The Time Machine Review

Glossy and overplayed, this is nonetheless a fine rendition of H.G. Wells’ timeless classic. Rod Taylor assays the Victorian boffin whose Heath Robinson contraption hurtles him through the years to a chilling (though permanently sunny) future. Director George Pal fails to grasp Wells’ social preaching — a future world divided into the slender beautiful upper classes and a grim underworld of the Morlocks (read lower classes) — and turns it into a straightforward sci-fi vehicle in which the dapper Taylor defeats the grunting Neanderthal Morlocks because he is the only one around with a brain. Still, it’s brisk, enjoyable and decorated with bright entertaining effects. But like War Of The Worlds, it is a hokey 60s version of a Wells classic which still awaits a definitive movie version.