The Time Machine

A science-fiction film adapted from H. G. Wells's novel. An inventor named George shows his friends a machine in London in 1899: a chair that travels forward in time. Nobody believes him. He sets off, first landing in the near future in the middle of wars, then far further on, in an age where humanity has split in two. The Eloi who live on the surface are idle and incurious; the Morlocks below feed them. Wells's novel was a criticism of class, and the film keeps that idea. What the film is known for is the passage-of-time sequences: a candle melting, the clothes on a shop window mannequin changing, the sun racing across the sky. Those passages were done with stop-frame photography, and the film won the Oscar for visual effects. George Pal produced and directed. Pal's science-fiction productions are counted among the works that shaped the genre in American cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. Rod Taylor plays George. One of the foundational films of its genre for anyone who likes classic science fiction and handmade effects. To a viewer measuring by today, the Morlock design and the pace of the final section plainly belong to their period.