— RANKING: 22 —
THE RESCUE MYTH: As a modernist version of ancient fantasies of other-worldly romance and adventure, the science-fiction film incorporates the recurring motif in which a beautiful female (Yvette Mimieux) is menaced by a monster (here, a Morlock), only to be saved at the last moment by an old-fashioned heroic male (Rod Taylor), as illustrated in George Pal’s production of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine (1960). Courtesy: George Pal Productions.
CREDITS
MGM; George Pal, dir.; H. G. Wells, novel; David Duncan, scr.; Pal, pro.; Russell Garcia, mus.; Paul Vogel, cin.; George Tomasini, ed.; George W. Davis, William Ferrari, art dir.; William Tuttle, special makeup dir.; Mentor Huebner, prod. illustrator; Wah Chang, Gene Warren, Howard A. Anderson, optical effects; Tim Baar, special photographic effects; Bill Brace, matte artist; Jim Danforth, F/X; Tom Holland, stop-motion animator; Pal, Morlock design; 103 min.; Color; 1.85:1.
CAST
Rod Taylor (H. George Wells); Alan Young (David Filby/James Filby); Yvette Mimieux (Weena); Sebastian Cabot (Dr. Philip Hillyer); Tom Helmore (Anthony Bridewell); Whit Bissell (Walter Kemp); Doris Lloyd (Mrs. Watchett); Paul Frees (The Talking Rings, voice only); Bob Barran, James Skelly (Eloi Men); Josephine Powell (Eloi Woman).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
He has all the time in the world.
DAVID FILBY, ABOUT HIS BYGONE FRIEND GEORGE
BACKGROUND
Before its release in book form, Wells’s thirty-two-thousand-word tale had been serialized in 1895 in the New Review. Prior to this, all time travel tales were of a fantastical nature, without regard to the rules that govern realistic forms of fiction. Yet, several decades before Einstein suggested that, once a process could be perfected, time travel would be possible, Wells had grasped this idea, understanding that his machine could travel through time but would remain locked in its original space; that is, to solve the one travel “problem” would not affect the other.
THE PLOT
Early in 1900, not long before the passing of Queen Victoria and the beginning of the modern age, close friends gather at the home of their friend George. Although he has invited them for dinner, George arrives late and in terrible disarray. He claims to have visited the future in a machine of his own making and relates a strange story of an upcoming age in which humankind has divided into two poles: the gentle Eloi, sweet, blond, sheep-like vegan creatures inhabiting the surface, and the Morlock, a horrible race of cannibals residing deep beneath the Earth’s surface. In his bizarre tale, when Weena, a beautiful Eloi, is abducted by the Morlocks, George journeys into the lair to save her.
THE FILM
In Wells’s original telling, the Time Traveler has no name. However, for the film, he is given the author’s name, hence George. The greatest challenge for the director George Pal and the screenwriter David Duncan during their joint scripting process was balancing the integrity of Wells’s work with the actuality of history as it had occurred. For this reason, the two World Wars are depicted realistically in the film rather than in the imaginative manner that Wells, writing in the nineteenth century, had envisioned them.
In Wells’s novel, the Eloi are small creatures, a concept that charmed Pal, who had directed a fine film adaptation of the fairy tale tom thumb (1958). Eventually, however, he rejected such an approach—in part, because it would have necessitated employing an F/X form he had already used to full advantage. Also, as Pal wanted his new work to appeal to teenagers and adults as well as children, the film would need a romantic plot. Though Australian actor Rod Taylor had hoped Pal would hire the stage actress Shirley Knight for the role of Weena, the director believed an aura of innocence was more important than acting ability, so he hired the underage and inexperienced Yvette Mimieux. The gamble worked: her childlike qualities, be they real or performed, lend the film much of its considerable charm.
THEME
An acute observer of his social scene, Wells realized that the noble Victorian experiment to perfect humans had failed miserably, as evidenced by the rotten state of London, a far more unpleasant place than when the queen had ascended to the throne more than fifty years earlier. Therefore, he rejected the utopian ideals that had been so popular during the nineteenth century, insisting that if humans did not change course, things would grow progressively more terrible. Essentially, then, he created an alternative point of view that, in the “modern” science-fiction genre, would come to be called negative utopia or dystopian fiction. Such works offer a vision of a brave (in the worst sense of that term) new world that we would do well to avoid.
TRIVIA
George finds himself in the year 802701. The day is October 12, Columbus Day, suggesting that what we witness here is a journey’s end of just such magnitude.
The time machine, visualized differently for the film than as described by Wells, is in the shape of a sled; friends of Pal insisted this was due to his love for Citizen Kane (1941) and its indelible penultimate image. In addition to the title object, Pal also came up with the distinct look for his Morlocks. One of the Eloi children clutches a Woody Woodpecker doll, an homage to Pal’s close friend and sometimes collaborator, Walter Lantz, who had created that beloved cartoon character.