Journey to the Center of Time

Scott Brady is the star and villain of Journey To The Center Of Time, a rather cheaply made science fiction work that compromised mostly of one set and a bunch movie clips to show the past and future on planet earth. Brady is a rich industrialist who wants to shut down an experimental lab where scientists Anthony Eisley, Gigi Perreau, and Abraham Sofaer are working on time experiments. Brady thinks the experiments are a waste of time and his money.

So imagine when things go a bit haywire and Brady finds himself on a rapid journey to our distant past and distant future with the others.

This independent film was apparently something none of the major studios would touch. The usual time travel conundrums are here and the players give rather dispirited performances like they were anxious their salary checks wouldn't clear.

Not the best of the genre, not even close.

Low-budget romp through the backwaters of time and space. The distant past and far-off future collide in what amounts to a fiery blast furnace of ideas and images. A trio of scientists, on the threshold of a major breakthrough in time travel, race against the clock and a funding cut. Stanton, the main source of cash, played by a blustery Scott Brady, behaves like an ignoramus. He doesn't see a profit margin in such an endeavor. At first glance, this remake of A.I.P.'s The Time Travelers, would appear to be a poor relation. Not so fast. I think there are some good ideas spinning around here. You might notice that Star Trek helped themselves to a few. One plot device, involving a time-displacement and frozen duplicates of the main players in a conference room, was lifted for "Wink of an Eye." And the dark and minimalist set for the alien leader must have inspired "The Empath." Any takers? The one love scene, strangely, involves a time travel limerick and a lengthy kiss. Uncomfortable. The mutant attack has an Andy Warhol feel to it. Abstract. Cockeyed. Out of whack. The door to the lab breaks into quarters when opened. Cool effect. Even stranger is the small elevator that takes Stanton down four feet, when he could have easily walked down the four steps on his own. A very quick shot of the infamous bat-rat-spider-crab from Angry Red Planet, a previous writing credit of the director, is a shout out to that film's director. The opening credits reveal time pieces from the past. Good touch. So where's the original flick. Put it out on DVD now. Let's compare. The sands of the hour glass are running out. At warp speed.

Others may call this the worst film ever made without offering reasons; perhaps it's time to analyze why this is so bad. Well, let's put analysis aside for a bit. This seems to be almost a remake of "The Time Travelers" from '64. Or perhaps, it's a parallel depiction of events in the space-time continuum, utilizing stock footage from that earlier film. But we can save such scientific observations for later. Where "The Time Travelers" was low budget, this is EXTRA low budget. This means most of the movie has to take place on the same set, in the same room. Any other sets are bare bones; anything in the background is just black space, a very minimalist approach. But we can describe such things later.

The plot has to do with traveling into the future, to just before around the year 7000 AD. The group of 4 travelers chat with some visiting aliens there for a few minutes during a nuclear attack, then run back to their capsule and head back to a prehistoric past. Scott Brady, as a rich irresponsible businessman, manages to wreck everything he touches, including the cave they take refuge in (I was surprised by the set design here, which was beyond the $50 I'd been convinced had been spent up to this point). I give this more than one star due to the unique manner in which Brady manages to kill himself. But anyone should be forewarned by the credits in the beginning, which introduce a 'Poupee Gamin' as 'Vina.'

As I understand it, Ib Melchior and Dave Hewitt had a falling out over 1964's The Time Travelers. Both are credited with coming up with the story, but Hewitt left the production and Melchior wrote the screenplay and directed this little sci-fi B-film classic himself. Hewitt wrote his own version of the movie and later directed it as 1967's Journey to the Center of Time, making just a slightly different version. I can't remember ever seeing what is essentially a remake arrive just three years after the first movie's release. But then again, both films were grist for drive-ins where few people probably noticed the similarities. These movies had me scratching my head wondering if I had seen it before on TV where, after repeated viewings, I was able to make the connection between the two films.

David L. Hewitt's American General Pictures strikes again with 1967's "Journey to the Center of Time," following on the heels of cofeatures "The Wizard of Mars" and "Gallery of Horror" but lacking the presence of John Carradine, whose agent did manage to provide Scott Brady and Anthony Eisley for the project, something of a remake of Ib Melchior's "The Time Travelers" from 1964, made to coincide with Irwin Allen's teleseries THE TIME TUNNEL. Call it a waste of time, but with another quartet of scientific adventurers venturing into Earth's future (6968 to be exact) before going way back to 1 million B.C. (complete with giant lizard from "One Million B.C."), whatever hoped for thrills are dashed by excessive talk and virtually no action. Scott Brady's self centered industrialist is strictly out to make a quick buck, while Anthony Eisley, Abraham Sofaer, and Gigi Perreau are forced to prove that they can travel further than 24 hours into the future if the project is to maintain funding. Only a single shot from "The Time Travelers" is used (the rocket ship ready for takeoff), the actual arrival coming only at the half hour mark, the tale of alien invasion lasting but 15 minutes in front of a black backdrop before moving forward into the past (endlessly represented by footage from war movies, Westerns, and gladiator entries), a typical low budget jungle/cavern set with only the threat of molten lava keeping viewers awake (there's a very brief shot of the bat-rat-spider creature from Melchior's "The Angry Red Planet" flashing by on the viewing screen so fast one might easily miss it). Ray Dorn's Hollywood Studios still give off the same barren feel as in "Gallery of Horror" or "Blood of Dracula's Castle," but at least it proves better than Hewitt's "The Mighty Gorga" a sad reunion for Brady, Eisley, and Kent Taylor.