The time machine (1960)

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Movie
German title The time machine
Original title The Time Machine
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1960
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director George Pal
script David Duncan
production George Pal for MGM
music Russell Garcia
camera Paul C. Vogel
cut George Tomasini
occupation
synchronization
chronology

Successor  →
Time Machine: The Journey Back

The Time Machine is a science fiction -Spielfilm by director George Pal from the year 1960 . It is based on the novel of the same name by HG Wells from 1895.

action

On New Year's Eve in 1899, the scientist George reveals to his friends, who are his guests, that he has invented a time machine . When they react in disbelief, he lets a scaled-down model of his machine travel into the future before their eyes, but his guests dismiss this as a trick. One of those in attendance, Filby, warns George not to risk too much.

After his visitors have left him, George goes into the laboratory of his house and embarks on a time travel into the future in his time machine . During his stopovers in 1917 and 1940, he experienced the world wars, in 1966 even a nuclear war, and met Filby's son, who told George that Filby was killed in the war in 1916. He travels further and accelerates, buildings and entire cities turn to dust one time after another. When he recognizes an inviting environment, he brakes and finally stops on October 12, 802.701, where he finds a heavenly landscape when he gets out of his machine . A group of people sit on the riverbank and eat fruit. When a girl threatens to drown in the river and no one intervenes, George saves her. It then introduces itself as Weena . Then George tries to get into conversation with the apathetic residents of the garden, the Eloi . One of the young people finally leads George into a library, where George is dismayed to find that the books have crumbled to dust and all of human knowledge has been lost.

George finally wants to return to his machine, but finds that it has disappeared. The traces that their runners have left in the ground lead into a temple-like building, crowned by a kind of sphinx . George tries to break into the building, but fails because of the heavy, locked gates. Weena tells him that the Morlocks brought the machine into the building. The next day she shows him talking rings, a kind of futuristic sound carrier, from which George learns that the earth was contaminated with bacteria after a war lasting over 300 years and that human civilization falls into two groups, the Eloi in the sunlight and the Morlocks the surface, has split.

Suddenly an alarm siren sounds, whereupon Weena and the other Eloi run into the building as if hypnotized. George manages to get into the underground facility through an air shaft. There he finds huge machines and skeletons of the Eloi eaten by the Morlocks. When he wants to take Weena with him and is hit by a Morlock's whip, he threatens the cannibalist Morlocks with a torch. A scuffle develops between George and some Morlocks, in which, after some hesitation, the Eloi finally intervene. After several Morlocks are killed, George and the Eloi escape through an exhaust duct. As he escapes, George lights a liquid on the wall with his torch, whereupon a fire develops throughout the underground facility. Once on the surface of the earth, the Eloi throw dry wood into the ventilation shafts to further fan the fire and kill the Morlocks. The underground facility then explodes.

George later finds his machine in the burning remains of the Morlock facility. When surviving Morlocks attack him, he can just get the machine going. When he returned to his time and told his friends about his experiences, he encountered disbelief. George shows the botanist Filby a flower that Weena gave him as a gift. Filby does not know the genus of flowers. When the guests have left, but Filby returns to George, he discovers that George has traveled into the future again. To do this, he pushed the time machine back to its original location and took three books with him from the library in order to create a new world for the Eloi together with Weena in the future. Filby and the housekeeper can no longer determine which books are involved.

background

The film was shot in Culver City , California at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studios. Filming began on May 25, 1959, and ended June 30, 1960. The budget of the film is 750,000 US dollars estimated. The time machine was first seen in the USA on August 17, 1960 . It celebrated its premiere in Germany on September 2, 1960.

Originally, Paul Scofield was intended by George Pal to play the time traveler before the role was finally given to Rod Taylor . He wanted Shirley Knight for the role of Weena, but instead got a young and inexperienced actress at his side, Yvette Mimieux . Yvette Mimieux, who was a minor at the beginning of the shooting and celebrated her 18th birthday during the course of the film production, initially had very little practical experience, but learned so quickly in the course of the shooting that, towards the end of the shooting, some of the scenes recorded at the beginning again with better results could be rotated. Alan Young is the only actor to appear in both this film and the 2002 remake, The Time Machine . For a long time George Pal planned a sequel to the film, but turned down several scripts submitted. The time machine says “Manufactured by H. George Wells ”, the author of the novel The Time Machine . The miniature version of the time machine became the private property of George Pal, but was lost in a fire in his house. George's arrival in the New World takes place in 802701 on October 12th, the anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 .

The DVD, released in 2000, includes a small sequel in which George visits his friend Filby a second time a few years later.

The time machine prop was auctioned off in 1971.

The time machine makes a brief appearance in the film The Gremlins : While the figure of the inventor Randall Peltzer is on the phone with his mother at an inventors 'fair, you can see in the background how someone is currently holding a time machine - looking just like the one from HG Wells' film - the bystanders Introduce people and start. Then there is a short cut to the mother and back again - and you can see that the time machine has suddenly disappeared and the bystanders are searching the floor in disbelief.

The 14th episode of the first season of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory is dedicated to the subject of the time machine. The time machine used here is similar to the one from the 1960 film.

synchronization

The German synchronization was created by the MGM synchronization studio in Berlin.

role actor Voice actor
George Rod Taylor Peer Schmidt
Weena Yvette Mimieux Sabine Eggerth
David Filby / James Filby Alan Young Alfred Balthoff
Dr. Philip Hillyer Sebastian Cabot Curt Ackermann
Anthony Bridewell Tom Helmore Kurt Waitzmann
Walter Kemp Whit Bissell Peter Schiff

Reviews

  • "The fable that is critical of civilization is naive, but the special effects and actors lend interest to the little science fiction film." - " Lexicon of International Films "
  • "Simplifying variation of the science fiction classic by HG Wells (...)." (Rating: 3 stars = very good) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz in Lexicon "Films on TV" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 951
  • “Of course, director George Pals [sic!] Did not stick to HG Wells [sic!] Famous utopian novel too slavishly, but that doesn't detract from the positive overall impression of this film. The time machine was one [sic!] Of the most beautiful and loving science fiction works of the early 1960s, provided with lavish equipment and perfect trick technology (...). Since the 800th millennium gave the imagination plenty of scope for development, the furnishings and decorations were quite convincing and imaginative. The time machine is undoubtedly a highlight in the work of director and producer George Pal. ” - The great TV feature film film dictionary . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 , pp. 14497-14498
  • "With a melancholy in it that is otherwise completely lacking in science fiction [...] A touching film in a way that most of this kind did not even aim for." - Joe Dante
  • "Unforgettable [...] And then this wonderful time machine! That Victorian decor, the flashing lights of the displays, the rotating copper disc with the beautiful inlay, the armchair upholstered in red plush! Like the seat of a luxurious single horse-drawn carriage to whiz along the timeline. ” - Wolfgang Jeschke in The Science Fiction Year 1997 . Heyne, Munich 1997, p. 440 f.
  • “ 'The Time Machine' is a film with great attention to detail and with perfect tricks for its time, even if the monsters look a little like dangling dolls with light bulbs in their eyes. "(Susanne Marschall)

Awards

The film won the 1961 Oscar for Best Special Effects . In the same year he was nominated for the Hugo Award in the category Best Dramatic Presentation .

media

Super 8 publications

The first home cinema release came from UFA / ATB (Essen) in the early 1980s (3 × 110 m color sound film (cut version, total length approx. 50 min.)); In the 1990s, Derann from Great Britain produced a complete version on 6 × 120 m color sound film; Both versions are sought-after rarities in the Super 8 feature film collector's scene and regularly achieve comparatively high prices, provided that they are still offered online on relevant marketplaces or on collectors' fairs.

DVD release

H. G. Wells The time machine . Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Home Video GmbH 2000

Soundtrack

Peggy Lee wrote the title The Land Of The Leal for the film, which, however, was not used for production.

  • Russell Garcia : The Time Machine. Original motion picture score . GNP / Crescendo / ZYX, 1987, sound carrier no. GNPD 8008 - New film music recording under the direction of the composer
  • Russell Garcia: The Time Machine . Original motion picture soundtrack. Film Score Monthly Records Vol.8 Nr.13 (Ltd. Edition 3000 Copies) - Original recording from 1960.

literature

  • HG Wells : The time machine. Novel (Original title: The Time Machine ). German by Annie Reney and Alexandra Auer. Complete edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag (dtv), Munich 1996, 148 pp., ISBN 3-423-12234-X
  • Gail Morgan Hickman: The Films of George Pal . Barnes and Yoseloff, London and Cranbury 1977, ISBN 0-498-01960-8
  • Matthias Büdinger: Russell Garcia. The Man For All Seasons. Part I: The Time Machine. In: Soundtrack! Vol. 6 (1987) No. 23. pp. 25-27. (English)

Documentary film

  • The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal . Documentation by Arnold Leibovit, USA 1985/2000
  • Time Machine - The Journey Back . Documentation by 7th Voyage Productions (Bob Burns), USA 1993

Remake

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Internet Movie Database : Filming Locations
  2. ↑ a b Internet Movie Database : Budget and Box Office Results
  3. ↑ a b Internet Movie Database : Start Dates
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Internet Movie Database : Background information
  5. ↑ The time machine. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous file , accessed on October 9, 2008 .
  6. ↑ The time machine. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ↑ Susan King: George Pal's work wasn't just for effect. In: Los Angeles Times . August 26, 2008, accessed on October 9, 2008 (English): “There is wistfulness about it that's really absent from most science-fiction films […] It's a moving film on a level that most movies of that type didn't even try to reach "
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Jeschke: The journey of a time machine . In: Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): The Science Fiction Year 1997 . ISBN 3-453-11896-0 .
  9. ↑ Susanne Marschall, in: Filmgenres: Science Fiction / Ed. By Thomas Koebner . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003 (Universal-Bibliothek; 18401), ISBN 3-15-018401-0 , p. 132
  10. ↑ a b Internet Movie Database : Nominations and Awards