The Time Machine (1960 film)

On January 5, 1900, four friends arrive for a dinner at the London home of their inventor friend George, but he is absent. He arrives suddenly, bedraggled and exhausted, and tells what has happened to him.

At their earlier dinner on New Year's Eve, George says that time is "the fourth dimension". He shows David Filby, Dr. Philip Hillyer, Anthony Bridewell, and Walter Kemp a small model time machine and has one of them press a tiny lever on the model. The device disappears, but his friends are skeptical.

George has a full-size time machine which he uses to travel ahead to September 13, 1917. He meets Filby's son, James, who tells him of Filby's death in a war. He then stops on June 19, 1940, during the Blitz, finding himself in the midst of "a new war". George resumes his journey and stops on August 18, 1966. People hurry into a fallout shelter amid the blare of air raid sirens. An elderly James Filby urges George to take cover. Moments later, a nuclear satellite explodes, causing a volcanic eruption. George narrowly makes it back to his machine ahead of the approaching lava, which rises, cools, and hardens, trapping him inside, as he travels far into the future. Eventually the lava wears away, revealing a lush, unspoiled landscape.

George stops at October 12, 802,701, near the base of a sphinx. He finds a group of delicate young men and women wearing simple clothing gathered at a stream. One woman, carried off by the current, screams for help, but her companions show no concern. George rescues her. She says her name is Weena and her people are the Eloi; they do not operate machines, work, or read, and know little of history. One of them takes George to a library, but when he tries to read a book, it crumbles to dust. Outraged, he decides to leave, but discovers that his machine has been dragged into the closed sphinx. Weena follows, telling him Morlocks, who only come out at night, are responsible. A hideous Morlock jumps out and tries to drag her away, but is blinded by George's torch.

The next day, Weena shows George domed structures that dot the landscape: air shafts that lead down to the Morlocks' home. She takes him to an ancient museum where "talking rings" tell of a war in the distant past between east and west that lasted 326 years. The atmosphere became so contaminated that it could no longer be safely breathed. Another ring describes humanity's struggle for survival; many decided to move underground, while some returned to the surface. George realizes this was the beginning of the speciation that resulted in the Morlocks and Eloi. He starts to climb down a shaft, but stops when sirens emerge from the sphinx and blare. The Eloi, in a trance-like state, head for the now-open doors at the sphinx's base. The sirens stop and the doors close, trapping Weena and others inside.

George enters the caverns and discovers that the Eloi are food for the Morlocks. He finds Weena and fights off the creatures, finally inspiring the Eloi to defend themselves. George sets fires and urges the Eloi to climb back to the surface. He directs them to gather tree branches and drop them down the shafts. The resulting fires cause the caverns to collapse.

The next morning, George finds the sphinx's doors open. His time machine is inside. He enters, the doors close, and he is attacked in the dark by Morlocks. He escapes in his machine, sees a Morlock's body decompose rapidly, realizes he's moving forward in time, reverses direction, and returns to 1900.

After George recounts his story, his friends remain skeptical. He produces a flower Weena gave him, and Filby, an amateur botanist, says it is of no known species. George bids his guests a good evening. Filby leaves, but returns to find George and his time machine gone. His housekeeper notes that nothing is missing except three books that she cannot identify. When the housekeeper wonders if George will ever return, Filby remarks that "he has all the time in the world".

• Rod Taylor as H. George Wells
• Alan Young as David Filby/James Filby
• Yvette Mimieux as Weena
• Sebastian Cabot as Dr. Philip Hillyer
• Tom Helmore as Anthony Bridewell
• Whit Bissell as Walter Kemp
• Doris Lloyd as Mrs. Watchett
• Paul Frees as voice of the Rings (uncredited)

George Pal was already known for his pioneering work with stop-motion animation, having been nominated almost yearly for an Oscar during the 1940s. Unable to sell Hollywood on the concept of the film, he found MGM's British studio (where he had filmed Tom Thumb) open to his proposal.

The name of the film's main character (alluded to in dialogue only as "George") connects him both with George Pal and with the story's original science fiction writer H. G. (George) Wells. The name "H. George Wells" can be seen on a brass plaque on the time machine.[6]

Pal originally considered casting a middle-aged British actor like David Niven or James Mason as George. He later changed his mind and selected the younger Australian actor Rod Taylor to give the character a more athletic, idealistic dimension. It was Taylor's first lead role in a feature film.[7]

The time machine prop was designed by MGM art director Bill Ferrari and built by Wah Chang. [8] Recognized today as an iconic film property, Ferrari's machine suggested a sled made up of a large clockwork rotating disk. The disk rotated at various speeds to indicate movement through time, evoking both a spinning clock and a solar disk. In a meta-concept touch, a brass plate on the time machine's instrument display panel identifies its inventor as "H. George Wells", though the Time Traveler is identified only as "George" in dialogue.[6]

The charm of a fantastic technology (time travel), wrapped in the archaic guise of brass mechanisms, studded rivets, Art nouveau arabesques, and crystalline components, influenced the later emergence of steampunk.

The look of the Morlocks was designed by Wah Chang.

With a budget of under $1 million, the film could not be shot on location in London. Live-action scenes were filmed from May 25 to June 30, 1959, in Culver City, California, with the backgrounds often filled in by virtue of matte paintings & models. Some of the costumes and set were re-used from Forbidden Planet (1956) such as the Civil Defence air raid officer uniform which was the C-57-D crew uniform and the large acrylic sphere in the talking rings room, a prop from the C-57-D's control bridge.

Released multiple times on Beta and VHS video cassette, Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED), and both letterboxed and open matte LaserDisc, the film was released on DVD in October 2000 and on Blu-ray Disc in July 2014 from Warner Home Video.

An original score CD was released in 1987 produced by Arnold Leibovit, the original soundtrack recording was composed and conducted by Russell Garcia himself. Released by GNP Crescendo. The track listing is as follows:

CD cover

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote a mixed review, praising the "familiar polish and burnish" of the production values but finding that "the drama, for all its invention, is creaky and a bit passé. (Apparently there has still been no contact with other planets in 800,000 A.D.) And the mood, while delicately wistful, is not so flippant or droll as it might be in a fiction as fanciful and flighty as this one naturally is".[9] A generally positive review in Variety praised the special effects as "fascinating" and wrote that "Rod Taylor definitely establishes himself as one of the premium young talents on today's screen", but faulted the pacing of the film, finding that "things slow down to a walk" once the protagonist arrives in the far distant future.[10] Harrison's Reports called the film "an excellent science-fiction melodrama ... jammed full of suspense, action and out-of-this-world special effects", although the review lamented a lack of comic relief.[11] Whitney Balliett of The New Yorker wrote in a negative review that the film "converts this good simple-minded material into bad simple-minded material", by including such Hollywood touches as a love interest. He was also unimpressed by the production values, writing that the model sets "don't touch the lowest-price Lionel train".[12] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote that with the exception of the "gooey" love interest, "the tale is an engrossing one, boasting adroit camera tricks by Paul C. Vogel and an exceptionally easy, likable performance of the Time Traveler by Taylor. The youngsters will like this, and their elders will be kept wide awake".[13] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that the film was "at its best in the scenes where George explores his new surroundings at each time stop", but found the acting "inadequate: Rod Taylor lacks both intellect and period sense, belonging more to an American science fiction world, and Weena is just a doll. Nevertheless, Pal's visual flair and genuine feeling for his fantasy world help to maintain an entertaining surface for most of the time".[14]

The film has a score of 76%, with an average score of 6.94, at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with 28 out of 37 critics giving the film a positive review.[15]

According to MGM records, the film earned $1,610,000 in the United States and Canada and $1 million elsewhere, turning a profit of $245,000.[3]

The film had admissions of 363,915 in France.[16]

Gene Warren and Tim Baar won the 1961 Academy Award for Best Effects, Special Effects.

The film was nominated for the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

• Dell Four Color #1085 (March 1960)[17][18]

In 1993, a combination sequel-documentary short, Time Machine: The Journey Back, directed by Clyde Lucas, was produced. In its third section, Michael J. Fox talks about his experience with the DeLorean sports car time machine from Back to the Future. In the short's final section, written by screenwriter David Duncan, Rod Taylor, Alan Young, and Whit Bissell reprise their roles from the original 1960 film.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Posters from 'The Time Machine'.

• Time After Time, a 1979 science-fiction film in which H. G. Wells (played by Malcolm McDowell) travels to modern-day San Francisco in his time machine in pursuit of Jack the Ripper.
• The Time Machine, a 2002 remake directed by Simon Wells and an uncredited Gore Verbinski, and starring Guy Pearce in the Taylor role.
• Quantum Leap episode "Future Boy" October 6, 1957 has a character who builds a time machine very similar to that used in Pal's film.
• "The Nerdvana Annihilation", the 14th episode from the 1st season of The Big Bang Theory, in which the characters purchase for $800 the film's time machine at an online auction site only to discover when it arrives that it is not a scale model but a full-size, operating prop reproduction; Morlocks later haunt Sheldon's dreams of time-traveling to the far future.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Time Machine (1960 film)

• The Time Machine at IMDb
• The Time Machine at the TCM Movie Database
• The Time Machine at AllMovie
• The Time Machine at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Time Machine at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Colemanzone.com: A tribute to the classic 1960 MGM movie The Time Machine
• The Time Machine - synopsis of film scenes
• Turner Classic Movies description
• Script (scifimoviepage.com)
• Cinematographic analysis of The Time Machine