From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie The Time Machine released in 1960.
Starring:
Rod Taylor, Alan Young, Yvette Mimieux (Pronounced Mim-muse)
Directed by:
George Pal
Genre:
Adventure, Romance, Sci-Fi
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
G
Budget:
$750,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
7.6
The Synopsis is:
A man's vision for a utopian society is disillusioned when travelling forward into time reveals a bleak future.
Story:
This film is an adaptation of a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells published in 1895 of the same name. H. G. Wells was a futurist, who wrote about aircrafts, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and the Internet well before any of these things were invented.
H. G. Wells is often called the "father of science fiction"(along with Jules Verne), the "Shakespeare of science fiction" and his book was the first known use of the term “time machine” referring to a time travelling device in which one can travel to the future or the past.
Some of his most famous works were The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and The First Men in the Moon.
He originally explored the concept of time travel in a short story, "The Chronic Argonauts" in 1888 published in his college newspaper.
Over the years prior to the film, the book grew as a classic science fiction literary work and became a staple of study, thus making it a subject in pop culture.
Many adaptations and references for the book were made from 1923 to 1956:
- In 1923 La Belle Valence by Théo Varlet and André Blandin, World War I soldiers find the Time Machine and are transported back to the Spanish town of Valencia in the 14th century. Translated by Brian Stableford as Timeslip Troopers (2012).
- In 1946 Die Rückkehr der Zeitmaschine by Egon Friedell, a film about the technical details of the machine and the time-paradoxes. It was translated into English by Eddy C. Bertin in the 1940s and eventually published in paperback as The Return of the Time Machine in 1972.
- In 1948 and 1950 CBS adapted it into a radio anthology
- In 1949 a live teleplay was broadcast by the BBC
- In 1956 Classics Illustrated adapted The Time Machine into a comic book.
However, it wouldn’t be long before it would be adapted into a feature film. George Pal, a Hungarian-American, animator, film director and producer became famous for short stop-motion animated films initially.
Later in his career he pushed the limits of special effects by producing films, Destination Moon 1950, When Worlds Collide 1951, The War of the Worlds 1953, Houdini 1953, The Naked Jungle 1954, Conquest of Space 1955, The Big Fun Carnival 1957, and Tom Thumb in 1958. Tom Thumb was actually his first directorial feature film.
After successfully producing The War of the Worlds which was also adapted from another H. G. Wells novel, H. G. Wells’ son, Frank Wells talked with George Pal about making an adaptation of The Time Machine.
George couldn’t get any studios in Hollywood to green light the film for a while, but after much effort he found that MGM's British studio where George filmed Tom Thumb, was his way in to make the film. Interestingly enough, the film was shot on MGM's lot in the United States.
At the surface, when I first saw this as a kid in the 1980’s, I thought it was just a cool action-adventure film with lots of schlock. I had no idea that the film had much more to it such as a lot of significant undertones and messages.
At the core of it, it is a time travel movie which is not my favorite movie genre because, in my opinion, time travel is so messy. I could go on and on about it, but it is also interesting that some of my favorite movies have time travel, like The Terminator released in 1984, and Predestination released in 2014 to name a few. I am always surprised when these stories actually dissuade my disbelief and I can have fun with them.
In my opinion this story in particular is one of the most thought-provoking stories in cinema history, inspiring discussions about evolution, classism, and predictions about the future.
Many would say that the book is better than the film but I’d also like to appreciate the fact that this film introduced many people to the book through the decades.
Pacing:
At 1 hour and 43 minutes, it was short and sweet, which worked well with the storytelling. No complaints from me here.
Challenge and Empathy:
Typically, I keep these two sections separately, but in this story I feel as if the challenge stems from the protagonist so I will be talking about the two together.
So to set up the movie, aristocratic scientists are meeting at a man’s home at his request for dinner, but he is running late. He arrives, but disheveled and sits down to tell his story.
In the book the man is just called The Time Traveler and the story is being told by a narrator, one of the men at this dinner. In a way you can say that this is a second hand story, a story of a story. I always thought that was so cool. But it also brings to mind the idea that since this is a retelling, maybe some of the facts may be compromised. I kind of like that idea, that the events we are seeing play out in the movie are possibly exaggerated.
In this movie the time traveler's name is George Wells as homage to H. G. Wells and the director, George Pal.
George’s telling flashes back to the week prior where the privileged intellectuals gathered as they do weekly to discuss advancements in science. George gloats over his new invention exploring the fourth dimension of time but even with a miniature demonstration, his friends do not believe him, nor do they see a practical or profitable use for time travel.
At first it seems that he is frustrated by his peers that they are very closed-minded, but then you realize that there is more, as he speaks privately to his friend David Filby, who is presumably the narrator in the book.
David is fearful of the time machine and does not want to “tempt providence”. David is a good friend but he doesn't quite understand why George wants to travel through time. He is a slave to the responsibilities of the Victorian age so much to the point that eventually David ends up dying in World War 1, which might have been George’s doomed fate as well.
He reveals that he doesn't care too much for the time he was born into. He thinks he is ahead of his time. As well, he criticizes the current society's obsession with war and money.
When he travels to the future he sees that his criticisms of society are quite valid as it leads to a world ravaged by wars, reduced to a primitive state, and mankind is split off into two mutations, the Eloi and the Morlocks.
This twist to the story in the book was heavily based on H. G. Wells’ childhood as his mother was a servant living in the basement of her employer’s home and suffered health issues. He too began his life in unhappy apprenticeships as a teen having to work in basements before he became a writer. In many of these jobs people would spend their entire lives living in underground tunnels suffering horrible health conditions.
This was the inspiration for what a proposed evolution of classism would create. The Morlocks are the descendants of the servants of the rich and industrial workers who lived underground. Somehow over time they began harvesting the Eloi for food.
This is terribly disappointing to George when realizes that the utopia he was hoping for and the advancement of mankind is actually a horrible dystopia.
There are lots of movies that explore ideas of a future world. One type of utopian society was detailed in Things To Come in 1939. I think that was the future George wanted to visit, although it was not without its problems. In Metropolis released in 1929 there was a similar premise to The Time Machine where we have the rich enjoying the city above ground and the workers that run the city were the poor under dwellers.
The film Zardoz released in 1974 where we have Exterminators, Brutals and Eternals, where there was also a separation of people into different economic groups that occurred over hundreds of years after an apocalypse.
In the case of this movie, both the Eloi and the Morlocks have lost touch with their humanity and in the case of the Morlocks you could argue they aren’t really human any more because they appear to be monstrous, a physical symbol of the lack of humanity as well as their willingness to commit cannibalism. They don’t see any kinship with the Eloi.
H. G Wells may have gotten the name of the Morlocks from two sources. One is the Canaanite god, Moloch, associated with child sacrifice also featured in the film Metropolis 1929. The name Morlock may also be a play on the term mollocks referring to what miners might call themselves.
The story also features Wells's political views about the industrial boom and the fear that future generations of the rich would abandon books which could lead to the degradation of critical thinking. The Eloi are the result.
H. G. Wells may have gotten the name Eloi from the Hebrew word Elohim, referring to lesser gods in the Old Testament.
The Eloi resemble humans for the most part, but they have been reduced to an illiterate, apathetic, and extremely docile food source for the Morlocks. Because the Morlocks feed them and clothe them their sense of curiosity and ambition has atrophied. It’s easy to see how they got into this position over time.
When George arrives 800,000 years in the future he first sees the Eloi in what looks like a garden of Eden. But a young girl by the name of Weena is drowning in a very populated river and yet no one made an effort to help her. I actually have some theories on that, but it was a great demonstration of how the Eloi are apathetic. Naturally, George saves her and as a result, she grows attached to him.
My theory is that Weena was faking her peril in order to find a mate. I know in the book, the Eloi appear to look like small children and Weena becomes the time traveler's surrogate daughter in a way. Their relationship is very close but very innocent.
In the movie, Weena is more like a love interest and I think that the mating rituals of the Eloi include a demonstration of empathy. She reaches her hand up to two men sitting on a rock and they simply look at her without interest. I think that they don’t help her because it would mean a permanent commitment. I could be wrong, but that moment always stood out to me because she is so attached to George after he saves her. I also noticed that when she is rejected by them, it looks like she swims away. It’s just a subtle thing I noticed, if you look at the footage, you’ll see exactly what I mean.
As a relationship, it may be a little creepy to some because the character looks so young compared to George. Weena is also very simple minded and George has to teach her so much. I could see George eventually feeling alone in this world without someone to relate to and I suppose that is why George decides to go back to his time in the past.
While in the future George takes on a very fatherly disposition with all of the Eloi eventually inspiring them to fight back against the Morlocks. It’s interesting because at first they are very apathetic but after seeing how George is so emotional about the state of the way they live, it could be that they bond with him through those emotions. Ultimately, it’s also possible that as their father figure, they may just be doing things to impress him. Just closely watch their body language and you know what I am talking about. There are a lot of subtle nuances in the performance of the actors that maybe I am reading into quite a bit.
The Morlocks and the Eloi are both slaves to their outcome. The Morlocks couldn't help what they had become and it seems as if H.G. Wells ends up siding with the Eloi, the descendants of the rich aristocrat. But maybe H. G. Wells feels as if the Eloi were the ones that were the most human-like and the best hope for extending the lifespan of the human race. The possibility of humans even existing another 800,000 years is what we hope, but possibly unlikely without some kind of intervention or provisions, which no one is planning that far ahead.
George has found a new purpose to be the savior of this future world it's a very interesting choice because many people would think, wouldn't it be better for him to stay in his own time and stop the war from happening or try to figure out how to create an impact on society to keep the future of mankind whole.
My theory is that, I think that George feels as if the people of his time are too stubborn to change after telling his story and having it go over so poorly with his friends. He has a chance to save mankind in the future where the Eloi are more responsive to his suggestion. They even look up to him, whereas his peers scoff at his ideas. That is why after telling his story he goes... wait for it… BACK TO THE FUTURE to build a new civilization.
It sounds very promising, but the book is much more pessimistic. In the book he goes even further into the future only to find humanity is completely gone before going back home to his own time.
On his final trip to the future, he takes three books. They don’t tell you the books, but wisely, they leave the three books up to the audience to decide, creating an interactive experience to enjoy after the movie is done.
Technical:
Many modern reviewers make note of how simple or even cheesy the production was compared to the effects given for science fiction today. There is a big difference with over 60 years of advancement in the field. However, I can assure you, this was one of the greats of it’s time breaking new ground to the point that Gene Warren and Tim Baar received the Academy Award for Best Special Effects for this movie.
It was a wonder when you consider that the film was made with a total budget of only $750,000. That is incredible for such a low budget film and a lot of costs were subverted.
From May 25 to June 30, 1959 the film was shot at MGM Studios lot in Culver City, California, to save money, acting as Victorian age England.
Many matte paintings and miniature models were used creatively to build out the look of the period.
Time lapse visuals were vastly used along with stop motion artwork. For instance, a time lapse of a growing apple was actually stop motion capture of painted stages of growth by artist Bill Brace one frame at a time.
In another scene, there is a really cool ooey gooey time lapse of a decomposing Morlock which was achieved by melting a wax figure and speeding up the footage.
Many costumes and set pieces were recycled from Forbidden Planet (1956) such as the Civil Defense 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.
Footage from George Pal’s other films When Worlds Collide and War of the Worlds was added to plump up the visuals.
In the time travel sequence where atomic bombs set off a fictitious volcano in London, the molten "lava" was actually oatmeal colored with orange and red food coloring oozing through a miniature set. They were so creative.
They also found a simple loophole to eliminate thousands of years of time travel visuals by trapping George inside cooled lava rock. What a sweet trick that works well with the story.
Today you might look at the Morlocks and think, wow, those costumes were hokey, but actually for the time, it was shocking, scary and delivered the impact they needed to have in 1960. In my opinion they were very impressive. I especially loved the light up glowing eye effect.
Sadly the white hair used for the wigs and costumes of the Morlocks were from colobus monkey hair. Today, there are more faux hair and fur options for such costumes, but at the time, the choices were limited and I also think that they didn’t care. Animal fur was socially acceptable then.
The actor who played George, Rod Taylor was under 6 feet tall and the filmmakers wanted to make him look imposing against the future humans. In order to achieve that, they hired supporting actors that were shorter than George. The actors playing the Morlocks were professional wrestlers using all of the ring performing techniques on screen to convey a real threat for George.
The design of the time machine was quite a spectacular item in it’s day. George Pal insisted it look like a sled, one of his favorite childhood toys. This was also very appealing to young boys of the 1960’s.
It had a Victorian retro steampunk look to it, with a plaque on the control panel that said it was "Manufactured by H. George Wells." What a nice touch.
It was such an iconic prop that it was sold at the MGM studio auction in 1971, the same auction that originally sold the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939). It was found in a thrift store in Orange, California five years later by film historian Bob Burns who bought it for just $1,000. He then got the blueprints from George Pal who was his close friend and restored it for exhibition and special appearances, such as in the inventor's convention scene in Gremlins 1984.
Director George Pal was a close friend of fellow animator Walter Lantz, creator of Woody Woodpecker. George Pal included Woody’s laugh in the scenes where the Eloi are enjoying themselves. As well, there is a figure of Woody during the air raid scene.
The production was topped off by an exciting score that was so grand and thrilling by Russell Garcia. In some parts it was dreamy and tender as well so the music really drives the mood and suspense.
Performances:
Australian actor Rod Taylor beat out David Niven and James Mason in the role of George. I felt that Rod is a clear stand out in the role giving the character an athletic, idealistic dimension. It was Rod Taylor's first leading role in a major film and it was a wonderful performance.
There is something about the way he sits in the time machine for the first time very dreamy-eyed, with a sense of wonder and curiosity it's as if you can see him dreaming about the possibilities where he would go and what he would see
All of George's emotions are written all over Rob’s face as he explores how to operate the machine. He looks like a kid playing with a new toy and perhaps that's why even though he's arrogant in the beginning of the film, he seems to have something that makes you identify with his curiosity.
Yvette Mimieux turned 18 during the shoot and was technically not supposed to work a full shooting schedule, however she did anyway. As she continued on the shoot her acting improved so some of the scenes had to be reshot for a better result. I think her performance was a highlight of the film.
Enjoyment:
The film had fairly good reviews and at the box office, with a nomination for the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and an Academy Award as I mentioned earlier for Special Effects.
George Pal had planned to do a sequel to this film and had submitted several scripts that were rejected by MGM. Can you imagine a sequel? I would have loved to have seen that movie. I was always curious what happened to George when on his trip back to the future.
Speaking of Back to the Future, the film of the same name released in 1985 was heavily influenced by this film. The opening time sequence featuring many floating clocks are very similar.
There was a comic book adaptation in March 1960
In 1993 there was a sequel-documentary short, Time Machine: The Journey Back, directed by Clyde Lucas.
In 2002 The Time Machine was remade starring Guy Pearce as the Time Traveler and Jeremy Irons as the Uber-Morlock. The film was directed by Wells's great-grandson Simon Wells who I thought did a great job, but the tragedy is that most people were expecting him to stay true to his grandfather’s book, but instead he offered another take on the movie with a completely different commentary. In the remake the motivation of the character was to go back to the past and stop his fiancé from dying and answer his burning question: why can't you change the past / can you change fate. It was interesting, but it may have served the movie better to have a different name just so it didn’t have to live up to the legacy of the book or the 1960 version.
But back to this movie, I find it a fascinating imagining of the future and if you’ve read the book you get the deeper meanings. The film does well to not spell this out for the audience, but left it in the undertones.
Perhaps you could consider this future world an exaggeration of what H.G. Wells experienced in the Victorian age and surely we can see shadows of that in the present day. This is something to think about.
The ending especially leaves you wondering what else happened after George makes his final trip as I mentioned before. It is a great Hallmark of an impactful film. You get your ending for this chapter, but there's clearly more to the story. What if by sharing his story, whether he believes it or not, George changes the future to the point that when he gets back to the future, it's not there anymore or has been completely transformed. I love that possibility!
What I really like about this is that it is a fantastic adventure and an exploration of ideas about war, the importance of Education in the pursuit of progress and science and knowledge. It also touches on the dangers of apathy, the needless destruction of War, and social commentary about the dangers of the separation of economic classes. The message is still valuable today.
My Rating:
9.4
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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