ALL SCI-FI Forum Index ALL SCI-FI
The place to “find your people”.
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything (1980 TV)

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi on Television from 1970 to 2000
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 12:57 pm    Post subject: The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything (1980 TV) Reply with quote



John D. MacDonald's highly enjoyable novel became this reasonably amusing TV movie with Robert Hayes (Airplane! and Pam Dawber (Mork and Mindy).

The premise is so unique, it might actually be the only one! Shocked (Just kidding, but the novel brilliantly written.)

Robert Hayes inherits his millionaire uncle's seemingly ordinary pocket watch — which turns out to be a device which drastically slows time for the whole world, while Robert is free to movie around normally.

What the movie leaves out is the way the main character learns that the rules of physics still apply to the objects around him. So, in order to move an object or a person he has so exert enough force to "speed it up" in the real world, even though for him it's like pushing something through molasses!

However, once he's through moving it, he has to "slow it down" by pushing on the other side long enough to cancel the inertia!

One scene in the novel has him picking up several fist-sized rocks, suspending them in the air, and then shoving on them for several seconds in the direction of a locked wooden door he wants to open.

When he clicks the watch to restart time, the rocks shoot through the air at bullet speed and smash the door!

Naturally this modestly budgeted TV movie includes none of this. We get lots of jump cuts, the before-and-after moments when the main characters uses the watch to do things we rarely get to see.

There's a few scenes with actors on the sets holding really, really still while the sped-up main character walk around normally doing mischievous things.

If that sounds familiar, you saw it in The Twilight Zone episode called A Kind of a Stopwatch in 1963. By a strange coincidence, MacDonald's novel was published in 1962. Wink

Click the image below to get a copy of the novel from Amazon for $16.00. Cool

__________________

Or you can get a copy of the 1962 edition I have for $8.46 (which includes the $4.00 shipping cost) from eBay. Very Happy

_______________

Enjoy the TV promo and a disappointing VHS copy of the movie.


_ The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything 1980 TV promo


__________



_ _______The Girl the Gold Watch and Everything


__________

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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:48 am; edited 2 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
scotpens
Starship Captain


Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 871
Location: The Left Coast

PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 3:39 pm    Post subject: Re: The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything (1980 TV) Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
There's a few scenes with actors on the sets holding really, really still while the sped-up main character walk around normally doing mischievous things.

If that sounds familiar, you saw it in The Twilight Zone episode called A Kind of a Stopwatch in 1963.

The same effect was used in the Outer Limits episode "The Premonition" (1965) and the U.F.O. episode "Timelash" (1971).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi on Television from 1970 to 2000 All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group