The Time Machine (1960) George Pal

The Time Machine (also known promotionally as H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) is a 1960 British science fiction film based on the novel of the same name written by H. G. Wells in 1895 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' 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, great-grandson of H.G. Wells, working with executive producer Arnold Leibovit, directed a film with the same title.

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.

Plot
On January 5, 1900, four friends arrive for a dinner in London, 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 Eve, 1899.

A week earlier, George discusses time as the fourth dimension with friends, among them David Filby (Alan Young),Anthony Bridewell played by {Tom Helmore},Walter Kemp played by {Whit Bissell} 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. Filby warns George that if it is 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 laboratory and sits in his full-scale model. He pushes the lever forward and watches time pass at an accelerated rate. To his amusement, he observes the changing of women's fashions on a mannequin in the window of a shop across the street. He stops at September 13, 1917 and 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".

George then travels to June 19, 1940, into the midst of "a new war." His house is hit and destroyed during the War. George's next stop is August 18, 1966, in a metropolis featuring skyscrapers and an elevated monorail. 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 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. An explosion turns the sky red and lava floods down the street. George restarts the machine just in time to avoid being incinerated, but the lava covers the machine, then cools and hardens, forcing George 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 the seemingly 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 no civilisation to speak of. Curious, he asks to see their books, but when he finds them all covered in dust and rotted by mold, he becomes outraged. He returns to where he had left his time machine, but it has been dragged into the building, behind locked metal doors. Weena follows George and insists they go back, for fear of "Morlocks" at night. A bizarre creature assaults Weena, but George wards it off with fire.

The next day, Weena shows George what appear to be air shafts in the ground. She then takes him to a museum, where the "talking rings" (metal rings that can play a recorded message) tell of a centuries-long nuclear war. One group of survivors remained underground in the shelters and evolved into the Morlocks, while the other, which became the Eloi, returned to the surface. George starts climbing down a shaft, but turns back when a siren sounds. Weena and the Eloi walk in a trance through the now open doors to the building, conditioned to seek refuge from a non-existent attack at the siren's blaring. When the siren stops, the doors close, trapping Weena and others inside.

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. A Morlock knocks it away, 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. 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 his direction, they drop tree branches into the shafts to feed the fire. There is an explosion, and the area caves in. The next morning, George finds the doors to the building open again. He goes to retrieve his machine, but the doors close behind him and he is attacked by Morlocks. George manages to activate the machine and escape, first to the far future, then back to January 5, 1900.

George's friends scoff at his story and leave; only Filby believes him. Filby turns back, but by the time he reaches the Labotory George was already leaving. He tries to break the door down but was too late. The housekeeper, Mrs Watchett (Doris Lloyd), notes that George took three books with him. Filby asks which three she would have taken to restart a civilization, and 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 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

* Not credited on-screen.

Production
Pal 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 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 Classic 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.

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.

2002 remake
Guy Pearce 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.

This remake was distributed by Warner Bros. outside of the US. By the time the film was remade, WB had acquired (through Turner Entertainment) the rights to the 1960 film.

Awards and nominations

 * Academy Award for Best Effects, Special Effects winner (1961) - Gene Warren and Tim Baar
 * Hugo Award nomination (1961)

Appearances of the Time Machine
The original time machine prop from the 1960 film reappeared in:
 * the mini sequel Time Machine: The Journey Back.
 * animator Mike Jittlov's short Time Tripper, and thus in his feature film version of The Wizard of Speed and Time which incorporated it.
 * the film Gremlins along with Robby the Robot at the inventor's convention.
 * episode 8 of Carl Sagan's series Cosmos - being piloted by Sagan himself - during a discussion of time travel and its hypothetical effects on human history. (A photo of this scene also appears in the book of the series.)

A replica or similar machine appeared in:
 * an episode of The Simpsons in which, Professor Frink uses a machine, a lot like the one shown, to visit his child self, to encourage him to be less geeky.
 * an episode of Quantum Leap, in which an eccentric inventor tries to make a similar-looking machine.
 * "The Nerdvana Annihilation" episode of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, in which a replica time machine was used.
 * Duke it out in D.C. - an add-on to the computer game Duke Nukem 3D - the machine being located in a "secret Government warehouse".
 * "Mickey's Nightmare" (bumper version) - Mickey Mouse dreams about a giant monster who chases his left glove for many, many, many, many, many months, 6,000,000 days, and 1,000,000 years into the Craziest Video Month of Museum with directed by John Korty.