Sci-Fi Gems Week: Time After Time

Ah the 1970s... They brought many things. Muscle cars, disco, cocaine freaks and more shenanigans than this particular blog is will be violate his PG-13 rating at. At the same time we got eye-popping effects of Star Wars, bizarre lands like West World and big budget-bloated blockbuster potential like Damnation Alley (WHICH WAS NOTHING LIKE THE NOVEL!!!). Every so often like most decades a film comes along that is heard by a few and word is spread to their friends and so on. Imagine a monster as horrific as Jack the Ripper hiding in a time-line as 1979, a larger bustling metropolitan era which so many willing victims and only his once time friend Herbert George Wells can stop him. This is Time After Time.

My word, women are more abrasive.

Writer/director/producer Nicolas Meyers (Invasion of the Bee Girls, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Time After Time, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Voices) brings us the concept of H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell of A Clockwork Orange, Voyage of the Damned, Cat People, Wing Commander III: Eye of the Tiger, Tank Girl, Halloween and Halloween 2) a brilliant writer showing that he is also a brilliant inventor creates a vehicle that can transverse through time itself forward or backward in time and gave a detailed explanation to his chosen friends and while they remain skeptical, they are intrigued.

As everyone makes their way back to the drawing room, a knock at the door has several police constables arriving at the house in search of Jack the Ripper. With a satchel of John Leslie Stevenson, a friend of Herbert's and talented surgeon filled with blood-stained gloves everyone is convinced that Stevenson (David Warner of The Wars of the Roses, Straw Dogs, The Omen, Time Bandits, Tron, The Company of Wolves, Waxwork, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and In the Mouth of Madness) is in fact the Ripper when Wells has the awful thought, rushes to his basement to find his time machine is gone, as is Stevenson.

Mind if I cut in?

Having escaped into the future, Stevenson explores this fascinating new world of America in the form of San Francisco, makes a few exchanges of currency (yet no one asks questions on his pounds being roughly 86 years old) and proceeds to the nightlife of disco nightclubs with potential victims galore. Oh the possibilities. Because Stevenson did not have the “non-return” key on his person, the machine automatically returned to 1893, allowing Wells to go trailing after Stevenson's last known co-ordinates.

Wells is stunned as he leaves the machine at a display in the San Francisco museum to find not the enlightened utopia but cars, planes overhead and a substantial history of wars, crime and bloodshed the likes he could not have imagined. Deducing Stevenson would require coin of the realm, Wells asks about for banks offering such exchanges and makes his way to the Chartered Bank of London, meeting the lovely Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen of Melvin and Howard, Ragtime, End of the Line, Parenthood, Back to the Future Part III, The Butcher's Wife and Nixon), a liberal gal that takes a bit of a shine to Wells in spite of him being proper and quite stiff.

Wells finds Stevenson and demands his return to 1893 to accept justice. The two struggle when they are interrupted by some random passersby and Stevenson bolts only to be hit by a car. Is that the end of Jack the Ripper? Could he have survived this automobile accident? What will Wells do if he encounters him again?

A few fun facts now if you don't mind and if you do, well shush I am writing them up anyway.

This is Corey Feldman's film feature debut as a bit part of a child in the museum. All three of H.G. Wells' children were still alive at the time of this film's release. Malcolm McDowell fell for Mary Steenburgen during the filming of this movie and the two married for ten years and have two children, Charles Malcolm and Lilly Amanda. Nicolas Meyer originally wanted Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal, Gandhi, Never Say Never Again and The Bounty) as the Ripper. At one point, Mick Jagger expressed interest in playing this heartless criminal but Meyer couldn't quite see Jagger pulling off the sophisticated surgeon. Sorry Mick, you can't always get what you want.

Advancements in dental hygiene fascinate everyone!

Post Apocalypse Week: Things to Come

Howdy all and welcome to the end of the world as you know it.  Day 1 of Post Apocalypse Week and I thought I would start us off right with some H.G. Wells of a different standing.  As many of you are no doubt aware of The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, our gentleman story crafter gave us a short story that should given us pause.  In 1933, Wells published a short story describing social and political forces and all the possibilities they ensue.  The title is The Shape of Things to Come, which many believe this is less a story and more of a discussion for many to delve into. The impact it had on the world screamed for it to be put upon the big screen so director William Cameron Menzies (The Iron Mask, Alibi, Puttin' on the Ritz, Our Town, The Devil and Miss Jones, Duel in the Sun and Invaders from Mars) took the reins of this wild horse and did his level best.  This is Things to Come.

Alright, one more present and then the war simply must start.

Roxana: I don't suppose any man has ever understood any woman since the beginning of things, You don't understand our spoilers.





Hailing from Denham Studios our movie opens with the impeding threat of global war during of all times, Christmas Day a successful businessman John Cabal (Raymond Massey of The Speckled Band, The Prisoner of Zenda, Arsneic and Old Lace, East of Eden, Seven Angry Men and Dr. Kildare) queries to himself and his guests of what is to become of their city "Everytown" if and when this war reaches them.  His naive friend Passworthy (Edward Chapman of Murder, The October Man, The Spider and the Fly, His Excellency and X: The Unknown) assures him with technological marvels excelling as they do, the social conscious will rise with it.

A dissolve later we see Cabal in a biplane shooting down an enemy bomber, land and pull that bomber from the wreckage.  They both reflect on the madness that is war while conversing through gas masks when they see a little girl running around the dilapidated streets telling them they are done for anyway as it was so matter of fact.    Cabal takes the girl to safety in his plane as he wonders what is to become of Man's civilization.
Decades past as the war continues to wage on that even the survivors have no idea why they are fighting and who is the enemy anymore. The world ends up in a new Dark Age.  With cities and towns in ruins and little to no technology to be found aside from a scant amount of firearms to continue the killing.

That was me. Sorry little girl.

By 1966, a plague is introduced by some unknown enemy using the last remnants of aircraft to spread this gas about.  Dr. Harding (Maurice Braddell of Master and Man, Men of Tomorrow, Flesh and Women in Revolt) struggles desperately to find a cure to save what is left of humanity in order to rebuild and start over but with little equipement to harness a vacine is found dead.

By 1970, a despotic ruler calling himself the Boss (Ralph Richardson of The Avengers, Richard III, The 300 Spartans, Rollerball, Watership Down and Time Bandits) reigns over most of Southern England and has ceased the plague by shooting those infected.   This tyrant was a little man that came to power simply by being in the right place and time as so many conquerors.

This film brings about some of our worst fears to light.  The Luddites against progress to those that are enslaved to technology.  From warring nations to the Big Brother mentality that is sweeping the planet.  It portrays the best and worst of humanity in every conceivable way and frankly was an audacious piece of work for its time and holds true to our time.

But the Morlocks come out at night good sir!