The Time Machine (1960)
Directed by George Pal

Film Review

Although H.G. Wells was not around to see the film when it was released, he would probably have approved of this inspired adaptation of his 1895 novella The Time Machine, the work that secured his reputation as a writer and established science-fiction as a bona fide genre in literature.  Whilst the film dilutes the socialist subtext of Wells's book, it picks up on the anti-war sentiment and love of knowledge which run through much of his work.  It lacks the pessimistic fin de siècle ending that Wells conceived, but in most other respects it remains faithful to the spirit of the author's original concept. 

The Time Machine is one of a series of classic science-fiction movies that were produced by George Pal in the 1950s, early 1960s.  Others include:  Destination Moon (1950), When Worlds Collide (1951) and The War of the Worlds (1953).  It was one of just two of his films that he directed, the other being Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961).  Pal was one of the most influential filmmakers in the sci-fi genre during the 1950s and most of his films are now highly regarded, groundbreaking works that would have a significant influence on science-fiction on both television and in the cinema over many decades.

The main achievement of this film is the design of the titular time machine.  George Pal's original concept was a barber's chair inside a child's sleigh.  Designer Bill Ferrari elaborated this and created a design classic.  With its upholstered wooden chair, brass tubes, control panel with flashing bulbs, rotating disk and crystalline lever, the ensemble has a distinctive Rococo look that is iconic in its elegance and simplicity.   Most importantly, you actually believe that the machine can travel in time.

The special effects are also pretty impressive, earning the film its one Oscar in 1961.  What better way to create the impression of a voyage through time than to show time speeded up - the hands on a clock whizzing round and the sun rapidly arcing across the sky - or to focus on the changing fashions in women's apparel exhibited by a shop-window manikin?  The destruction of London in the nuclear holocaust of 1966 isn't quite so well realised and you can't help thinking that perhaps a little more time and effort should have gone into the design of the Morlocks... but this is just nit picking.  The Time Machine is a stylish and engaging film, unquestionably one of the great sci-fi classics.

Film Synopsis

In January 1900, four Victorian gentlemen assemble for a dinner at the house of  H. George Wells, an eccentric English inventor who is mysteriously absent.  When George suddenly joins them, he is exhausted, his clothes torn, his appearance dishevelled.  With increasing disbelief, his friends listen as he tells his story.  For some time, George has been building a machine that can transport him back and forth in time.  Only a week ago, George tried out this time machine for the first time, venturing into the future in the expectation of finding a better world.  What he saw dismayed him - three terrible wars, the last of which brought mankind to the brink of extinction.  Upon his arrival in the year 802,701 he is amazed to find himself in what resembles a Utopian garden of Eden.  The people he encounters here, the Eloi, are physically perfect, living a placid existence in a world where food is bountiful and work non-existent.  But George soon realises that the Eloi are little more than sheep.  They have no curiosity, no interest in science.  Every so often, a siren is sounded and a party of Eloi are summoned to the underground lair of the Morlocks, the other species that inhabits this world.  George learns that the Eloi and the Morlocks are the descendents of his own race.  But whereas the Eloi are humanoid, the Morlocks are savage mutants that feed on the Eloi, which they farm like cattle.  When the Morlocks steal his time machine and capture the Eloi girl he has befriended, George has no choice but to confront them in their subterranean world, little knowing what horrors await him...