La Machine à explorer le temps

One of my favorite films back when I was a lad was George Pal's production of the H.G. Wells novel, The Time Machine. As I've gotten a lot older since the 13 I was when it came out, I can more appreciate the meticulous care that went into the making of this film.

Considering that we didn't have computer generated images back in the day, the special effects hold up remarkably well. The make up and costumes for the villainous Morlocks still have the power to frighten.

What I look at now though was the United Kingdom of the turn of the last century in which Wells wrote his book. As much as George Pal was able to capture the future, he did as well with the past, the recreation of the Victorian/Edwardian era from which our time traveler Rod Taylor goes to the future and back.

A lot of that has to do with the casting of the four men who are Taylor's friends and looked like they stepped from that era. Tom Helmore, Sebastian Cabot, Whit Bissell, and Alan Young all comport themselves as proper English gentlemen who are concerned and support their friend anyway in his theories and experiments.

Especially Alan Young's performance, it's my favorite in the film. Young plays a dual role as Taylor's friend and as his own son over several generations of the 20th century. He's the kind of true friend we should all in life be fortunate to have.

Also note that the mechanics of the Time Machine itself are never explained, just how the thing works and what powers it. It was probably beyond even the fertile imagination of H.G. Wells to conceive, our own best minds of science now debate whether it is even theoretically possible.

Rod Taylor after playing several good supporting roles in many films since arriving in America from his native Australia, got his first lead and real big break in The Time Machine. He's excellent as the time traveler who essentially saves the future for mankind and rescues it from the world that has developed.

The Time Machine was also ahead of it's time. no pun intended, in its depiction of the peaceful Eloi. During the sixties age of flower power, the gentle Eloi are like a bunch of hippies who seemingly have attained their version of paradise. No one is old and they live in a garden of Eden. Little do they know what the underground Morlocks are using them for.

Yvette Mimieux who as Weena of the Eloi got her break out role her. She's the quintessence of the flower power generation soon to come.

Even though new versions have been done, this version of The Time Machine still stirs the imagination and appeals to the scientifically curious in all of us.

This is a very well-done adaptation of the H. G. Wells novella, with an Oscar for the special effects that are still impressive more than 40 years later. Good performances by an ensemble cast and a good script also help. One interesting side note: character actor Whit Bissell was in both the 1960 version here and the version done for television in 1978, playing essentially the same part with two different character names! Recommended.

Boy, did a nice DVD transfer of this not only mak me appreciate the visuals in here more but made the story seem better, too, for some reason. I only acquired the DVD as a memento, so to speak. I had to have at least one movie which had the woman I had a crush on back in the early '60s: Yvettte Mimieux. She still looks great, too. The main thing, however, is how I now viewed this story and how much more I wound up liking it than in the past. This was my fourth look at this movie over a 45-year span and I enjoyed it the most this last time.

Since time travel stories always fascinate me, my favorite part of the film is when "George" (Rod Taylor) is actually in his time machine and experiments with it, slowing it down here and then and then stopping it a couple of times to observe World War I and then WWII. Then, he stops in 1966 when supposedly there was a nuclear attack. (Apparently, scare-mongers back in '60 thought that was a short-term likelihood.)

Anyway, when "George" (H.G. Wells, the author of this story) finally stops, in the year 200,000-something, the story loses some of its momentum. However, it's a fairly interesting study of a group of ultra-passive people being dominated by others who live underground and then literally eat the good people. Taylor is astounded that mankind has not progressed as he had figured but seemed to have regressed.

The message I got on this last look is that man is still man, meaning sinful and capable of anything bad as well as good, and to put one's faith totally in man is a mistake. It's only going to lead to disappointments as "George" found out on each of his stops. (Notice he never stopped during a peaceful, progressive period.) Yet, "George" is still an optimist and wants to be one to help initiate change for the better. There's always hope for a better world and people like George, with his idealism put to action, can make a difference.

Overall, an entertaining and thought-provoking film.

One of those Sci-Fi films that's made just right to be watched over and over again and never gets old. The special effects were ahead of their time but the film is not bogged down with them and the actors are allowed to ply their trade. Rod Taylor puts in a solid performance as George the time traveler. George Pal did a great job with this picture. A remake would probably be flashier with the FX but would be hard to beat this classic.

In the early 1960s my mother used to take my younger sister and me to a nearby one-screen theater to see Saturday kiddie matinees. It was a great way to keep us entertained and out of her hair for a few hours, particularly after our baby sister was born.

One movie I saw during those matinees was the 1960 version of The Time Machine. It made such an impression on me that, for quite a while afterward, I would play Time Machine with my sister and cousin with me as the Time Traveler.

It wasn't until sometime in the 1990s that I was able to see it again when I got a VHS copy. It was very much the way I remembered it to be. I have since read the book and have found that the movie is quite faithful to the text, though some scenes involving two stops in the 1900s were added and a few bright spots appeared that weren't in the book, which is pretty dark.

The special effects look primitive by today's standards, but they did win the Academy Award for Special Effects in 1961, and rightfully so, though I have no idea what other films had been nominated.

This is still one of my top 10 movies and likely always will be. I haven't seen the 2002 version, which is probably just as well, since I'm happy with the 1960 version and don't want to ruin it.