In many ways, the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow blog is a time machine, taking us back into the history of the genre and showing how that past is connected to the present and future. In 1960, a movie adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine brought the story out of the past and to the present of the Sixties with aesthetics that looked both back to the Victorian era and forward to the turn of the millennium.
The Time Machine (1960) was not the first H.G. Wells adaptation. There had been several, going back all the way to the silent era. However, all previous adaptations of H.G. Wells’ work, such as the 1953 War of the Worlds movie, chose to set the story in the present day.
For his 1960 adaptation of The Time Machine, however, legendary director George Pal decided to set the movie in the time the novel was published, the Victorian era. The protagonist, unnamed in the novel, is named George in the film (played by Rod Taylor) and implied to be H.G. Wells himself.
The movie sticks closer to the plot of the novel than the later 2002 adaptation and opens with George demonstrating his latest invention to his friends, a miniature time machine. George’s friends don’t believe the machine works, so George retreats into the laboratory to personally test drive the full-scale machine.
George pauses his time machine three times: in 1917, 1940, and 1966. Each time, he finds himself in the middle of a war, and each time he meets the same man, James Filby, son of an old friend. In 1966, George finds himself on the cusp of nuclear war and barely makes it back to his machine in time to escape the effects of an atomic bomb blast, but he finds himself and his machine encased in lava, which hardens into rock.
Since George is stuck inside a solidified lava dome, he travels forward to the year 802,701 AD, October 12 to be precise, when erosion has finally worn the mountain away. At this point, the familiar plot of the novel kicks back in and George meets the lovely Weena (played by a 17-year-old Yvette Mimieux), her fellow Eloi, and later the terrifying Morlocks (designed by Wah Chang).
In the novel, the time traveller needs some time to learn the language of the Eloi, but the movie cuts this short by having everybody speak English 800,000 years in the future. The reason why humanity split into two distinct species, the Eloi and the Morlocks, by this point in time differs between the novel and the 1960 adaptation. In the novel, true to Wells’ Socialist sympathies, the Morlocks are the descendants of the working class, and the Eloi are from the upper class. In the movie—as George learns via an archive known as “the talking rings”—the demographic split is the result of the nuclear war that encased George and his machine in lava in 1966. With the surface and atmosphere then hopelessly irradiated, some people sought refuge underground, eventually evolving into the Morlocks, while others took their chance with the polluted environment, eventually evolving into the Eloi. This makes a lot more sense to a mid-century audience than the original explanation, which was largely inspired by Wells’ dislike of the London Underground. Indeed, not only the story of The Time Machine in the 1960 adaptation but also our perspective of it has changed with the years.
The time machine itself is an iconic prop, a sleigh-like vehicle with a large, spinning clockwork disc attached to the back, and it is reminiscent of something out of a Currier and Ives print . Designed by Bill Ferrari and built by Wah Chang (who designed the Morlocks, as mentioned before, and would later create many memorable Star Trek props), the retro-futuristic look of the time machine with its gears, levers, and polished brass is something we would now recognise as steampunk. In 1960, however, these aesthetics were brand-new. The term “steampunk” would not be coined by K.W. Jeter until 1987, but the style’s visuals have their origins in the early 1960s.
The Time Machine (1960) was not the first science fiction film to be set in the Victorian era nor the first to employ retro-futuristic aesthetics—Disney’s 1954 adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was also set in the nineteenth century and gave us a gorgeous proto-steampunk ,i>Nautilus. The Time Machine (1960), despite the 1954 release of 20,000 Leagues, was the film that opened the floodgates for retro-futuristic adaptations of early science fiction novels. In the following years, Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island and Master of the World and H.G. Wells’ First Men in the Moon all received adaptations in a similar retro-futuristic style.
The Time Machine also employs some ingenious techniques to visually depict time travel. Time-lapse photography is used to show a candle burning down, hands racing around a clock face, flowers opening and closing, and the sun racing across the sky. The passage of years is depicted via the changing fashions of a mannequin in a store window across the street. The time travel scenes are truly stunning, especially considering they were made purely with practical effects, such as the afore-mentioned time-lapse photography, and these won the movie a highly deserved Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The Time Machine (1960) was also a finalist for the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation but lost out to The Twilight Zone.
Have you seen The Time Machine? Have you perhaps created a model of the iconic device or designed some Time Machine-inspired cosplay? Let’s continue the conversation of this classic from the past in our future together in Seattle.
Cora Buhlert is a writer and translator from Bremen in North Germany. She’s a contributor to Galactic Journey and the winner of the 2022 Hugo Award for best fan writer. You can also find her at her website.