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The Time Machine - (1960) - Part 2

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 9:14 pm    Post subject: The Time Machine - (1960) - Part 2 Reply with quote

The Time Machine - part 2
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This post is in three parts so that the large number of pictures won't have to load all at once for you to enjoy it!

When you finish part 2, just click on the link at the bottom to go directly to part 3!

Click on this link to go back to part 1

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Rod's disbelieving guests depart — except for his loyal friend, Alan Young, who gives us one last look at that wonderful fireside setting while he tries to find out if Rod might be planning to do anything rash — like zip off into the future, meet a hot blond, battle ugly blue creatures, and save the world.



Rod is cagey. When Alan asks him to promise not to leave the house, Rod says he won't walk out the door. Alan isn't fooled, but he's a true-blue friend, so he resists the urge to wrestle Rod to the floor and shout for Mrs. Watchett to bring a rope.

Alan leaves reluctantly, shortly after which we see Rod open the door to his workshop for the big reveal.

Ta-daaaa! The full sized you-know-what!

Composer Russell Garcia went plum wild with the best piece of music in the whole movie. The camera circled that gorgeous machine the way Romeo went 'round and 'round Juliet before closing in for his first historic kiss.







And this was definitely 'love at first sight' for me and my loyal crew — Mom included.



I'm not sure which I saw first, the movie version of the time machine or the Classics Illustrated version, but I love 'em both. The movie version certainly looks more comfortable, but the Classics Illustrated version corners better and it's easier to park.



Rod settled into that comfortable chair, eased the control lever forward — and changed my life forever. I forgot to blink of a full minute as I watched a man sit in a machine and go someplace new and wonderful . . . without moving an inch.

At first I pushed the lever forward, ever so slightly . . .





. . . and the laboratory grew faint around me . . .





After determining that his time machine actually works by using cutting edge, hi-tech performance indicators (a candle and a clock . . . okay, so sometimes less is more) —



— Rod puts the pedal to the metal so he can watch time fly and see a snail run the four minute mile.



We lucky folks in the audience of the Loew's Grand Theater had never seen anything like this, and we were just as wide-eyed and wonder-filled as Rod. I figure the snack bar in the lobby was completely deserted during all this.

Who's going to go out for popcorn and Coke when they can watch a man perform miracles while sitting in a big red chair?

It was right here that we see the famous mannequin the first time, a very clever way for George Pal to crystallize the concept of England's changing culture from 1900 to 1966.



As Rod continues his journey through time, I quickly spotted the stop motion animation used for the snail, and I knew the growing apples were not just time lapse photography, because they had a "painted" look about them.

I didn't find out until years later (from the bonus features on the DVD) that the apples actually were time lapse photography . . . of a painting!

The apples were done by matte artist Bill Brace. A camera was set up facing his canvas, and periodic shots were taken of the work in progress.

The pictures below show us how the processes looks if we . . . well . . . slow down time! Smile I think this is absolutely amazing! Viewed as pictures like these, they do not look like paintings!







My one small complaint with the initial time travel scenes is that both the sun and the Moon seem to move beneath the clouds. The sun is fuzzy around the edges (which helps the illusion a little), but the Moon is a white disk with sharp edges . . . and the clouds are above it!





Even when I was twelve years old I was unforgiving when it came to special effects, and I spotted that error while sitting there in the Loews' Grand Theater. But it certainly didn't spoil the movie for me.

Rod samples the changing British culture through his workshop window by watching the styles evolve on the clothing worn by the mannequin across the street. The comical animation of the clothes is remarkably similar to Mike Jittlov's short piece showing animated clothing dancing around in a department store in his mini-movie called Swing Shift.





The brief stop in 1917 when Rod meets the son of Alan Young (played by Alan Young, who certainly looked the part) does a fine job of demonstrating just how weird and creepy time travel is: say goodbye to your friend who has an infant son, and then say hello to his grown son twenty minutes later.

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Ah, but Rod sees a lot more than a mannequin in the next few minutes (and the next few decades), when he stops in 1966, where we get to see what our future looked like forty-eight years ago.

Ah yes . . . I remember that future like it was yesterday.







Ever notice how many 1959 Thunderbirds there are in the scene below? Look closely and you'll see that the red one with the white top was actually used twice, thanks to the split screen effect this shot employed.



When I was twelve I thought the '59 T-bird was one of the most beautiful cars ever made — and I still do.

__

I built model cars when I was a kid, and I had one of the '59 T-bird. Ford employed some of the design concepts in the T-bird they first came up with for their 1955 "future car", the Lincoln Futura. I had a model of the Futura, too, like the one shown below! Notice the common design elements.

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The next few minutes of the movie mesmerized me and my trio of fellow sci-fi lovers. Rod demonstrated how to outrun lava by traveling quickly through the 4th dimension rather than the other three.





When he came out of the mountain, we were treated to a series amazing scenes of the landscape changing as Rod zipped through the centuries — and none of it was done with CGI, of course. In fact, it was more of those time-lapse Bill Brace paintings used earlier for the growing apples.

Somehow this gives them a special appeal, because we???re watching works of art being created right before our eyes ??? the way they would look to Rod if he watched the artist at work, six feet away, from the seat of his time machine.

Studied as still pictures like this, you can see many of the changes Bill made in each painting ??? not only in the way the buildings are rapidly constructed and then decay before our eyes, but also the many ways he changes the terrain itself.

However, notice how some of the same flowers, shrubs, and trees somehow manage to remain unchanged for thousands of years! Very Happy

These are arranged in chronological order so you can see the structures being built and then deteriorating.







The picture directly above seems to show the dome partially built, but the stone lion-creatures have not yet been placed on either sides of the steps. However, you can see the lion-creatures (barely) flanking the steps in the picture below, which shows all the buildings before they began to deteriorate.







Rod decides he???s driving too fast for really good sight seeing ???



??? but he underestimates the road conditions and comes to a screeching 4th dimensional halt. The audience is treated to the movie???s only overhead view of his machine.



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Click on this link to go to:

The Time Machine — part 3

_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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