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The Time Travelers (1964 film)
Encyclopedia
The Time Travelers is a science fiction film
directed by B-movie
director Ib Melchior
that inspired the 1966 TV series The Time Tunnel
as well as the 1967 remake Journey to the Center of Time
. The plot involves a group of scientists who find their time-viewing screen allows them to travel through time.
It starred Preston Foster
, Philip Carey
, Merry Anders
, Steve Franken, John Hoyt
and Delores Wells
. The cast also includes superfan Forrest J. Ackerman in one of his many bit roles in science fiction films.
As the setting is becoming unstable, the others enter the portal to bring him back. The portal disappears, stranding them. Then they are pursued by hostile primitives, ending up in a cave. There they find an underground city - all that is left of civilization in a future devastated by nuclear war.
The year is 2071 A.D. City leader Dr. Varno (John Hoyt) explains that Earth is unable to support life. The residents are frantically working on a spacecraft that will take them to a planet orbiting a distant star. The four time travelers pitch in to help complete the spaceship, but before they can lift off, the degenerate mutant humans break in and destroy the ship and the city.
The three scientists, with help from the power technician, work feverishly with future technology to rebuild their time portal. Along with a few people from the future, they escape back to the present just ahead of the mutants. One person throws an object through the gateway that damages the equipment on the other side and shuts down the portal.
The survivors return to the lab, where they make a horrible discovery. Through some error, they are experiencing time at an accelerated rate; the rest of the world is moving in slow motion. Their only option is to travel to 100,000 years in the future. But the screen is dark and what lies ahead is unknown.
When the last one goes through, the screen flashes on briefly and shows the characters walking in a clearing with trees and grass. The film returns back to the start. The sequence of events of the entire movie is rapidly reshown, and then repeats faster and faster until it abruptly ends without further explanation.
Cameo
invented the "Lumigraph" (patented in 1955) which some have called a type of color organ
. Like other inventors of color organs, Fischinger hoped to make the Lumigraph a commercial product, widely available for anyone, but this did not happen.
The instrument produced imagery by pressing against a rubberized screen so it could protrude into a narrow beam of colored light. As a visual instrument, the size of its screen was limited by the reach of the performer. Two people were required to operate the Lumigraph—one to manipulate the screen to create imagery, and a second to change the colors of the lights on cue.
The device itself was silent, but was performed accompanying various music. Fischinger did several performance in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco in the early 1950s, performing various classical music
pieces, and many were impressed by the machine's spectacular images. The Lumigraph ("Lumichord" in the film) was used in The Time Travelers as a "love machine" -- which was not Fischinger's intent, but a decision of the film's producers.
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...
directed by B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
director Ib Melchior
Ib Melchior
Ib Jørgen Melchior is a novelist, short story writer, film producer, film director, and screenwriter of low-budget American science fiction movies, most of them released by American International Pictures...
that inspired the 1966 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...
as well as the 1967 remake Journey to the Center of Time
Journey to the Center of Time
Journey to the Center of Time is a 1967 science fiction film, directed by David L. Hewitt, and starring Scott Brady and Anthony Eisley. It is a remake of The Time Travelers , and was also known as Time Warp.-Plot:...
. The plot involves a group of scientists who find their time-viewing screen allows them to travel through time.
It starred Preston Foster
Preston Foster
Preston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley...
, Philip Carey
Philip Carey
-Biography:He was born as Eugene Joseph Carey in Hackensack, New Jersey. A former U.S. Marine, Carey was wounded as part of the ship's detachment of the USS Franklin during World War II and served again in the Korean War....
, Merry Anders
Merry Anders
Merry Anders is an American actress who has appeared in a number of television programs and films since the 1950s. In 1954, she succeeded Ann Todd as Stuart Erwin's daughter in the final season of his TV series, The Stu Erwin Show.In the 1955-1956 season, she joined Janis Paige in the 26-week CBS...
, Steve Franken, John Hoyt
John Hoyt
John Hoyt was an American film, stage, and television actor.-Early life:Hoyt was born John McArthur Hoysradt. Before becoming an actor with Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, the Yale University graduate worked as a history instructor, acting teacher and even a nightclub comedian...
and Delores Wells
Delores Wells
Delores Wells is an American model and actress. She was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for its June 1960 issue....
. The cast also includes superfan Forrest J. Ackerman in one of his many bit roles in science fiction films.
Plot
Scientists Dr. Erik von Steiner (Preston Foster), Dr. Steve Connors (Philip Carey) and Carol White (Merry Anders) are testing their time viewing device, drawing enormous amounts of power. Danny McKee (Franken), a technician from the power plant, has been sent to tell them to shut down their experiment. During the test, odd shadows quickly cross the room before the screen shows a stark, barren landscape. Danny discovers the screen has become a portal and steps through.As the setting is becoming unstable, the others enter the portal to bring him back. The portal disappears, stranding them. Then they are pursued by hostile primitives, ending up in a cave. There they find an underground city - all that is left of civilization in a future devastated by nuclear war.
The year is 2071 A.D. City leader Dr. Varno (John Hoyt) explains that Earth is unable to support life. The residents are frantically working on a spacecraft that will take them to a planet orbiting a distant star. The four time travelers pitch in to help complete the spaceship, but before they can lift off, the degenerate mutant humans break in and destroy the ship and the city.
The three scientists, with help from the power technician, work feverishly with future technology to rebuild their time portal. Along with a few people from the future, they escape back to the present just ahead of the mutants. One person throws an object through the gateway that damages the equipment on the other side and shuts down the portal.
The survivors return to the lab, where they make a horrible discovery. Through some error, they are experiencing time at an accelerated rate; the rest of the world is moving in slow motion. Their only option is to travel to 100,000 years in the future. But the screen is dark and what lies ahead is unknown.
When the last one goes through, the screen flashes on briefly and shows the characters walking in a clearing with trees and grass. The film returns back to the start. The sequence of events of the entire movie is rapidly reshown, and then repeats faster and faster until it abruptly ends without further explanation.
Cast
- Preston FosterPreston FosterPreston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley...
as Dr. Erik von Steiner - Philip CareyPhilip Carey-Biography:He was born as Eugene Joseph Carey in Hackensack, New Jersey. A former U.S. Marine, Carey was wounded as part of the ship's detachment of the USS Franklin during World War II and served again in the Korean War....
as Dr. Steve Connors - Merry AndersMerry AndersMerry Anders is an American actress who has appeared in a number of television programs and films since the 1950s. In 1954, she succeeded Ann Todd as Stuart Erwin's daughter in the final season of his TV series, The Stu Erwin Show.In the 1955-1956 season, she joined Janis Paige in the 26-week CBS...
as Carol White - John HoytJohn HoytJohn Hoyt was an American film, stage, and television actor.-Early life:Hoyt was born John McArthur Hoysradt. Before becoming an actor with Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, the Yale University graduate worked as a history instructor, acting teacher and even a nightclub comedian...
as Dr. Varno - Dennis Patrick as Councilman Willard
- Joan WoodburyJoan WoodburyJoan Woodbury was an American actress beginning in the 1930s and continuing well into the 1960s.-Early life, entrance into acting:...
as Gadra - Delores Wells as Reena
- Steve Franken as Danny McKee, the Electrician
- Berry Kroeger as Preston
- Gloria Leslie as Councilwoman
- Mollie Glessing as Android
- Peter Strudwick as The Mutant
- J. Edward McKinley as Raymond
- Margaret Seldeen as Miss Hollister
Cameo
- About midway through the movie, Forrest J Ackerman appears briefly in a scene depicting several technicians. Ackerman's only line in the movie is "I'm keeping all my Spacemen happy", a line utterly irrelevant to the surrounding dialogue. In fact, at this time Ackerman was editing a science-fiction magazine titled Spacemen; the movie was heavily promoted in his magazine on the basis of Ackerman's cameo appearance in the movie.
Oskar Fischinger and the Lumigraph
In 1950, filmmaker Oskar FischingerOskar Fischinger
Oskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 , which is now listed on the...
invented the "Lumigraph" (patented in 1955) which some have called a type of color organ
Color organ
The term color organ refers to a tradition of mechanical , then electromechanical, devices built to represent sound or to accompany music in a visual medium—by any number of means. In the early 20th century, a silent color organ tradition developed...
. Like other inventors of color organs, Fischinger hoped to make the Lumigraph a commercial product, widely available for anyone, but this did not happen.
The instrument produced imagery by pressing against a rubberized screen so it could protrude into a narrow beam of colored light. As a visual instrument, the size of its screen was limited by the reach of the performer. Two people were required to operate the Lumigraph—one to manipulate the screen to create imagery, and a second to change the colors of the lights on cue.
The device itself was silent, but was performed accompanying various music. Fischinger did several performance in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco in the early 1950s, performing various classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
pieces, and many were impressed by the machine's spectacular images. The Lumigraph ("Lumichord" in the film) was used in The Time Travelers as a "love machine" -- which was not Fischinger's intent, but a decision of the film's producers.