The Time Machine (1960 film)
Encyclopedia
The Time Machine is a 1960 American science fiction film
based on the 1895 novel of the same name
by H. G. Wells
in which a man in Victorian England constructs a time-travelling machine which he uses to travel to the future. The film starred Rod Taylor, Alan Young
and Yvette Mimieux
.
The film was produced and directed by George Pal
, who also filmed a 1953 version of Wells's The War of the Worlds
. Pal had always intended to make a sequel to his 1960 film, but it was not produced until 2002 when Simon Wells
(born 1961), great-grandson of H.G. Wells, working with executive producer Arnold Leibovit
, directed a film of the same name
.
The film received an Oscar for time-lapse
photographic effects showing the world changing rapidly.
In 1985, elements of this film were incorporated into The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
, produced by Arnold Leibovit.
, 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, stating that a larger version can carry a man "into the past or the future". When activated, the device blurs, then disappears. Most of his friends dismiss it as a trick, but Filby warns George to destroy the machine. They agree to meet again next Friday.
George heads to his laboratory and sits in his full-scale model. He pushes the lever forward and watches time pass at an accelerated rate. He stops at September 13, 1917 when his house is boarded up. He breaks some boards away and walks inside, where he mistakes a man in uniform for David. It turns out to be David's son James, who informs George that his father had "died in the war
", and that the United Kingdom has been at war with Germany since 1914. He tells him that an Inventor lived across the road who disappeared around the turn of the century, and that his father refused to liquidate it, feeling sure the inventor would return some day.
George then travels to June 19, 1940, into the midst of "a new war
", which he briefly stops in as his machine is buffeted from side to side, in which course his house is hit and destroyed while he is travelling. George's next stop is August 19, 1966, in a metropolis featuring skyscrapers and an elevated monorail. There is a plaque to his house at the site. However, he is puzzled to see people hurrying into a fallout shelter
amid the blare of air raid sirens. An older, grey-haired James Filby tells him to get into the shelter, but seems to remember him, before warning him that "the mushrooms
will be sprouting." James spots an atomic satellite
zeroing in and flees into the shelter. A nuclear explosion causes a volcano
to erupt. Civilization is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust
. George restarts the machine just in time to avoid being incinerated, but lava covers the machine, then cools and hardens, forcing him to travel far into the future until 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, 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, and the Eloi head into a large building where there is food unlike that in his time, George is surprised to find out that the Eloi have no government, no laws, and no civilization to speak of. Curious, he asks to see their books, but when he finds the books all covered in dust and so rotted by mold that they crumble at his touch, he becomes outraged. He returns to where he had left his time machine, but it has been dragged into the sphinx-building, behind locked metal doors. Weena follows George and insists they go back, for fear of "Morlock
s" at night. A bizarre creature covered with long coarse white hair jumps out of the bushes, seizes Weena to prevent her from crying out, and tries to drag her off, but George rescues Weena and wards the beast off with fire. Dazed and shaken, Weena informs him that the hideous creature was one of the Morlocks.
The next day, Weena shows George what appear to be domed well-like air-shafts in the ground. She then takes him to an ancient museum, where the "talking rings" (flat shiny metal rings that can play a recorded message when they are stood vertically on edge and spun like a top) tell of a centuries-long nuclear war/holocaust
. It ended after 326 years; by then the atmosphere had become too polluted for humanity to easily survive. One group of survivors remained underground in the shelters and evolved into the Morlocks, while the other group, which became the Eloi, returned to the surface. George starts climbing down a shaft, but turns back when a siren begins blaring (it is the same air-raid sirens heard in the far past during the nuclear war) from atop the sphinx-building. Weena and the rest of the Eloi walk with a slow emotionless trance-like stride across the land like herded livestock (George remarks that the Eloi are "nothing but fatted cattle to the Morlocks"), and complacently file through the now-open doors of the building, conditioned to walk into the doors, drawn in by the siren. When the siren stops, the doors close, trapping Weena and others inside. The Eloi tell George that the sirens mean "all clear", but they have no idea what it means (it originally meant shelter from a nuclear raid; but now used to lure the Eloi to the Morlocks).
To rescue Weena, George climbs down a shaft and enters the subterranean caverns. In one chamber, he finds human bones and realizes that the Morlocks eat the Eloi. Discovering that the Morlocks are sensitive to light, George uses matches to keep them at bay, eventually fashioning a makeshift torch from a thick wooden stick and some tufts of shedded Morlock hair. A Morlock knocks it away, and a Morlock starts overpowering George, but one of the Eloi summons up the courage to beat the Morlock to death, thus showing that the Eloi are not yet entirely docile. They come to their senses and begin the reawakening that George spoke about to Weena the night before in front of the sphinx. George tells the Eloi to start setting fire to material in the cave, driving off the Morlocks, then leads the Eloi up the shafts to safety. Under his direction, they drop dry dead tree branches into the shafts to feed the fire. There is a series of explosions as each of the domed wells spurts fire one by one and sinks into the ground, and then the entire area caves in, crushing and suffocating most of the Morlocks below.
The next morning, George finds the sphinx-building in charred ruins and the doors to the building open again, with his time machine sitting just inside the entrance. He goes to retrieve his machine, but the doors close behind him and he is attacked by the remaining Morlocks. He knocks one against the wall, killing it. In the faint light of the still-smouldering fires, George manages to activate the machine and escape, first a little farther into the future, accidentally, which he realises when he sees the dead Morlock becoming a skeleton, then back to January 5, 1900.
George's friends scoff at his story and leave; only Filby believes him. He shows a flower from the future, which Filby says could not have bloomed in the winter. Filby turns back and hears the machine being activated, but by the time he reaches the laboratory, George is already leaving on his time machine. Filby tries to break the door down but is too late to prevent his friend from escaping back into the future. He realises George moved the machine inside, so he can appear outside the Sphinx where Weena will be. The housekeeper, Mrs. Watchett (Doris Lloyd
), notes that George took three books with him, probably to help the Eloi rebuild their civilization. Filby asks Mrs. Watchett which three books she would have taken to restart a civilization, and then he leaves with the hope (which is maintained by his son, as previously seen) that George may yet return, as "he has all the time in the world."
* Not credited on-screen.
. 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.
Pal originally considered casting a middle-aged British actor in the lead role such as David Niven
or James Mason
. 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.
MGM art director Bill Ferrari created the Machine, a sled-like design with a big, rotating vertical wheel behind the seat and an inscription on the control plate "Manufactured by H. George Wells".
The film scenes were all filmed from May 25, 1959 to June 30, 1959 in Culver City, California
.
Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux also co-starred in Dark of the Sun
, 1968.
Of the people who did this film, three actors would go on to TV work during the 1960s. Sebastian Cabot
would play Brian Keith
's friend Mr. French on Family Affair
, Alan Young
would befriend the talking horse named Mister Ed
, and Irwin Allen
reworked this film into the TV series The Time Tunnel
with Whit Bissell
playing General Heywood Kirk and turning the title machine of H.G. Wells' novel into a tunnel created by the government to uncover the secrets of time travel. James Darren
, Robert Colbert
, and Lee Meriwether
also starred, along with John Zaremba
. Both Zaremba and Bissell did a TV remake of The Time Machine
twelve years later.
, 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.
starred as the time traveler in a 2002 adaptation
directed by Simon Wells
, the author's great-grandson. Jeremy Irons
co-starred as the leader of the Morlocks, and Alan Young
, veteran of the 1960 film, appears in a cameo as the Fleur de Lys florist.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
based on the 1895 novel of the same name
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...
by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
in which a man in Victorian England constructs a time-travelling machine which he uses to travel to the future. The film starred Rod Taylor, Alan Young
Alan Young
Alan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
and Yvette Mimieux
Yvette Mimieux
Yvette Carmen Mimieux is a retired American movie and television actress.-Early life and career:Yvette Mimieux was born in Los Angeles, California, to a French father and Mexican mother, Carmen Montemayor...
.
The film was produced and directed by George Pal
George Pál
George Pal , born György Pál Marczincsak, was a Hungarian-born American animator and film producer, principally associated with the science fiction genre...
, who also filmed a 1953 version of Wells's The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds (1953 film)
The War of the Worlds is a 1953 science fiction film starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It was the first on-screen loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic novel of the same name...
. Pal had always intended to make a sequel to his 1960 film, but it was not produced until 2002 when Simon Wells
Simon Wells
Simon Wells is an English-American film director of animation and live-action films. He is the great grandson of famous author, H. G. Wells.Born in Cambridge, he attended De Montfort University where he studied audio-visual design...
(born 1961), great-grandson of H.G. Wells, working with executive producer Arnold Leibovit
Arnold Leibovit
Arnold Leibovit is an award-winning writer, producer, and director of feature films and musical productions. An acting member of the Producers Guild of America, he has written, directed, and produced several feature films, including The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal, a biopic of George Pal, and...
, directed a film of the same name
The Time Machine (2002 film)
The Time Machine is a 2002 American science fiction film loosely adapted from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells, and the 1960 film screenplay by David Duncan...
.
The film received an Oscar for time-lapse
Time-lapse
Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing...
photographic effects showing the world changing rapidly.
In 1985, elements of this film were incorporated into The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal is a documentary film about Academy Award winning producer/director George Pal. It was written, directed, and produced by Arnold Leibovit and released in 1985....
, produced by Arnold Leibovit.
Plot
On January 5, 1900, four friends arrive for a dinner in a town in the south of England, but their host, H. George Wells (Rod Taylor), is absent. As requested, they begin without him, but then George staggers in, exhausted and disheveled. He begins to recount his adventures since they last met on New Year's EveNew Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
, 1899.
A week earlier, George discusses time as "the fourth dimension" with friends, among them David Filby (Alan Young
Alan Young
Alan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
) and Dr Philip Hillyer (Sebastian Cabot
Sebastian Cabot (actor)
Charles Sebastian Thomas Cabot was an English film and television actor, best remembered as the gentleman's gentleman, "Giles French," opposite Brian Keith's character, in the 1960s sitcom Family Affair. He was also known for playing Dr...
). He shows them a tiny machine that he claims can travel in time, stating that a larger version can carry a man "into the past or the future". When activated, the device blurs, then disappears. Most of his friends dismiss it as a trick, but Filby warns George to destroy the machine. They agree to meet again next Friday.
George heads to his laboratory and sits in his full-scale model. He pushes the lever forward and watches time pass at an accelerated rate. He stops at September 13, 1917 when his house is boarded up. He breaks some boards away and walks inside, where he mistakes a man in uniform for David. It turns out to be David's son James, who informs George that his father had "died in the war
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
", and that the United Kingdom has been at war with Germany since 1914. He tells him that an Inventor lived across the road who disappeared around the turn of the century, and that his father refused to liquidate it, feeling sure the inventor would return some day.
George then travels to June 19, 1940, into the midst of "a new war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
", which he briefly stops in as his machine is buffeted from side to side, in which course his house is hit and destroyed while he is travelling. George's next stop is August 19, 1966, in a metropolis featuring skyscrapers and an elevated monorail. There is a plaque to his house at the site. However, he is puzzled to see people hurrying into a fallout shelter
Fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
amid the blare of air raid sirens. An older, grey-haired James Filby tells him to get into the shelter, but seems to remember him, before warning him that "the mushrooms
Mushroom cloud
A mushroom cloud is a distinctive pyrocumulus mushroom-shaped cloud of condensed water vapor or debris resulting from a very large explosion. They are most commonly associated with nuclear explosions, but any sufficiently large blast will produce the same sort of effect. They can be caused by...
will be sprouting." James spots an atomic satellite
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
zeroing in and flees into the shelter. A nuclear explosion causes a volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
to erupt. Civilization is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust refers to the possibility of the near complete annihilation of human civilization by nuclear warfare. Under such a scenario, all or most of the Earth is made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons in future world wars....
. George restarts the machine just in time to avoid being incinerated, but lava covers the machine, then cools and hardens, forcing him to travel far into the future until it erodes away.
He stops the machine on October 12, 802,701, next to a low building with a large sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
on top. George explores, 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
Yvette Mimieux
Yvette Carmen Mimieux is a retired American movie and television actress.-Early life and career:Yvette Mimieux was born in Los Angeles, California, to a French father and Mexican mother, Carmen Montemayor...
) and her people the Eloi
Eloi
The Eloi are one of the two post-human races in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine.-In The Time Machine:By the year 802,701 AD, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks...
.
As night falls, and the Eloi head into a large building where there is food unlike that in his time, George is surprised to find out that the Eloi have no government, no laws, and no civilization to speak of. Curious, he asks to see their books, but when he finds the books all covered in dust and so rotted by mold that they crumble at his touch, he becomes outraged. He returns to where he had left his time machine, but it has been dragged into the sphinx-building, behind locked metal doors. Weena follows George and insists they go back, for fear of "Morlock
Morlock
Morlocks are a fictional species created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, The Time Machine. They dwell underground in the English countryside of 802,701 AD in a troglodyte civilization, maintaining ancient machines that they may or may not remember how to build...
s" at night. A bizarre creature covered with long coarse white hair jumps out of the bushes, seizes Weena to prevent her from crying out, and tries to drag her off, but George rescues Weena and wards the beast off with fire. Dazed and shaken, Weena informs him that the hideous creature was one of the Morlocks.
The next day, Weena shows George what appear to be domed well-like air-shafts in the ground. She then takes him to an ancient museum, where the "talking rings" (flat shiny metal rings that can play a recorded message when they are stood vertically on edge and spun like a top) tell of a centuries-long nuclear war/holocaust
Nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust refers to the possibility of the near complete annihilation of human civilization by nuclear warfare. Under such a scenario, all or most of the Earth is made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons in future world wars....
. It ended after 326 years; by then the atmosphere had become too polluted for humanity to easily survive. One group of survivors remained underground in the shelters and evolved into the Morlocks, while the other group, which became the Eloi, returned to the surface. George starts climbing down a shaft, but turns back when a siren begins blaring (it is the same air-raid sirens heard in the far past during the nuclear war) from atop the sphinx-building. Weena and the rest of the Eloi walk with a slow emotionless trance-like stride across the land like herded livestock (George remarks that the Eloi are "nothing but fatted cattle to the Morlocks"), and complacently file through the now-open doors of the building, conditioned to walk into the doors, drawn in by the siren. When the siren stops, the doors close, trapping Weena and others inside. The Eloi tell George that the sirens mean "all clear", but they have no idea what it means (it originally meant shelter from a nuclear raid; but now used to lure the Eloi to the Morlocks).
To rescue Weena, George climbs down a shaft and enters the subterranean caverns. In one chamber, he finds human bones and realizes that the Morlocks eat the Eloi. Discovering that the Morlocks are sensitive to light, George uses matches to keep them at bay, eventually fashioning a makeshift torch from a thick wooden stick and some tufts of shedded Morlock hair. A Morlock knocks it away, and a Morlock starts overpowering George, but one of the Eloi summons up the courage to beat the Morlock to death, thus showing that the Eloi are not yet entirely docile. They come to their senses and begin the reawakening that George spoke about to Weena the night before in front of the sphinx. George tells the Eloi to start setting fire to material in the cave, driving off the Morlocks, then leads the Eloi up the shafts to safety. Under his direction, they drop dry dead tree branches into the shafts to feed the fire. There is a series of explosions as each of the domed wells spurts fire one by one and sinks into the ground, and then the entire area caves in, crushing and suffocating most of the Morlocks below.
The next morning, George finds the sphinx-building in charred ruins and the doors to the building open again, with his time machine sitting just inside the entrance. He goes to retrieve his machine, but the doors close behind him and he is attacked by the remaining Morlocks. He knocks one against the wall, killing it. In the faint light of the still-smouldering fires, George manages to activate the machine and escape, first a little farther into the future, accidentally, which he realises when he sees the dead Morlock becoming a skeleton, then back to January 5, 1900.
George's friends scoff at his story and leave; only Filby believes him. He shows a flower from the future, which Filby says could not have bloomed in the winter. Filby turns back and hears the machine being activated, but by the time he reaches the laboratory, George is already leaving on his time machine. Filby tries to break the door down but is too late to prevent his friend from escaping back into the future. He realises George moved the machine inside, so he can appear outside the Sphinx where Weena will be. The housekeeper, Mrs. Watchett (Doris Lloyd
Doris Lloyd
Hessy Doris Lloyd was an English actress.She appeared in over 150 films between 1920 and 1967, including the 1933 low-budget Monogram Pictures version of Oliver Twist, in which she played Nancy...
), notes that George took three books with him, probably to help the Eloi rebuild their civilization. Filby asks Mrs. Watchett which three books she would have taken to restart a civilization, and then he leaves with the hope (which is maintained by his son, as previously seen) that George may yet return, as "he has all the time in the world."
Cast
- Rod Taylor as George (H. George Wells, as written on the time machine)
- Alan YoungAlan YoungAlan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
as David Filby/James Filby - Yvette MimieuxYvette MimieuxYvette Carmen Mimieux is a retired American movie and television actress.-Early life and career:Yvette Mimieux was born in Los Angeles, California, to a French father and Mexican mother, Carmen Montemayor...
as Weena - Sebastian CabotSebastian Cabot (actor)Charles Sebastian Thomas Cabot was an English film and television actor, best remembered as the gentleman's gentleman, "Giles French," opposite Brian Keith's character, in the 1960s sitcom Family Affair. He was also known for playing Dr...
as Dr. Philip Hillyer - Tom HelmoreTom HelmoreTom Helmore was an English film actor. He appeared in over 50 films between 1927 and 1972, including three directed by Alfred Hitchcock.He was born in London and died in Longboat Key, Florida.-Selected filmography:...
as Anthony Bridewell - Whit BissellWhit BissellWhitner Nutting Bissell , better known as Whit Bissell, was an American actor.-Early life:Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of prominent surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell. He trained with the Carolina Playmakers, a theatrical organization associated with the University of North Carolina at...
as Walter Kemp - Doris LloydDoris LloydHessy Doris Lloyd was an English actress.She appeared in over 150 films between 1920 and 1967, including the 1933 low-budget Monogram Pictures version of Oliver Twist, in which she played Nancy...
as Mrs. Watchett - Paul FreesPaul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
* as Voice of the Rings
* Not credited on-screen.
Production
Pal was already known for pioneering work with animationAnimation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
. 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
Tom thumb (film)
Deliberately uncapitalised, tom thumb is a 1958 fantasy-musical film directed by George Pal and released by MGM. It was based on the fairy tale of the same name...
) friendlier.
Pal originally considered casting a middle-aged British actor in the lead role such as David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
or James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
. 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.
MGM art director Bill Ferrari created the Machine, a sled-like design with a big, rotating vertical wheel behind the seat and an inscription on the control plate "Manufactured by H. George Wells".
The film scenes were all filmed from May 25, 1959 to June 30, 1959 in Culver City, California
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
.
Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux also co-starred in Dark of the Sun
Dark of the Sun
Dark of the Sun is a 1968 adventure-war film starring Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Brown, and Peter Carsten...
, 1968.
Of the people who did this film, three actors would go on to TV work during the 1960s. Sebastian Cabot
Sebastian Cabot (actor)
Charles Sebastian Thomas Cabot was an English film and television actor, best remembered as the gentleman's gentleman, "Giles French," opposite Brian Keith's character, in the 1960s sitcom Family Affair. He was also known for playing Dr...
would play Brian Keith
Brian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film The Parent Trap, the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 adventure saga The Wind and...
's friend Mr. French on Family Affair
Family Affair
Family Affair is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from September 12, 1966 to September 9, 1971. The series explored the trials of well-to-do civil engineer and bachelor Bill Davis as he attempted to raise his brother's orphaned children in his luxury New York City apartment. Davis' traditional...
, Alan Young
Alan Young
Alan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
would befriend the talking horse named Mister Ed
Mister Ed
Originally produced in late 1960, Mister Ed is an American television situation comedy produced by Filmways that first aired in syndication from January 5 to July 2, 1961, and then on CBS from October 1, 1961, to February 6, 1966....
, and Irwin Allen
Irwin Allen
Irwin Allen was a television and film director and producer nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. He was also notable for creating a number of television series.- Biography :...
reworked this film into the TV series The Time Tunnel
The Time Tunnel
The Time Tunnel is a 1966–1967 U.S. color science fiction TV series. The show was created and produced by Irwin Allen, his third science fiction television series. The show's main theme was Time Travel Adventure. The Time Tunnel was released by 20th Century Fox and broadcast on ABC. The show ran...
with Whit Bissell
Whit Bissell
Whitner Nutting Bissell , better known as Whit Bissell, was an American actor.-Early life:Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of prominent surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell. He trained with the Carolina Playmakers, a theatrical organization associated with the University of North Carolina at...
playing General Heywood Kirk and turning the title machine of H.G. Wells' novel into a tunnel created by the government to uncover the secrets of time travel. James Darren
James Darren
James William Ercolani , known by his stage name James Darren, is an American television and film actor, television director, and singer.-Career:...
, Robert Colbert
Robert Colbert
Robert Colbert is an American actor most noted for his leading role portraying Dr. Doug Phillips on the TV series The Time Tunnel and his two appearances as a third Maverick brother in Maverick....
, and Lee Meriwether
Lee Meriwether
Lee Ann Meriwether is an American actress, former model, and the winner of the 1955 Miss America pageant. She is perhaps best known for her role as Betty Jones, the crime-solving partner in the long-running 1970s crime drama, Barnaby Jones. The role earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations in...
also starred, along with John Zaremba
John Zaremba
John Zaremba was an American actor most noted for supporting roles on science fiction films and TV series....
. Both Zaremba and Bissell did a TV remake of The Time Machine
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...
twelve years later.
1993 sequel/documentary
In 1993, a combination sequel-documentary short, Time Machine: The Journey BackTime Machine: The Journey Back
Time Machine: The Journey Back is a documentary film, produced in 1993 for airing on PBS stations. It was hosted by Rod Taylor and produced and directed by Clyde Lucas. The film was made about the Time Machine prop, not the movie, but during filming, Bob Burns surprised director Clyde Lucas by...
, directed by Clyde Lucas, was produced. In the third part, Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...
talks about his experience with Time Machines from Back to the Future
Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...
. In the last part, written by original screenwriter David Duncan
David Duncan (writer)
David Duncan, an American screenwriter and novelist, was born February 17, 1913 and died December 27, 1999 in Everett, Washington. He began writing professionally at the age of 33 after about ten years in government. His screenwriting career began in 1953 with the release of his first film and...
, Rod Taylor, Alan Young and Whit Bissell reprised their roles.
2002 version
Guy PearceGuy Pearce
Guy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
starred as the time traveler in a 2002 adaptation
The Time Machine (2002 film)
The Time Machine is a 2002 American science fiction film loosely adapted from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells, and the 1960 film screenplay by David Duncan...
directed by Simon Wells
Simon Wells
Simon Wells is an English-American film director of animation and live-action films. He is the great grandson of famous author, H. G. Wells.Born in Cambridge, he attended De Montfort University where he studied audio-visual design...
, the author's great-grandson. Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
co-starred as the leader of the Morlocks, and Alan Young
Alan Young
Alan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
, veteran of the 1960 film, appears in a cameo as the Fleur de Lys florist.
Awards and nominations
- Academy Award for Best Effects, Special EffectsAcademy Award for Visual EffectsThe Academy Award for Visual Effects is an Academy Award given for the best achievement in visual effects.-History of the award:The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first recognized the technical contributions of special effects to movies at its inaugural dinner in 1928, presenting a...
winner (1961) - Gene WarrenGene WarrenGene Warren, Sr. won an Academy Award for the special effects on George Pal's The Time Machine in 1960. He also contributed to such projects as Land of the Lost, Man from Atlantis, and The Crow: City of Angels...
and Tim Baar - Hugo AwardHugo Award for Best Dramatic PresentationThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
nomination (1961) - AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
- Nominated Science Fiction Film
See also
- Time After TimeTime After Time (1979 film)Time After Time is a 1979 American fantasy film written and directed by Nicholas Meyer. His screenplay is based largely on a novel by Karl Alexander and a story by Steve Hayes. It concerns British author H. G...
, a 1979 science-fiction film in which H. G. Wells (played by Malcolm McDowellMalcolm McDowellMalcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
) travels to modern-day San Francisco in his time machine in pursuit of Jack the RipperJack the Ripper"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
.