Time After Time (1979 film)

Time After Time
Promotional poster
Directed by	Nicholas Meyer
Written by	Nicholas Meyer Based on a novel by Karl Alexander and a story by Steve Hayes
Produced by	Herb Jaffe
Starring	Malcolm McDowell David Warner Mary Steenburgen
Cinematography	Paul Lohmann
Edited by	Donn Cambern
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	August 31, 1979
Running time	112 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Time After Time is a 1979 American fantasy film written and directed by Nicholas Meyer. His screenplay is based largely on a novel by Karl Alexander (which was unfinished during the time the movie was made) and a story by Steve Hayes. It concerns British author H. G. Wells and his fictional use of a time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century.

Plot

In 1893 London, popular writer Herbert George "H.G." Wells (Malcolm McDowell) displays a time machine to his skeptical dinner guests. After explaining to his guests how it works (including a 'non-return key' that keeps the machine at the traveler's destination, and a "vaporizing equalizer" that keeps the traveler and machine on equal terms), police constables arrive at the house searching for Jack the Ripper. They determine that one of Herbert's friends, a surgeon named John Leslie Stevenson (David Warner), might be the infamous killer.

Stevenson escapes to the future by using Herbert's hitherto untested time machine, but because he does not have the machine's 'non-return' key, it automatically returns to 1893. Herebert uses it to pursue Stevenson to November 5, 1979, where the machine has ended up on display in a museum in San Francisco, but is deeply shocked by the future, having expected it to be an enlightened socialist utopia. Searching numerous banks for Stevenson – an Englishman who might have tried to exchange old English currency – Herbert meets liberated Chartered Bank of London employee Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen). She directs Herbert to the Hyatt Regency hotel, as she previously had Stevenson.

Confronted by his onetime friend Herbert, Stevenson confesses that he finds modern society to be pleasingly violent. Apologetically, he states "90 years ago, I was a freak. Now... I'm an amateur," point-blank refusing Herbert's demand to return to 1893 to face justice. Stevenson, who without the 'return key' would be unable to prevent the machine from automatically returning to 1979 (and thereby blocking Herbert from any further pursuit), attempts to wrest it from him. Their struggle is interrupted, Stevenson flees, and Herbert loses him after a frantic chase on foot.

Herbert then meets up with Amy Robbins again and she strikes up a romance (succeeding, once Herbert is sure that she is in earnest). Stevenson returns to the bank to exchange more money with Amy. Rightly concluding that it was she who had led Herbert to him, he flees, then finds out where she lives. Herbert, hoping to convince her of the truth, takes a highly skeptical Amy three days into the future. Once there, she is aghast to see a newspaper headline revealing her own murder as the Ripper's fifth victim (a temporal paradox). Herbert persuades her that they must go back – it is their duty to prevent the fourth victim's murder, then prevent Amy's. However, once returned, they are delayed and can do no more than phone the police. Stevenson kills again, Herbert is arrested because of his knowledge of the killing, and Amy is left alone, totally defenseless, and at the mercy of the 'San Francisco Ripper.'

Herbert unsuccessfully tries to convince the police of Amy's peril (his claim to be "Sherlock Holmes" has marked him as a lunatic well before mentioning a "time machine") and Amy attempts to hide from Stevenson. When the police finally do investigate her apartment, they find the dismembered body of a woman. Thus, Wells is released, mourning Amy's brutal death. Suddenly, he is confronted by Stevenson, who has actually killed Amy's friend in error and has kidnapped Amy in order to extort the time machine key.

Stevenson flees with the key – and Amy as insurance – then attempts a permanent escape in the time machine. Herbert bargains for Amy's life in return for Stevenson's escape, but removes the "vaporizing equalizer" from the machine. The removal of this component, Herbert had confirmed earlier, causes the machine to remain in place while its passenger is sent traveling endlessly through time, with no way to stop; in effect destroying him. Once this happens, Herbert proclaims his plans to return to his own time, on his own, in order to destroy a machine that is too dangerous for primitive mankind. Amy pleads with him to take her along (despite her aversion to living in Victorian England). As they depart to the past, she says that she is changing her name to Susan B. Anthony. The end credits reveal that the two later married.

Production notes

Films set in the near future are often set decades (or at least a few years) after their release date, however, Time After Time is particularly notable for its 'futuristic' setting – the week of November 5, 1979 – barely two months in the future. 'November 5' would be featured as a key date in two later time-travel films by different directors, 1982's Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann and 1985's Back to the Future.

Five years prior to writing and directing Time After Time, Nicholas Meyer published the novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, in which Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud.

The film was recorded throughout San Francisco in locations including Cow Hollow, North Beach, the Hyatt Regency hotel, California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, the Marina District, Ghirardelli Square, Fisherman's Wharf, the Richmond District, the Golden Gate Bridge, Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill, the Embarcadero Center, Chinatown, the Marina Green, the Palace of Fine Arts, Potrero Hill, and the Civic Center.

Cast

• Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells
• David Warner as John Leslie Stevenson/Jack the Ripper
• Mary Steenburgen as Amy Robbins
• Charles Cioffi as Police Lt. Mitchell
• Patti D'Arbanville as Shirley
• Joseph Maher as Adams
• Corey Feldman as boy at museum

Critical reception

In her review in The New York Times, Janet Maslin said the film "is every bit as magical as the trick around which it revolves." She continued, "Mr. Meyer isn't a particularly skilled director; this is his first attempt, and on occasion it's very clumsy. But as a whizkid he's gone straight to the head of the class, with a movie that's as sweet as it is clever, and never so clever that it forgets to be entertaining. The satisfactions Time After Time offers are perhaps no more sophisticated than the fun one might have with an intricate set of electric trains. Still, fun of this sort isn't always easy to come by, not after one's age has climbed up into two digits. There's a lot to be said for an adult's movie with the shimmer of a child's new toy."

Variety termed it "a delightful, entertaining trifle of a film that shows both the possibilities and limitations of taking liberties with literature and history. Nicholas Meyer has deftly juxtaposed Victorian England and contemporary America in a clever story, irresistible due to the competence of its cast."

Awards and nominations

Nicholas Meyer won the Saturn Award for Best Writing, Mary Steenburgen won the Saturn Award for Best Actress, and Miklós Rózsa won the Saturn Award for Best Music. Saturn Award nominations went to Meyer for Best Director, Malcolm McDowell for Best Actor, David Warner for Supporting Actor, and Sal Anthony and Yvonne Kubis for Best Costumes, and the film was nominated for Best Science Fiction Film.

Nicholas Meyer won the Antenne II Award and the Grand Prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival and he was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

External links

• Time After Time at IMDb
• Time After Time at Rotten Tomatoes
• Images from Time After Time (1/3)
• Images from Time After Time (2/3)
• Images from Time After Time (3/3)