust.
Then George returns to January 5, 1900. He tells his story to his friends, but only Filby believes him. After George's friends leave, Filby returns, but by the time he reaches the laboratory, it is too late: George has left again. The housekeeper, Mrs Watchett (Doris Lloyd), notes that he took three books. Filby rhetorically asks which three books she would have taken to restart a civilization. She asks Filby if they will ever see George again; Filby replies, "One cannot choose but wonder, You see, he has all the time in the world."
Cast
* Not credited on-screen.
Production
Pál was already known for pioneering work with animation. He was nominated for an Oscar almost yearly during the 1940s. Unable to sell Hollywood the screenplay, he found the British MGM studio (where he had filmed Tom Thumb) friendlier.
MGM art director Bill Ferrari created the Machine, a sled-like design with a big, rotating vertical wheel behind the seat. The original prop reappeared in animator Mike Jittlov's short Time Tripper, and thus in his feature film version of The Wizard of Speed and Time which incorporated it. It is also in the film Gremlins along with Robby the Robot at the inventor's convention. In an episode of Quantum Leap, an eccentric inventor tries to make a similar-looking machine. More recently, it appeared as a plot device in the situation comedy The Big Bang Theory. The movie scenes were all filmed from May 25 1959 to June 30 1959 in Culver City, California.
1993 sequel/documentary
In 1993, a combination sequel-documentary short, Time Machine: The Journey Back, directed by Clyde Lucas, was produced. In the third part, Michael J. Fox talks about his experience with Time Machines from Back to the Future. In the last part, written by original screenwriter David Duncan, Rod Taylor, Alan Young and Whit Bissell reprised their roles.
Awards and nominations
External links
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