Time After Time (Snap Case)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Warner, Malcolm McDowellDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-08-06
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Time After Time (Snap Case)
Movie Review: "The future isn't what you thought. It's what I am!"
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of those rare films from my adolescence that I have a palpable memory associated with on its first viewing. It was released at the end of summer 1979 - I don't know whether school had started or not, but what I do remember is that I insisted quite vehemently on seeing it, and my mom acquiesced none too graciously - STAR WARS had made me a serious movie lover 2 years before and I was especially entranced by the few science fiction films that came our way. So my brother and I saw this after it had been out a week or two; it didn't last long and the theater had only 2 other patrons. We both loved it - it was the scariest and most intense film I'd seen at that point, I was 13 and my parents quite overprotective - and I'm glad to say that my love of the film has remained unchanged.
Malcolm McDowell stars in one of his very best (and quite atypical) performances as H.G. Wells, who in 1893 isn't planning on writing about a "time machine", but has in fact built one, as he demonstrates to his guests at a dinner party reminiscent of the opening scene in the actual novel of the same name which was published (in reality) in 1895. He plans to head off into the future to find the utopia that he is certain will exist in a few generations....ah but his good friend John Leslie Stevenson (David Warner, quite chilling) has other plans, as Stevenson is in fact Jack the Ripper, and as the police knock on Wells' door, he makes his escape, to San Francisco in 1979, the machine having been physically moved from London after World War II. Luckily the time machine has several fail-safe mechanisms, one of which causes it to return to Wells, who sets out in pursuit to the "brave new world" of the future.
And thus begins the story proper, a chase-thriller with Wells first trying to find Stevenson, then being himself chased as the Ripper needs a key that will prevent him being followed in the time machine. Along the way Wells meets a bank officer, Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen) who helps him to locate his nemesis and with whom he quickly falls in love. The love story and the thriller are really the principle genres here, and first-time director Meyer handles the latter with surprising ease - the romantic part wasn't too difficult to fake, as it wasn't in fact faked and McDowell and Steenburgen embarked on a 10-year marriage shortly after the film's release. There are a couple of strong and quite obvious themes that underlie the whole story - optimism vs pessimism, the need to take love wherever you find it, and the importance of hope even in the face of the obvious truth that "progress" isn't always positive. There's a great scene in a hotel early on where Stevenson shows Wells just how misguided he's been - but Wells stubbornly persists in his optimism almost to the last, and McDowell is superb at conveying the fish-out-of-water, gentle soul with, at last, just enough steel to prevail over murder and time.
The San Francisco locations are nicely used, and there are numerous brief homages (some perhaps accidental) to earlier famous SF-set classics like DIRTY HARRY, BULLITT, and VERTIGO; Miklós Rózsa's fine score even quotes Herrmann's music for the Hitchcock film - or comes awfully close to doing so - in the Muir Woods scene. If you're someone who is insistent on absolute historical and scientific accuracy in your science fiction, I'm afraid you'll be let down - the explanation behind the time machine and the one paradox that is involved isn't terribly convincing, and the ripper murders occurred in 1888, not 1893. Die-hard Wellsians (yes, there are a few) regularly complain about McDowell's "wrong" accent, the real author's harsh Cockney having been considered grating and unpalatable to film audiences - but as I say above, to think of this as hard, serious social science fiction is IMO a mistake, it's a romantic thriller with just enough social comment to make the characters more interesting and believable. It's exciting, fun, and charming, and it has a feel of the old "classy" Hollywood methods for doing science fiction and horror (the violence is quite muted and more intense for leaving much to our imagination), with special effects definitely of much less importance than they usually have been in genre films released since this one. Not a "great" film, perhaps, or a particularly important or life-changing one, but it certainly hits all the right notes for me.
The disc offers a commentary track featuring director Meyer and star McDowell that is one of the better examples I've heard. Meyer's explanation for his use of the particular hotel he picked for the chase between Stevenson and Wells to begin in had me hitting my head and saying "of course"; it's nice to find a director of science fiction and fantasy who actually knows the classics of the genre.
Summary of Time After Time (Snap Case)
London 1893 is home to a killer with a macabre nickname... and also to a visionary genius who would write "The Time Machine." But what if H.G. Wells' invention wasn't fiction? And what if Jack the Ripper escaped capture fleeing his own time to take refuge in ours - with Wells himself in pursuit?In this clever speculative tale, story collaborators Karl Alexander and Steve Hayes and screenwriter-director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II and VI) send two famous historical figures ahead in time. In late 19th century England, writer H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) unwittingly includes Jack the Ripper (David Warner) in his social circle. When one of Wells's dinner parties is crashed by the police looking for the Ripper, Jack uses the author's time machine to escape. But there's one catch--after it has been used, the machine returns to Wells's time. Thus the literary genius bravely sets out to find his evil friend before he can wreak havoc on another time period, and soon arrives in modern-day San Francisco. What follows is a fascinating merger of a suspense thriller--as the charming and polite Wells tries to hunt down the shrewd, brutish Ripper and take him back to the past--and a love story, as Wells befriends and falls in love with a bank administrator (Mary Steenburgen) who acts as his guide through the future. Through its brilliant combination of creepy suspense and tender romance, Time After Time manages to become a classic in two genres at once--a rare cinematic achievement. --Bryan Reesman
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