The Time Machine (1960)

To mark the passing of one of my favorite actors, Rod Taylor, on January 7^th, I went back and watched one of my favorite films when I was a kid, The Time Machine (dir. George Pal, 1960). When I watched it for the first time many years ago, three scenes in particular seized my imagination. The first comes at the beginning of the film, when George’s friends are waiting for him to show up for dinner at his house and then the door bursts open and in he staggers, wounded and exhausted. Watching that scene again now, I think what appealed to me was the collision of two worlds and almost of two different film genres: the adventure film and the domestic Victorian drama. The second scene was when we first see the Morlocks. It’s easy for me to make fun of them now, especially bearing in mind that they resemble aggressive Smurfs who have let themselves go, but they scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, and perhaps my mocking them now is a way of diasvowing any residual discomfort I feel when I see them! The third and final scene comes right at the end of the film when Filby breaks down the door and we realize that George has dragged the time machine back to its original position and gone back to the future. Again, speaking as a cynical adult, it’s easy to mock the sentimentality of the ending, but when I was a kid I loved the romanticism of going back to help the Eloi build their civilization and I still love speculating about what three books George took back to help them on their way. In closing, I have to note how much I hate the 2002 film version of The Time Machine (directed, funnily enough, by Wells’ great-grandson). The special effects in the 1960 version are awful but the film is redeemed by excellent acting, even in the minor roles, such as the actors who play George’s friends. Exactly the opposite is true of the 2002 version: no amount of nifty special effects can compensate for the awful acting—Jeremy Irons as the ‘uber-Morlock’ is particularly cringeworthy.