Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Land, and this is Joe McCormick, and it
Speaker 1: is Time Travel a clock on Weird House Cinema. Today's
Speaker 1: movie selection is the nineteen seventy nine romantic sci fi
Speaker 1: adventure Time after Time by the American writer and filmmaker
Speaker 1: Nicholas Meyer. So this is a movie that I had
Speaker 1: never seen until this week. Uh, And I came across
Speaker 1: it by way of a plot description in some article
Speaker 1: I was reading somewhere. I don't even remember what it
Speaker 1: was now, but I discovered in this article that there
Speaker 1: was allegedly a time travel adventure movie in which the
Speaker 1: English writer H. G. Wells, real historical figure author of
Speaker 1: the novel The Time Machine, played in this movie by
Speaker 1: Malcolm McDowell. Must you was a real time machine to
Speaker 1: chase Jack the Ripper played by a smooth and sadistic
Speaker 1: David Warner through space and time in this time machine
Speaker 1: to prevent the Ripper from slashing twentieth century disco dancers.
Speaker 1: And the premise was it sounded so bonkers that I
Speaker 1: immediately thought this had to be a good option option
Speaker 1: for weird House. And then the really surprising thing was
Speaker 1: the more I read about it, the more it seemed
Speaker 1: that most critics really liked this movie, even though I
Speaker 1: had somehow never really heard of it, or if I
Speaker 1: had heard about it, it didn't make enough of an
Speaker 1: impression that I remembered it. So so I saw it
Speaker 1: this out, and I gotta say I was really impressed.
Speaker 1: You know. On the downside, for for weird House context,
Speaker 1: at least, I will say this movie doesn't actually when
Speaker 1: you're watching it, feel quite as weird in its execution
Speaker 1: as a straight read on the premise would lead you
Speaker 1: to assume. But nevertheless, I think this is mostly just
Speaker 1: a really great movie and it opens up all kinds
Speaker 1: of interesting bigger question is about the themes and ambitions
Speaker 1: of time travel stories and science fiction in general. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was excited to view this film again, um, especially
Speaker 1: after watching Spookies last week. Uh, in part because I
Speaker 1: was excited because you had never seen it and and
Speaker 1: so that would make it fresh. It's a film that
Speaker 1: I had not seen in a long time. I remember
Speaker 1: watching it on TV. I don't know if they used
Speaker 1: to show it on like t NT, or maybe it
Speaker 1: came on an E or something back in the day.
Speaker 1: But I remember watching it on television and uh oh
Speaker 1: it's uh it does it holds up so well? I
Speaker 1: don't I've I've spoken to various people and folks who
Speaker 1: have seen this movie. They tend to like it. I
Speaker 1: haven't met anybody who hated it. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: an Orange Julius. I guess, as long as you just
Speaker 1: don't really hate orange Joes or really hate um, you know, malls,
Speaker 1: malls or something. I don't know. It's a terrible analogy,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It's something about about this film
Speaker 1: just seems to to sit well with most people. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Everything's very well calibrated, like it's sci fi,
Speaker 1: but it's not so sci fi that it turns off
Speaker 1: people that would be opposed to say, rampaging more locks,
Speaker 1: And yet people like like us, who might say why
Speaker 1: are there no more locks in this picture? It's still
Speaker 1: it's still so captivating and well acted and well put
Speaker 1: together that I ultimately can't argue too much about the results. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I agree. I mean, I would have, of course
Speaker 1: enjoyed if it if it went much weirder and wrapped
Speaker 1: in more h G. Wells Lower had more locks and
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff like that. It doesn't, And in fact,
Speaker 1: the film is almost the opposite of that. I would say,
Speaker 1: for a science fiction movie involving one of the most
Speaker 1: like notorious, sadistic serial killers in history, this is an
Speaker 1: extremely uh cozy feeling movie. Would you agree? I would agree.
Speaker 1: I believe this was a PG, but it was a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine PG, so I do not recommend watching
Speaker 1: this with with your young children. There is there is blood,
Speaker 1: and there's some mature themes that are explored. But but
Speaker 1: he even those mature themes, which are you know, just
Speaker 1: part of the tapestry you're invoking by bringing in a
Speaker 1: character like Jack the Ripper, they are they are handled
Speaker 1: in a very light and ultimately kind of comforting way,
Speaker 1: I guess, And I think it also helps that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I wanna criticize myself because I
Speaker 1: think in a previous episode of Weird House Cinema, I
Speaker 1: was trying to list actors that just have that evil look,
Speaker 1: that unfortunately just have faces where maybe they can't overcome
Speaker 1: the fact that they look sadistic and sinister, and one
Speaker 1: of the actors I singled out in this regard is
Speaker 1: Malcolm McDowell. Like, it's gonna be hard to have Malcolm
Speaker 1: McDowell as a hero because he just looks like an
Speaker 1: evil person. That's not a nice thing to say, but
Speaker 1: for some reason he does. And yet I haven't seen
Speaker 1: this movie at the time. In this movie, he's so sweet.
Speaker 1: He is this he is, He's very lovable in this
Speaker 1: He's a Victorian teddy bear. Uh. And and he he
Speaker 1: also feels smaller than usual. Uh, probably by design the
Speaker 1: way they were shooting him and maybe leaning into his
Speaker 1: actual hide a little bit instead of putting him in
Speaker 1: on an apple box or something. Um. Yeah, it's also
Speaker 1: fascinating that he This was the film that followed up
Speaker 1: the notorious Caligula, in which he very much played a
Speaker 1: villain and a nasty character in a in a nasty film,
Speaker 1: and apparently that was part of it. He's like, I
Speaker 1: really don't want to play a villain for for once?
Speaker 1: Can I play the hero of a picture? And yeah,
Speaker 1: he's great in this. It's almost hard to imagine the
Speaker 1: gap that has crossed going from Caligula to this sweet
Speaker 1: romantic time travel adventure, you know, love story. Galloping across
Speaker 1: the time. Caligula is it's It's a movie that I
Speaker 1: have tried to watch for badness sake years ago with
Speaker 1: with some friends, and I I couldn't make it through
Speaker 1: the movie. It is just so so repulsive and like
Speaker 1: it it's the one of the ugliest movies I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Like the colors hurt the eyes. It's just relentless depressing
Speaker 1: violence and and depravity. There's one part that's, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it would have been funny in a different movie because
Speaker 1: it's so ridiculous. There's a part where like, um, I
Speaker 1: think Malcolm McDowell is like watching a gigantic lawnmower in
Speaker 1: ancient Rome, just like cut off the heads of people
Speaker 1: who were buried up to their necks. But but the
Speaker 1: movie is like so depressing, Like even that wasn't funny.
Speaker 1: Uh So, so it's just yeah, just awful. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: going from that to this which is just this this spry,
Speaker 1: sprightly beautiful time travel adventure. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: quite a quite elite. But yeah, he's he's very good
Speaker 1: in this. And I will say that, as Malcolm McDowell aged,
Speaker 1: I feel like he kind of aged into that face
Speaker 1: even more to where it's harder to imagine older Malcolm
Speaker 1: McDowell playing um a likable character and a non villain.
Speaker 1: But but I say that he's been in so many films.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he pops up later on playing like a
Speaker 1: kind grandfatherly character. But but also I think he became
Speaker 1: increasingly typecast as he got older too. Yeah, and he's
Speaker 1: still active. We'll get into his bio open in a bit.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's still active, so there's still time. Okay,
Speaker 1: how about a movie where Malcolm McDowell plays Santa Clause
Speaker 1: he could go to Kurt Russell route. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess the part of the thing is
Speaker 1: if you are going to pay out and get Malcolm
Speaker 1: McDowell to play Santa Claus in your film, then clearly
Speaker 1: you want villainous Santa Claus. Like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know at this point? One of the Yeah, one
Speaker 1: of those Santa Claus is a is the Monster movie
Speaker 1: is like the one with Goldberg? Remember that one I
Speaker 1: know of it. Yeah, Well, and maybe we should uh
Speaker 1: give a little historical context for the premise of this movie,
Speaker 1: which is once again h G. Wells must pursue Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper through time in a time machine to stop
Speaker 1: him from from ripping the twentieth century. Yeah, well, let's
Speaker 1: let it rip here. So, first of all, what do
Speaker 1: you need to know about H. G. Wells and the
Speaker 1: Time Machine to enjoy this film? Well, not a lot,
Speaker 1: but here the basics. Time Machine is an excellent five
Speaker 1: novel by English writer H. G. Wells who lived eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six through nineteen five. It's a short read, widely available,
Speaker 1: and in my opinion, it holds up really well. It's
Speaker 1: a very readable text today. One thing that's worth noting
Speaker 1: is that the time this movie is set before H. G.
Speaker 1: Wells wrote the novel. So, uh so he wrote the
Speaker 1: novel in I don't remember exactly the year, but I
Speaker 1: think this is set in eighteen one or ninety three
Speaker 1: something like that, or at the beginning is before they
Speaker 1: travel through time eight I believe that would be the
Speaker 1: that would be prime ripping uh time right there? Okay,
Speaker 1: al right? At any rate, U this is not the
Speaker 1: absolute first time travel yarn. That's a it's an interesting
Speaker 1: discussion to get in. I think we've talked about this
Speaker 1: in the show when he's trying to figure out like
Speaker 1: who was the first person to deal with time travel?
Speaker 1: But it was the first time travel story to gain
Speaker 1: just a huge degree of popularity, and Wells actually coined
Speaker 1: the term time machine. Now, to be clear, the character
Speaker 1: in the book is just the time traveler and is
Speaker 1: not Wells himself. Alf Wells from a first person perspective,
Speaker 1: and it is. But I don't think we're really supposed
Speaker 1: to assume that Wells made a time machine. No, no,
Speaker 1: no no. This this film, however, takes a different approach.
Speaker 1: Um Wells was a futurist, though in real life he
Speaker 1: was not an inventor outside of the invention of sci
Speaker 1: fi concepts and the like and the exploration of new ideas.
Speaker 1: The book has been adapted a few different times, including
Speaker 1: the famous nineteen sixty George Powell adaptation. This one has
Speaker 1: a really iconic look for the time machine, wonderful morelock designs,
Speaker 1: Like when you think more locks, these are the more
Speaker 1: locks you probably picture. But there was also a nine
Speaker 1: eight TV movie and a two thousand to remake that
Speaker 1: I've seen, and as uh, I remember it being all right.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing about it is that it was
Speaker 1: directed by wells great grandson Simon Wells. Really that's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's worth seeing it on its own, even if it
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand two, which man movies from
Speaker 1: two thousand two, it is hard to escape that early too. Thousands. Look,
Speaker 1: it just kind of bleeds in everything. I watched a
Speaker 1: movie from two thousand two the other day. It was
Speaker 1: a really bad but enjoyable Clint Eastwood detective movie from
Speaker 1: two thousand two called blood Work. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen that one. I've not seen that one. Well, so,
Speaker 1: I mean absolute like hack detective story, hilarious but also
Speaker 1: quite fun, and it's got that look it just like
Speaker 1: everything from two thousand two has this I don't know
Speaker 1: this some feature of like the contrast and the colors
Speaker 1: and everything. Just everything looks kind of slick and awful. Well,
Speaker 1: it's been a while since I saw the two thousand
Speaker 1: two time Machine, but I remember, I remember being entertained
Speaker 1: by it, and I remember that it had Jeremy Irons
Speaker 1: is a more lock in it, So oh, good, good
Speaker 1: choice there. Yeah, I remember the more locks look pretty good.
Speaker 1: But then again, I'm just I'm generally in on the
Speaker 1: idea of moral it's hard to break more locks from me. Oh.
Speaker 1: But one thing that was true about the historical figure H. G.
Speaker 1: Wells that is also true of the character in the
Speaker 1: movie is that he was known as something of a
Speaker 1: kind of progressive utopian socialists and a futurist. So he
Speaker 1: had a lot of like visions of the future that
Speaker 1: involved uh, progressive political ideals. I'm not sure if all
Speaker 1: of the exact things stated by the character in the
Speaker 1: film would be real things that H. G. Wells thought
Speaker 1: or would have said, but it's at least sort of
Speaker 1: in the ballpark, right. And then ultimately, the film is
Speaker 1: largely about the idea that if if Wells represents optimism
Speaker 1: for the future coming out of the Victorian Age, and
Speaker 1: ultimately the optimism about what was possible in the Victorian
Speaker 1: Age in the late nineteen hundreds, then our other figure
Speaker 1: represents the worst of that time period, the ricorious character
Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper. So what do you need to
Speaker 1: know about Jack the Ripper? Okay, here the basics. So
Speaker 1: in many ways, this is the original true crime sensation
Speaker 1: and a topic of continued and largely fruitless intrigue today.
Speaker 1: Also referred to as a leather apron, this was an
Speaker 1: unidentified serial killer, active in London's Whitechapel district around eighty eight.
Speaker 1: He targeted under privileged members of society, generally prostitutes, and
Speaker 1: was known for the modus operandi of slicing first the
Speaker 1: throat then the abdomen, as well as his taunting letters
Speaker 1: to the media. Now, one note I do have there
Speaker 1: is that because this movie set me off on a
Speaker 1: reading spree where I was like, oh, I need to
Speaker 1: know things about Jack the Ripper. Uh. The letters are
Speaker 1: one of the most famous things about him, though I
Speaker 1: think there is serious doubt about the authenticity of all
Speaker 1: of the letters that I think there's only one letter
Speaker 1: that historians take seriously at all as possibly being from
Speaker 1: the killer himself, and this is the so called from
Speaker 1: Hell letter because and I think the reason this is
Speaker 1: the only one that's really taken seriously is that it
Speaker 1: was accompanied by a jar containing a piece of actual
Speaker 1: human kidney, allegedly taken from one of the victims, though
Speaker 1: it's not possible to confirm whether it actually came from
Speaker 1: a victim or not. They didn't have like DNA testing
Speaker 1: at the time obviously, and uh and so, and it
Speaker 1: could have been obtained from a medical college or cadaver
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, and I believe the police
Speaker 1: at the time they suspected or that one of their
Speaker 1: theories was that it that was the origin of the
Speaker 1: organ as it came from some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: um cadaver situation as opposed to have murder victim. And
Speaker 1: one of the weird things about it is that the
Speaker 1: from Hell letter, I will say, just as like a
Speaker 1: literary appraisal of the interest contained in these letters, it's
Speaker 1: one of the less interesting ones. Like the really interesting
Speaker 1: letters are the ones that are pretty much yeah, known
Speaker 1: to be hoaxes that were sent possibly by like journalists
Speaker 1: trying to gin up interest in the story further to
Speaker 1: sell more newspapers. Yeah. Absolutely, those those are some of
Speaker 1: the more entertaining letters. But also and you can see
Speaker 1: why they would have been fabricated just to sort of
Speaker 1: drum up this uh this this paranois and excitement about
Speaker 1: the murders they have that one of them has that
Speaker 1: line I shan't stop ripping right until I am good
Speaker 1: and buckled or something. Yeah, uh so, so, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a high probability that he didn't write any of
Speaker 1: these letters, but they are very much associated with him
Speaker 1: the idea of this this figure that is killing and
Speaker 1: then mocking the press, that is that is the subject
Speaker 1: out of all this media and public fear and fascination,
Speaker 1: but is also potentially feeding it as well and feeding
Speaker 1: off of it, right. And I think it's these letters,
Speaker 1: even though probably none of them are authentic, or at
Speaker 1: least most of them are not authentic. It's these letters
Speaker 1: that sort of create one of the most lasting legacies
Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper, which is this idea that he's
Speaker 1: sort of playing a game of chess with the police, uh,
Speaker 1: and that this is a major part of his motivation.
Speaker 1: And this does come through in the movie as well,
Speaker 1: because you see Jack the Ripper in his identity before
Speaker 1: he's revealed to be Jack the Ripper. Uh. He he
Speaker 1: is a friend of H. G. Wells and they play
Speaker 1: chess together in the movie, and you know he's very
Speaker 1: into like outsmarting his opponents. Yeah. Now, there are I
Speaker 1: think just five verified murders if you will, by Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper, though there are others that may or may
Speaker 1: not be attributed to him, depending on where you're falling.
Speaker 1: And then likewise, there's a great deal of folklore, fiction
Speaker 1: and pseudo history that just abound within the realm of
Speaker 1: Ripper ology. Um, he was never caught. And there are
Speaker 1: numerous suspects that have been discussed over the years, and
Speaker 1: they range from the potentially believable to the to the
Speaker 1: outrageous to the unbelievable even during the time. Um, and
Speaker 1: some of them, some of these suspects did have a
Speaker 1: surgical background, because there was the whole apparent removal of
Speaker 1: organs in the murders, and so you know, some thought,
Speaker 1: well this, this indicates that they had the individual had
Speaker 1: some level of training or expertise or familiarity with human anatomy. Now,
Speaker 1: in time after time, the Ripper is this character Dr
Speaker 1: John Leslie Stevenson, who is not an historical person as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell. But weirdly enough, the Outer
Speaker 1: Limit episode Ripper, which stars David Warner and carry Elis,
Speaker 1: was co written by Leslie Stevens. So there you go.
Speaker 1: That's enough of a connection for Ripper ology. I think, Wait,
Speaker 1: is Leslie Stevens a real person and it's just a
Speaker 1: coincidence or is this a pseudonym for saying it was
Speaker 1: like written by David Warner or something? Um, I mean
Speaker 1: it's an IMDb writing credit. That's not David Warner, So
Speaker 1: I I think it's either just somebody who happens to
Speaker 1: be Leslie Stevens, or is the actual Jack the Ripper
Speaker 1: having time traveled to the nineties to make a career
Speaker 1: for himself in uh in TV screenplay writing? Okay, So
Speaker 1: the last week I've been wandering around my house NonStop
Speaker 1: singing that Cindy Lauper song. I can't get it out
Speaker 1: of my head. Is it's not used in the film?
Speaker 1: In fact, the song was released after this film came out.
Speaker 1: Is there any connection between them? Allegedly, Cindy Lauper was
Speaker 1: inspired to write the song because she liked the movie,
Speaker 1: and weirdly enough, there was a in re in history,
Speaker 1: there's been a there was an attempt to bring the
Speaker 1: novel Time After Time back as a TV series, and
Speaker 1: each episode of the TV series gets its title from
Speaker 1: the lyrics to Cindy Lauper's Time after Time. Nice Nice.
Speaker 1: Cindy Lawper doesn't get enough credit as a songwriter. You know,
Speaker 1: have you ever have you ever actually listened to the
Speaker 1: like the lyrics of girls just want to have Fun?
Speaker 1: That's actually like a sort of profound and sad song. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I like some Cindy Lapper. I haven't really been
Speaker 1: playing her recently, but but yeah, she had a number
Speaker 1: of hits I would I would generally take the Cindy
Speaker 1: Lapper songs of that era and put them above the
Speaker 1: Madonna songs of that era. Oh, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I would go that far, but definitely I'm a fan.
Speaker 1: And now I have to correct myself because I actually
Speaker 1: just looked it up to make sure and found out
Speaker 1: that Cyndy Lawper did not write girls Just Want to
Speaker 1: Have Fun. Her version was a cover version. Whoops. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: great song anyway, and her version is great. So we've
Speaker 1: already pretty much done our elevator pitch for time after time?
Speaker 1: Shall we go ahead and listen to just a little
Speaker 1: bit of the trailer audio? Not the full thing, but
Speaker 1: just a little bit of the trailer maybe some Oh man,
Speaker 1: I don't like this trailer. I feel like it really
Speaker 1: it takes away from the movie. But okay, let's let's
Speaker 1: just get at least get a snippet. The time is
Speaker 1: and novelists and in better H. G. Wells makes us
Speaker 1: startling announcement, gentlemen, I am talking about traveling through time
Speaker 1: in a machine constructed for that Betty purpose. The first
Speaker 1: to use the machine, however, is Dr John Leslie Stevenson,
Speaker 1: better known to history as Jack the Ripper Time after time. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is a bad trailer. I hate the
Speaker 1: comedic trailer narrator who's like Jack the Ripper is on
Speaker 1: a on a vacation, you know, it's like always this
Speaker 1: kind of like Casey Cason asked, voice that's like, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a good time at the theater and give
Speaker 1: me the voice of God any day over this nonsense.
Speaker 1: The trailer is bad in numerous ways, and I do
Speaker 1: not recommend watching it. First of all, because of what
Speaker 1: you're saying. The tone and the narrator are irritating and
Speaker 1: I think do not accurately communicate the the spirit and
Speaker 1: feeling of the movie. And second, the trailer reveals the
Speaker 1: entire plot, including the ending. It's one of those awful things.
Speaker 1: So like, if you've seen the trailer, the movie is
Speaker 1: kind of spoiled for you. Yeah. Yeah, not a good
Speaker 1: way to go into this film. Now, being a time
Speaker 1: travel movie. One of the things that I was thinking
Speaker 1: about for this episode is it it sort of made
Speaker 1: me want to create an in house taxonomy of major
Speaker 1: types of time travel stories, sorted by prevalent themes um
Speaker 1: And of course, any given movie or story can partake
Speaker 1: of multiple different time travel themes, multiple of the themes
Speaker 1: that follow that we're about to talk about. And I'm
Speaker 1: also sure this list will not be exhaustive. People will
Speaker 1: probably right in and be like, hey, what about this
Speaker 1: type of movie? It will be something I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about, But I think here are some of the
Speaker 1: major categories of time travel stories. Uh and, and we
Speaker 1: can talk about how time after time fits or does
Speaker 1: not fit into each of them. So the first one
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention is what I would call the
Speaker 1: debugging history story. Uh and. This is a type of
Speaker 1: time travel story that focuses primarily on isolating variables of
Speaker 1: cause and effect in the progression of history and human life.
Speaker 1: So it's largely concerned with with the consequences of decisions
Speaker 1: and the long term ripple effects of seemingly minor events
Speaker 1: and encounters. So this can be seen, for example, in
Speaker 1: Back to the Future, where Marty McFly learns that that
Speaker 1: you know, certain minor interventions with his parents as teenagers
Speaker 1: like he gives his teenage dad a pep talk about
Speaker 1: standing up for himself and so forth. This radically changes
Speaker 1: the circumstances of his family thirty years later. Or it
Speaker 1: can be seen in movies that don't even really feature
Speaker 1: time travel, but just merely the alteration of past events.
Speaker 1: An example here might be the final act of It's
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life, where George Bailey learns that, you know,
Speaker 1: if if Clarence the Angel tweaks history so that he
Speaker 1: was never born, everybody else in his life turns out
Speaker 1: miserable and impoverished, and he sees the impact that his
Speaker 1: life had. I would actually say that Time after Time
Speaker 1: does not partake heavily of the debugging history theme, though
Speaker 1: there are little nods here and there, especially at the ending.
Speaker 1: We can maybe something we can talk about if you
Speaker 1: want or not, though it's a spoiler for the movie.
Speaker 1: Um but but this is not the major type we're
Speaker 1: dealing with in Time after Time. Yeah, this this film. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the character of Wells is more interested in protecting the future.
Speaker 1: That's what That what prompts him to travel through time
Speaker 1: in the film, or at least no not necessarily protecting
Speaker 1: the actual future. By protecting wells idea all of the future.
Speaker 1: So in a sense, the existence of Jack the Ripper
Speaker 1: in UM, even in the late nineteenth century, is a
Speaker 1: threat to his worldview and vision for change. The idea
Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper escaping into his envisioned utopia is
Speaker 1: a total threat to this idea. Now, while we're going
Speaker 1: through and talking about time after time, I feel like
Speaker 1: we should also just run through this list. The example
Speaker 1: of Transfers to the other time travel movie we've done, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think the basic answer is always going to
Speaker 1: be yes, sort of maybe, but who knows, because Transfers
Speaker 1: is all over the place with time travel and why
Speaker 1: they're doing it and who's doing it. But I would say, yes,
Speaker 1: Transfers definitely does this, but it's messy. Okay, that's a
Speaker 1: debugging history. The next major time travel theme I would
Speaker 1: say is Journey to Time Island. This is a time
Speaker 1: travel story. This is probably one of the least thematically
Speaker 1: interesting ways of using time travel in the story, and
Speaker 1: it's a story that uses some time in the future
Speaker 1: or the past primarily as a hostile setting for adventure.
Speaker 1: So in these stories, the past or the future can
Speaker 1: be thought of as largely equivalent to physical places like
Speaker 1: Skull Island or the Forbidden Planet. It's just a dangerous
Speaker 1: place for the characters to arrive and then face unfamiliar challenges.
Speaker 1: And I will say Time after Time does not largely
Speaker 1: fall into this category, but actually H. G. Wells novel
Speaker 1: The Time Machine is more in this vein. Yeah, traveling
Speaker 1: into a distant future for example. That uh, that definitely
Speaker 1: is a commentary on the present or the Victorian present
Speaker 1: that the author lived in. But also it is just
Speaker 1: kind of this fantastic place in which to have an adventure, right.
Speaker 1: I think the time machine also partakes largely of another
Speaker 1: more interesting category we'll get to in a minute now
Speaker 1: that the time travel the time Island. Rather this idea,
Speaker 1: uh I was I was thinking to myself, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's something that that falls in line with this? In
Speaker 1: my mind instantly goes to Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder,
Speaker 1: though that one is also a debugging history tale to
Speaker 1: a to a large extent, sort of accidental debugging of history.
Speaker 1: That this is bugging history, Yeah, inserting bugs in the
Speaker 1: lines of code of history. Yeah. Yeah, the idea I
Speaker 1: can go back into dinosaur days and have a safe
Speaker 1: adventure hunting dinosaurs, but then you find out no, you
Speaker 1: cannot by doing so you're totally bugging in the future.
Speaker 1: That's very good observation. Okay. Third category, so we had
Speaker 1: debugging history, journey to time island. Third one, I will
Speaker 1: say is what I would call fish out of time.
Speaker 1: This is a time based equivalent of the standard fish
Speaker 1: out of water plot seen most often in comedies, where
Speaker 1: most of the tension, usually comedic tension is based on
Speaker 1: failures of the out of place protagonists to understand and adapt,
Speaker 1: understand and adapt to local conditions, expectations, you know, wandering around,
Speaker 1: being confused by surroundings, accidentally violating taboos. So you can
Speaker 1: think of like Borat but with time instead of place,
Speaker 1: or Demolition Man with the three cshells. Yeah. Another example
Speaker 1: of this would be um a Connecticut Yankee and King
Speaker 1: Arthur's Court. You know, whether a lot of comedic fodder
Speaker 1: is made on the fact that, oh, this person is
Speaker 1: out of time. They don't know what this means, and
Speaker 1: the people that he's around now they don't know what
Speaker 1: this means, and hilarity ensues, and you know, I will say,
Speaker 1: usually fish out of time is not one of my
Speaker 1: favorite time travel themes. But Time after Time has a
Speaker 1: good amount of this, and I loved it in this movie.
Speaker 1: I would say, is it works much better in Time
Speaker 1: after Time than it usually does in other stories of
Speaker 1: this sort. Yeah, it really excels at this, often with
Speaker 1: stuff that on paper just sounds awful, like the idea
Speaker 1: what if what if H. G. Wells traveled to the
Speaker 1: late seven Days and went to a McDonald's. Uh, it
Speaker 1: sounds awful, but it's great. It's great. My favorite. That's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite scenes where he goes into the
Speaker 1: McDonald's and he's trying to make sense to everything. And
Speaker 1: then later he's having a meal with the romantic interest
Speaker 1: and and she asked or how the food is and
Speaker 1: he's like, Oh, it's better than the Scottish restaurant where
Speaker 1: I had breakfast macdougals. So yeah, yeah, this this film
Speaker 1: excels at the fish out of time. Oh and he
Speaker 1: gets really excited when he figures out what fries are.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, he's like, oh, it's palm Fritz Fritz.
Speaker 1: Now as far as transfers goes, um, I think they
Speaker 1: did this. I'm pretty sure they did this. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a there was a fair amount of humor in transfers.
Speaker 1: So it's if if you have humor in your time
Speaker 1: travel scenario, you're probably engaging in this trope. Okay, the
Speaker 1: next category is the one. I feel like I need
Speaker 1: a snappier name for this one, but it's basically what
Speaker 1: I would call the time travel arms race. And these
Speaker 1: are the ones that tend to be the most complicated
Speaker 1: in terms of plotting, and that's because they're the ones
Speaker 1: that take the premise the most seriously, like they're thinking
Speaker 1: really hard about what it would actually be like to
Speaker 1: have the power to travel back in time and uh,
Speaker 1: and not just as a means to get the protagonist
Speaker 1: to an unfamiliar setting, but actually as an ongoing mechanism
Speaker 1: that can be used over and over, often ultimately as
Speaker 1: a weapon, something that grants godlike power, because if you
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen in advance, and you have
Speaker 1: the power to go back in time and approach any
Speaker 1: situation differently, you can make almost any situation turn out
Speaker 1: your way. And so this gives anybody who possesses the
Speaker 1: power of time travel the temptation to use it for selfish, deceitful,
Speaker 1: or evil purposes, and so I think these plots often
Speaker 1: contain both protagonists and antagonists who have the power to
Speaker 1: travel through time, uh, trying to sort of travel back
Speaker 1: further and further to gain advantage over one another. So
Speaker 1: the themes of this would usually include thoughts about weaponry, strategy, tricks,
Speaker 1: and the dangers of having too much power, especially too
Speaker 1: much technological power. Good examples of this I think would include,
Speaker 1: like the movie primer Um, the overarching premise of the
Speaker 1: Terminator films, though there's not a lot of this mechanic
Speaker 1: within the movies themselves Terminator, the setup of each film
Speaker 1: usually involves something some form of the time travel arms
Speaker 1: race uh. And I guess in terms of more recent movies,
Speaker 1: you could think about Tenant as a version of this.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, now, Transfers, I think, I think definitely
Speaker 1: transfer has got into this territory because there is the
Speaker 1: idea that, yeah, cult members have gone back in time
Speaker 1: and they have they have transfer armies, and so we
Speaker 1: need to send Transfer cops back in time to deal
Speaker 1: with them. So yeah, Transfers, being a high minded time
Speaker 1: travel movie, definitely gets in on this action. Though I
Speaker 1: would say Time after Time has very little of this,
Speaker 1: and it would have made it an entirely different film
Speaker 1: in ways that we might mention later when we talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the plot. But uh, I
Speaker 1: don't really hold this against the movie because it just
Speaker 1: decided to go in a different direction with the way
Speaker 1: its structured its story. But but Time after Time could
Speaker 1: have been a completely different film if it had just
Speaker 1: taken this premise seriously and and h G. Wells it said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can always just go back one more day in
Speaker 1: the past and do this instead, right right? Um? Or
Speaker 1: I guess another thing that could have complicated matters is
Speaker 1: the idea of is the question of how many time
Speaker 1: machines are there? And is the time machine a singular
Speaker 1: entity or is time travel a technology that may be
Speaker 1: reproduced in this film? In Time after Time, there is
Speaker 1: one time machine, um, and there's some interesting plot mechanics
Speaker 1: that keep it that way. And additionally, nobody has subsequently
Speaker 1: understood the time how time travel works. The time machine
Speaker 1: winds up in a museum in San Francisco, uh, and
Speaker 1: it's fully functional, and nobody has really taken it apart
Speaker 1: to figure out how it works. Um. Which, if if
Speaker 1: you're gonna be really pedantic about about it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's that's kind of silly, but it works within the
Speaker 1: context of the film. Yeah, I agreed. So the next
Speaker 1: category I want to mention is kind of a subcategory
Speaker 1: because it's more of a category worry that would apply
Speaker 1: to usually how a like a twist at the end
Speaker 1: of an of a time travel story. But this is
Speaker 1: what I would call the have you heard about the
Speaker 1: Fates version. I kind of don't want to list examples
Speaker 1: of this because by including them in this category I
Speaker 1: would usually be spoiling some kind of good twist in
Speaker 1: the movie. But this is a variation that usually starts
Speaker 1: with something that looks more like debugging history or the
Speaker 1: time travel arms race, only for the protagonist to discover
Speaker 1: too late that the Fates cannot be outrun and while
Speaker 1: they thought they were avoiding some bad outcome by going
Speaker 1: back and changing the past, they in fact we're not
Speaker 1: avoiding it or were even causing it or something to
Speaker 1: that effect. Yeah, yeah, not so much. In this picture.
Speaker 1: Transfers did not really get into this either. Um, but
Speaker 1: I will say that it does remind me. And this
Speaker 1: is not a spoiler because and I'll explain why, but
Speaker 1: the Stephen King time travel novel sixty three, UH is
Speaker 1: really good for starters. I have recommend this book, but
Speaker 1: it uh, it definitely gets into this area early on
Speaker 1: because there's this idea that, yes, you can travel back
Speaker 1: into the past via this portal, but once you get there,
Speaker 1: changing history in any meaningful ways is it is incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult because there's a sense that it's like time is
Speaker 1: this this surging river, and to try and divert the
Speaker 1: river's course, there are forces like not not know forces
Speaker 1: with with names or faces so much, but like just
Speaker 1: reality itself will revolt against you, like everything will go
Speaker 1: wrong in your attempt to try and change the course
Speaker 1: of history. Oh that's interesting. Yeah, I haven't read that one,
Speaker 1: but but you've tempted me. Yeah. Basically, it's a uh
Speaker 1: an individual becomes uh convinced that going back and stopping
Speaker 1: the assassination of John F. Kennedy will make the world
Speaker 1: a substantially better place in the future, and therefore it's
Speaker 1: worth it. It's worth basically like a one way trip
Speaker 1: to go and see this through. And uh it's in here.
Speaker 1: King explores it for in a very long book, but
Speaker 1: in a in also it's a love story which which
Speaker 1: of course brings us back to to this movie. I
Speaker 1: was wondering as I was watching it, how many subsequent
Speaker 1: time travel romances would just simply not exist if not
Speaker 1: for Time after Time. I'm thinking about everything from Outlander
Speaker 1: to Highlander, which even though Highlander is not about traveling
Speaker 1: through time via mechanics, it is about immortal characters living
Speaker 1: outside of their original time and then falling in love.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I feel like the film was probably very
Speaker 1: influential on this sort of subgenre of time travel fiction.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I think this is another great category we
Speaker 1: should mention, which is the the love across time uh story,
Speaker 1: which is time after time. I think you could definitely
Speaker 1: say as an example of it's a type of love story.
Speaker 1: You know, it's common in a love story to have
Speaker 1: people who who clearly want to be together, but there's
Speaker 1: some kind of tension that keeps them apart, and that
Speaker 1: could be you know, social expectations, it could be you know,
Speaker 1: in romantic comedies, is often a series of article misunderstandings
Speaker 1: that leads them to fighting each other. Uh in. But
Speaker 1: in in a lot of more sort of serious and
Speaker 1: tragic love stories across history, it's often been like separation
Speaker 1: of time of space, you know, like like we're from
Speaker 1: different kingdoms or something and we can't be together for
Speaker 1: that reason. But there are movies that do this with
Speaker 1: time travel as well. It's like, well, no, I've got
Speaker 1: to go back to my time, and you don't want
Speaker 1: to leave your time and so forth. Yeah. Other times
Speaker 1: it's the lady hawks scenario. It's like you're a you're
Speaker 1: a hawk during the day, I'm a wolf at night,
Speaker 1: and we're just dontline, we can't align. That's accept during
Speaker 1: a total eclipse, right, that's right, okay. And then one
Speaker 1: last category I want to mention, but because I think
Speaker 1: this is the one that applies the most to time
Speaker 1: after time, this is the category I would call fresh
Speaker 1: eyes for bad eras. And this is the type of
Speaker 1: time travel story that is primarily about commenting on the
Speaker 1: particular features of an age of the time in which
Speaker 1: they are set, usually the present, but often also the
Speaker 1: future as influenced by the present. And so I think
Speaker 1: these tend to contain the most social commentary of any
Speaker 1: of the time travel subgenres. So the time traveler is
Speaker 1: able to look upon an age such as the present
Speaker 1: and see it with fresh eyes, noticing things usually bad
Speaker 1: things that the chrono locals have learned to ignore just
Speaker 1: because they're inured to them. And so Time after Time actually,
Speaker 1: much like H. G. Wells actual novel The Time Machine,
Speaker 1: partakes heavily of this theme, uh tying it back into
Speaker 1: the novel The Time Machine itself. Apart from it just
Speaker 1: being a sort of journey to Time Island, it's also
Speaker 1: very much this one because he was using a dystopian
Speaker 1: vision of the future to suggest that such a future
Speaker 1: would follow from negative trends that existed in his present.
Speaker 1: So he's commenting on the present by suggesting a horrible future.
Speaker 1: But in in Time After Time, it's just looking direct
Speaker 1: ly at the present. And I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting ideas in the movie. So it
Speaker 1: takes these two time travelers from eighteen nineties London. So H. G. Wells,
Speaker 1: who the character in the film, is a progressive, utopian
Speaker 1: socialist in eighteen nineties London. He believes that humanity will
Speaker 1: pretty soon advance to a golden age of peace and
Speaker 1: prosperity and egalitarianism, where there will be no war, no violence,
Speaker 1: no inequality, no oppression, and so forth. And then the
Speaker 1: other is Jack, the Ripper, who is sort of the
Speaker 1: embodiment of violence, sadistic, misogynist id And what if these
Speaker 1: two figures suddenly got a look at the world in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine with without having a chance to get
Speaker 1: used to it as time progresses slowly in the normal sense,
Speaker 1: what would they think? So, of course, there's a scene
Speaker 1: in the present where Jack the Ripper turns on a
Speaker 1: TV and he just starts flipping channels for Wells to
Speaker 1: see what's on, and it's just seen after seeing both
Speaker 1: real and fictional of hatred, violence, murder, war, terrorism, nuclear escalation,
Speaker 1: full contact football, and Wells is horrified to see that
Speaker 1: his utopian dreams were hopelessly naive, and the Ripper is
Speaker 1: just like, yes, good war football, I am home. This
Speaker 1: is a lovely scene, you know, taking place in Jack
Speaker 1: the rippers hotel room. Um, that's a you know a
Speaker 1: little a little messy because he's been staying there. He
Speaker 1: hasn't been ripping there, but he's been staying there. Uh.
Speaker 1: He has this line has several lines that really drive
Speaker 1: this home, but one of them is ninety years ago,
Speaker 1: I was a freak. Today I'm an amateur, that's right, Um,
Speaker 1: And there's there's so much to love, and there's some
Speaker 1: of the little things, like when he turns on the TV,
Speaker 1: he's like, he's clearly at ease in this world. He's
Speaker 1: wearing the suit of the day, you know, of the
Speaker 1: time period. He's he's largely acclimatized to the late nineties
Speaker 1: seventies at this point. But then he holds the remote
Speaker 1: control in a really weird fashion to turn on the TV,
Speaker 1: which is a great touch. You know, it's like he
Speaker 1: because this character, Yeah, he's like, I feel the spirit
Speaker 1: of this age, but I'm not altogether on the technology
Speaker 1: just yet. Yeah, it's great, And there are all these
Speaker 1: little things in the movie that signaled this as it
Speaker 1: goes on that um, there's an irony where H. G.
Speaker 1: Wells is the progressive futurist and the age that he
Speaker 1: travels to does include a lot of the the ideals
Speaker 1: he believed in, Like he is pleased to discover that
Speaker 1: that women have more rights now than they did in
Speaker 1: his time and so forth. But there's this irony because
Speaker 1: he for some reason doesn't feel comfortable and easy to
Speaker 1: adapt to the culture of the future in the way
Speaker 1: that Jack the Ripper does. Yeah. Uh, the treatment of
Speaker 1: the Ripper, and this it reminds me a lot of
Speaker 1: the ideas that Alan Moore would would later explore in
Speaker 1: his his now classic graphic novel From Hell about Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper, in which the Ripper is presented as the
Speaker 1: dark um uh embodiment of the Victorian age and ultimately
Speaker 1: the the beginning of the twentieth century, a kind of
Speaker 1: profit of the modern age to follow. Now, Needles would say,
Speaker 1: that's a much darker treatment. And our ripper and this
Speaker 1: film does not see himself as such a grandiose figure.
Speaker 1: He's he simply shan't stop ripping, and this is an
Speaker 1: even better age in which to do it. But he like, like,
Speaker 1: like that line above that we mentioned implies, he feels
Speaker 1: like the world has ultimately passed passed him by. It's even,
Speaker 1: it's even it's it's not only met his his his spirit,
Speaker 1: but it has surpassed his spirit. But he's happy to
Speaker 1: live in this age, right. And so one could take
Speaker 1: this in a in a kind of um simplistic way
Speaker 1: and say that, well, maybe the movie is just engaging
Speaker 1: in the sort of naive pessimism, the pessimistic bias that
Speaker 1: makes people always think that times are just the worst
Speaker 1: they've ever been. Things are always getting worse the hell
Speaker 1: in a handbasket thinking, I would say, the movie actually
Speaker 1: doesn't quite do that. It it pretty frequently acknowledges things
Speaker 1: that in Wells view are better about the present than
Speaker 1: they were in Wells time. But there's also something off
Speaker 1: about the modern age of special something about the sort
Speaker 1: of about the sort of indifference to violence and the
Speaker 1: sort of callousness of the modern world that the Ripper
Speaker 1: finds very welcoming. What is the headline in the newspaper
Speaker 1: that he picks up about. It's a sports headline. It's
Speaker 1: like rams massacre cults or something like that. It was
Speaker 1: ramsmall cults or something. Yeah, which I love that moment.
Speaker 1: That's a great one of many great moments in the
Speaker 1: film where it's like, yeah, that headline is just insane.
Speaker 1: It implies outside of the you know, the modern sports
Speaker 1: understanding of it, that uh that like herbivores are are
Speaker 1: tearying each other apart in the streets, you know, like
Speaker 1: we're living in like a biblically misaligned age. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so I don't know, I appreciate the the interesting complexity
Speaker 1: of the feeling that it has about the present that like,
Speaker 1: some things have definitely progressed and gotten better since the
Speaker 1: time that Wells is used to, but there are other
Speaker 1: things that are just sort of like always new sicknesses
Speaker 1: that continually emerge throughout history. And there's something going on
Speaker 1: with a kind of with a kind of inurement to
Speaker 1: violence and hatred that just is pervasive in the modern world.
Speaker 1: And I think I think a lot of this is
Speaker 1: exemplified by the setting, because you know, I like the
Speaker 1: idea of setting it in in um in the United States,
Speaker 1: even though it you know, it begins in what it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be London, but you could have easily you
Speaker 1: can imagine someone arguing, well, let's set this in seventies
Speaker 1: New York, you know, just straight to Hell City. But no,
Speaker 1: you go to San Francisco, and their treatment in San
Speaker 1: Francisco is is this kind of almost fifty fifty split
Speaker 1: of seedier elements and seedier parts of town. But also
Speaker 1: you have so many, uh you have a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the film to admire sort of modern late
Speaker 1: seventies architecture in San Francisco, to to walk through the
Speaker 1: parks in public spaces. So I think it's a nice balance.
Speaker 1: It's achieved through the setting and ultimately the film is
Speaker 1: like a in a way, it's like, uh, it makes
Speaker 1: you want to visit of San Francisco. It's like a
Speaker 1: like a tourism brochure for the city that they spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time wandering around the Pan America and
Speaker 1: Exposition buildings, which is funny because he's you know, wells
Speaker 1: is admiring them, and Mary Steen Virgin's character, I think
Speaker 1: she has to break his heart and inform him that
Speaker 1: they're made of plaster. Yeah, he asked if they're made
Speaker 1: of marble, and she says it is no plaster. But
Speaker 1: is that actually worse? I don't. I don't know. They
Speaker 1: are beautiful to look at. Since I guess it's time
Speaker 1: to jump into the connections anyway, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: flag a strange fact, which is that. Okay. So this
Speaker 1: movie was directed and at least in part written by
Speaker 1: Nicholas Meyer. I know they were was based on a
Speaker 1: novel and I think there are multiple story credits for
Speaker 1: the movie. But Nicholas Meyer the director and uh he
Speaker 1: I think wrote the screenplay at least or was one
Speaker 1: of the writers. Uh he made this movie, which is
Speaker 1: about H. G. Wells and Jack the Ripper traveling through
Speaker 1: time to nineteen nine San Francisco. And Nicholas Meyer also
Speaker 1: was one of the writers of Star Trek four, The
Speaker 1: Voyage Home, which involves time traveling to present day San Francisco,
Speaker 1: but from the future instead of the past. Interesting. He
Speaker 1: knows what he likes, so Nicholas Meyer was born nine
Speaker 1: five American writer and director who first made a splash
Speaker 1: with the nineteen seventy four Sherlock Holmes novel The Seven
Speaker 1: Percent Solution, in which Sigmund Freud helps Sherlock Holmes battle
Speaker 1: his drug addiction. Interesting. Meyer wrote the screenplay for then
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies six film adaptation that starred Nicole Williamson,
Speaker 1: Robert Duval, Alan Arkin, and Laurence Olivier, as well as
Speaker 1: Charles Gray and Samantha Egger. It was a big hit.
Speaker 1: Meyer wrote more Holmes novels and then went on to
Speaker 1: direct this film in nineteen seventy nine, followed by Star
Speaker 1: Trek to the Wrath of Con in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: and Star Trek Being Discovered Country in among other films,
Speaker 1: but those those were the big ones. One interesting thing
Speaker 1: about Nicholas Or as a filmmaker was that he was
Speaker 1: also behind the nineteen eight three TV special or TV
Speaker 1: movie The Day After, which was a supposedly uh factual
Speaker 1: look at the possibilities of nuclear war like what if
Speaker 1: the Cold War went hot? And uh and this It's
Speaker 1: hard to tell exactly how influential it was, but it
Speaker 1: has been alleged that this TV movie was pretty influential
Speaker 1: even at like high levels of government and and changed
Speaker 1: the thinking of some military and political officials about antagonism
Speaker 1: in the Cold War now. He also wrote a number
Speaker 1: of screenplays, including but not limited to, Star Trek, The
Speaker 1: Voyage Home, Um, The Human Stain, and the pilot episode
Speaker 1: for the two thousand seventeen TV series Time after Time,
Speaker 1: which we alluded to earlier, which I have not seen it.
Speaker 1: It may be great, but just looking at stills, it
Speaker 1: looks like it asked the question what do you Time
Speaker 1: after Time? But hunkier, it's got some very square jaw lines.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, Nicholas Meyer Saturn Award winner, and he's been
Speaker 1: nominated for both an Academy Award and three Emmys. But
Speaker 1: if I understand correctly, this movie, much like two thousand
Speaker 1: one of Space Odyssey was one of the rare cases
Speaker 1: where a movie based on a book is being completed
Speaker 1: simultaneously to the completion of the book. That's right. And
Speaker 1: this leads us to the writer Carl Alexander. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is the son of William Tunberg, who wrote the screenplay
Speaker 1: for Old Yeller, and the nephew of Carl Tunberg who
Speaker 1: wrote the screenplay for Ben Her. This was his This
Speaker 1: was his first novel, Time after Time though. The book
Speaker 1: was actually option before it was completed by Nicholas Meyer,
Speaker 1: who happened to be a friend of Alexander's who you know,
Speaker 1: had to heard him talking about it and had I think,
Speaker 1: looked at a part of the uh, the the novel
Speaker 1: before it was completed. Uh. And so he was like,
Speaker 1: this is it. I want this to be my next film.
Speaker 1: So the film is finished, Um, alongside the book. The
Speaker 1: book in the film are being completed at the same time. Interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He went on to follow this up with a sequel
Speaker 1: novel in twenty nineteen, or at least it published in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. I'm not sure if someone else had to
Speaker 1: finish it for him or how it worked out with
Speaker 1: the manuscript because he lived ninety through two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: so he would not have lived to see Jacqueline the Ripper,
Speaker 1: published in twenty nineteen. Now, the writer Steve Hayes also
Speaker 1: has a story credit on In This Boord nineteen thirty one. Again,
Speaker 1: I think this comes back to the fact that the
Speaker 1: screenplay in the novel were essentially being completed. At the
Speaker 1: same time, Hayes did a lot of TV writing, including
Speaker 1: for at least two series that I wasn't familiar with
Speaker 1: based on popular eighties action films Conan which ran eight
Speaker 1: and Rambo from six, which I got excited about and
Speaker 1: then realized that it was a cartoon. But then also
Speaker 1: I find that weird that we decided Rambo needed to
Speaker 1: be a cartoon. Yeah, I didn't know there were a
Speaker 1: Conan or a Rambo TV series. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: come back to Malcolm McDowell, who plays h. G. Wells
Speaker 1: in This Uh born in nineteen forty three, and this
Speaker 1: is this is a guy where it's it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to even figure out where to begin. Legendary British actor
Speaker 1: who played Alex and Stanley Kubrick's clockwork Orange in ninety one. Again,
Speaker 1: he was in the notorious nineteen seventy nine film Caligula,
Speaker 1: which came right before this one. He was in eight
Speaker 1: twos Cat People. I fondly remember him from a child
Speaker 1: watching us Blue Thunder. He plays the villain in that
Speaker 1: who flies this little helicopter that battles are big combat
Speaker 1: police helicopter. That is Blue Thunder a helicopter battle movie.
Speaker 1: How many are there? And I remember, um, there's one
Speaker 1: called I think Firebirds that has maybe Charlie Sheen or
Speaker 1: somebody in it. I think, so, yeah, this one. I
Speaker 1: have no idea how big of a splash Blue Thunder was,
Speaker 1: uh at all, but it was big for me as
Speaker 1: a kid because my aunt had taped some films off
Speaker 1: of HBO. This was one of them, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was probably inappropriate for me to be watching it, but
Speaker 1: I I mainly watched it for the helicopter combat scenarios,
Speaker 1: and then I would build the helicopters out of legos
Speaker 1: and have them crash into each other. That's great. I
Speaker 1: was wrong. Actually it wasn't Charlie Sheen. It was Nicholas Cage,
Speaker 1: who was in Firebirds. Firebirds was a one of those
Speaker 1: bad action movies that I taped off TV. When I
Speaker 1: was a kid, because I was like, looks like this
Speaker 1: will be a military action movie. I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a boy in East Tennessee. This is the kind of
Speaker 1: movie I'm supposed to be watching. Not great. So Malcolm McDowell,
Speaker 1: like we said, he continues to work a lot in
Speaker 1: films and TV. Uh we can't. We can't mention everything
Speaker 1: he's been in before. I believe he's come up on
Speaker 1: the show before, not not maybe in a film that
Speaker 1: we've watched, but in you know, the various connections. But
Speaker 1: he played Dr Loomis and both of Rob Zombies Halloween films,
Speaker 1: um which I have not seen, but I assume he's
Speaker 1: villainous in those. Uh oh no, he I mean he
Speaker 1: looks villainous because scolmcdwell usually does, though he doesn't in
Speaker 1: time after time. And I don't know how exactly they
Speaker 1: accomplished that. Maybe with the careful use of hairstyling and
Speaker 1: facial hair. Um. But no, he's not villainous in the
Speaker 1: Rob Zombie Halloween movies. He's just not super helpful. Now.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things about about Malcolm mcdowen this
Speaker 1: film is that this is where he met his second
Speaker 1: wife Mary Steinberg in Um, who plays the character Amy
Speaker 1: Robbins Uh born nineteen fifty three. But yeah, they apparently
Speaker 1: met on this film. Uh, fell in love on this film,
Speaker 1: were subsequently married, and their son is Charlie McDowell or
Speaker 1: one of their their children anyways, Charlie McDowell, who is
Speaker 1: a director who directed the excellent film The One I
Speaker 1: Love Mary Steen Virgin is also great in this. She
Speaker 1: has a she has a kind of funny, nervous energy
Speaker 1: in the movie. And uh, and she's of course great
Speaker 1: as a as a comic actress. Um. She essentially would
Speaker 1: you say that you think she was sort of playing
Speaker 1: a similar character in this to the character she plays
Speaker 1: in Back to the Future three. I guess Back to
Speaker 1: the Future three is one of those films that I
Speaker 1: think most people only see once, so I don't really
Speaker 1: remember her all that. I remember the basics of the character,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how closely they aligned with this. Well.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking Back to the Future three had
Speaker 1: to in part be based on or partially derived from
Speaker 1: her role in Time after Time. Yeah, yeah, I would,
Speaker 1: I would think so. I mean, because ultimately I think
Speaker 1: most time travel romance novels or films or TV shows
Speaker 1: haven't have to at least in some way look back
Speaker 1: to time after time. It feels very influential. But yeah,
Speaker 1: she I think it took me a while to figure
Speaker 1: out that she is so good as a comic actress
Speaker 1: because I think I recalled the first the first role
Speaker 1: in which I really became familiar with her was as
Speaker 1: like a nefarious uh lawyer defending the bad company in Philadelphia. Okay,
Speaker 1: you remember that. I it's been a long time. Think
Speaker 1: I saw that many years ago. Oh yeah, I think
Speaker 1: she plays a ruthless lawyer who's who's defending the company
Speaker 1: this being suited and she has like cruel scenes where
Speaker 1: she grills Tom Hanks on the stand. But that was
Speaker 1: before I'd seen her really in any comedy stuff. And
Speaker 1: and she's great in comedies. She's uh, she she's great
Speaker 1: in Step Brothers. Where where Will Ferrell is her son?
Speaker 1: I think? And well, you know, it makes me wonders
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell her son with H. G. Wells from this movie.
Speaker 1: I always enjoy her when she's she often pops up
Speaker 1: in various comedy things that her husband Ted Danson is in. Uh,
Speaker 1: and say, she's been very funny in some of those films.
Speaker 1: I remember she was an elf and had a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty fun role in that, but ultimately Academy Award winning
Speaker 1: actor here with with Mary as his steam burgeon here.
Speaker 1: Um uh, and she's pretty good in this. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: it's a it's it's an interesting role because she's called
Speaker 1: upon and I think her only second screen presence to
Speaker 1: play the modern woman to like to represent not only
Speaker 1: the modern woman from the film's perspective, but the future woman,
Speaker 1: the woman of the future from H. G. Wells His perspective.
Speaker 1: So it's it's kind of a uh, it mostly holds
Speaker 1: up today. Uh. There, there's certainly some some choices here
Speaker 1: and there where you're like, well, I think they would
Speaker 1: they would inevitably do that differently if you were to
Speaker 1: to create this again in like one. But well, I
Speaker 1: would say those are not choices on Mary Stein versions
Speaker 1: in the script. Yeah, there there are some, Like it
Speaker 1: is ironic that some of the parts of this movie
Speaker 1: that the movie clearly regards as the most illustrative of
Speaker 1: the culture of the modern world are exactly the ones
Speaker 1: that have aged the most poorly. Like they're they're uh,
Speaker 1: Like there's a scene where Mary stein Margin's character uses
Speaker 1: casually using offensive language to refer to lesbians, like she
Speaker 1: says the D word. I assumed that that word was
Speaker 1: considered derogatory at the time. I think it was. And
Speaker 1: she talks about how she does want to pursue her
Speaker 1: own career ambitions, but she offers the disclaimer that I'm
Speaker 1: not women's lib which, yeah, she also echoes this this
Speaker 1: idea that one's work should be your life and that
Speaker 1: that's not like a healthy choice for the modern professional
Speaker 1: um as if Like, ultimately, Jack the Ripper's main flaw
Speaker 1: is that he's making too much time for his hobbies, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting though in this film that's
Speaker 1: like comparing these, you know, different expectations for how the
Speaker 1: future will turn out, especially with regards to things like
Speaker 1: moral values and all that that. Like, some of the
Speaker 1: things that are that are considered the most like sort
Speaker 1: of textual illustrations of how people think in the modern
Speaker 1: world are some of the things that have aged the worst. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is interesting, but but again, ultimately this is the writing.
Speaker 1: Nothing on Mary. Mary's great in this All right, let's
Speaker 1: let's get to our ripper. Let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the actor who plays Dr. John Leslie Stevenson a K.
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper. This is the legendary David Warner. David
Speaker 1: Warner is fantastic in this. Yes, Yeah, he's he is great. Uh.
Speaker 1: Warner borne as of this recording, still still still around
Speaker 1: and either still active or was still active, uh in
Speaker 1: a limited uh to a limited degree as of Like, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, especially when you're doing a little older
Speaker 1: individuals like this. I don't know if he has effectively
Speaker 1: retired at this point or he's, you know, going to
Speaker 1: come back and do some more voice acting. But he,
Speaker 1: like McDowell, has been in just everything twice. He has
Speaker 1: two five acting credits on IMDb. He has done theater,
Speaker 1: he has done audio dramas. Uh. He seems like a
Speaker 1: guy who has just constantly been working through you know,
Speaker 1: just just NonStop throughout his old career. Yeah. And like McDowell,
Speaker 1: he also has a real knack for playing villains and
Speaker 1: has played some really notable ones. Uh. He was in Titanic,
Speaker 1: he was in Tron Time Bandits. Yeah, he was in
Speaker 1: Star Trek be Undiscovered Country also popped up on some
Speaker 1: key episodes of of Trek television series including the one
Speaker 1: where the Romulan tortures Picard. I'm sorry, not a Romulan.
Speaker 1: It's a Cardassian. Good what are they? I don't know,
Speaker 1: card not a cardass Dassian. Cardassian, Yes, the Cardassians. He
Speaker 1: plays a Cardassian in that, a Cardassian interrogator, and he
Speaker 1: is um. He is torturing Picard and trying him to
Speaker 1: to like break him. Very memorable episode. Speaking of being
Speaker 1: in time travel movies, oh, I love him. In Time Bandits.
Speaker 1: He plays the villain in Time Bandits. He's he's the
Speaker 1: embodiment of evil. He's sort of the devil, but he
Speaker 1: is obsessed with technology in Time Bandits, which I think
Speaker 1: has some sort of satirical content, but like a lot
Speaker 1: of things in Time Bandits and and Terry Gillian movies
Speaker 1: more generally, and it's the thing that I like a
Speaker 1: lot of times, the satire is not super clear, it's
Speaker 1: it's satirical in a kind of vague way. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I love the devil. He's he seems to not really
Speaker 1: understand what subscriber try dialing is, but he really wants
Speaker 1: to know about it, and he really wants to know
Speaker 1: about you know, about computers and things. I need to
Speaker 1: watch that one again. Yeah. So David Warner is an
Speaker 1: actor who's been in in way too many things to
Speaker 1: list here, but I thought I might mention some of
Speaker 1: some of my additional favorite roles that he's had, and
Speaker 1: I think all of these are roles where he doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily play a villain. He has a role in John
Speaker 1: Carpenter's in the Mouth of Madness. Uh, he plays the
Speaker 1: head of the Assassin's Guild and the hog Father, and oh,
Speaker 1: most memorably, he plays both a good guy and a
Speaker 1: bad guy in the Quest of the Delta Knights. I
Speaker 1: don't know that movie. Oh, oh my goodness. So the
Speaker 1: Quest of the Delta Knights is this low budget RENFESTI
Speaker 1: fantasy yarn um and uh, it was. It was It
Speaker 1: was used on Mystery Science Theater three thousand, So it
Speaker 1: was riffed on on that show. And it's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a strong Mystery Sentence Theater three thousand episode,
Speaker 1: as I recall. Uh, but I it's it's it's what.
Speaker 1: The thing I love about it is that it's not
Speaker 1: something that comes to mind as a good David Warner film.
Speaker 1: But there was a fabulous interview with David Warner on
Speaker 1: The A V. Club by Will Harris with David Warner.
Speaker 1: This was in where they basically just run through and
Speaker 1: asked him about various films that he was in, you know,
Speaker 1: just you know, what kind of stories do you have
Speaker 1: from this picture? What kind of stories you have from
Speaker 1: this picture? And they they asked him about the quest
Speaker 1: of the Delta Knights, and he responded with this, wow.
Speaker 1: Well that was, of course a low budget film which
Speaker 1: what's what's that called mystery science theater? It ended up
Speaker 1: there laughs. But I had great fun doing it, playing
Speaker 1: two parts. Originally I was just asked to play the
Speaker 1: one part, and I said, would it save you money
Speaker 1: if I played two parts for the same money? And
Speaker 1: they said yes. So I had great fun changing from
Speaker 1: a black wig into a gray wig and putting brown
Speaker 1: contact lenses into my normal blue eyes. It was great
Speaker 1: one logistically. So I have great affection for that little
Speaker 1: low budget film. I've always loved that, this idea, that
Speaker 1: this this film that we think of as being bad
Speaker 1: and you know, and forgettable for an actor of David
Speaker 1: Warner's pedigree. He's like, no, that was that was tremendous fun.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I did that picture wonderful. In that
Speaker 1: same interview, he also mentions that when it comes to
Speaker 1: time after time, the studio wanted Mick Jagger for this role.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but but the filmmakers were like, no, we
Speaker 1: don't want Mick Jagger, we really want David Warner. And
Speaker 1: they fought for David Warner and thank god they got him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you had to save Mick Jagger for free Jack.
Speaker 1: I think free Jack chose this everything we need to
Speaker 1: know that it would have I'm not saying Mick Jagger
Speaker 1: would have made a bad Jack the Ripper, but I
Speaker 1: don't think he would have been well, he would not
Speaker 1: have been a very good Jack the Ripper. Let's just
Speaker 1: leave it there. I like David Warner. Yes, I'm glad
Speaker 1: we got David Warner. Yeah, he's great in this Get
Speaker 1: the Mate. That's your mate, Jagger though, that's not You're
Speaker 1: David Warner are Ripper in this film. Dr Stevenson Meat.
Speaker 1: He's very very stern um, but at times he has
Speaker 1: a sardonic wit to him. He's it's just it's a
Speaker 1: great role and he has a lot of great lines
Speaker 1: in it. Um. It's it's a very interesting villain and Ultimately,
Speaker 1: I think this may be my my favorite take on
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper. I mean, Jack the Ripper is a
Speaker 1: character that doesn't automatically mean great film presence, but he's
Speaker 1: I think Warner's terrific in this film. You know what
Speaker 1: I also love Warner in is uh is Tron where
Speaker 1: there's a thing in Tron where the same actor will
Speaker 1: usually play a character in the real world in in
Speaker 1: mate space, but then also play a character within the
Speaker 1: digital world, And so David Warner does. He's like a
Speaker 1: sort of uh corrupt software business leader guy. I think
Speaker 1: he steals somebody's ideas for some video games or something
Speaker 1: in the real world, but then within the computer world
Speaker 1: he plays the villains Sark, who is this evil like
Speaker 1: you know, frisbee player who works for the Master Control program.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen the Old Tron, it's it's worth
Speaker 1: seeing for a number of reasons. But David Warner is
Speaker 1: a great villain in it. Oh yes, he's great. Uh Oh.
Speaker 1: I should also I mentioned that nineties Outer Limits episode
Speaker 1: that has Jack about Jack the Ripper. I watched it
Speaker 1: last night, so I just have to share real quick.
Speaker 1: It's titled Ripper, and it's pretty fun it's maybe a
Speaker 1: little long, like the episode is longer than the premise demands,
Speaker 1: but it's it's pretty great. Uh, Carrie els is in it,
Speaker 1: but also Francis Fisher and France Newon of Death Moon
Speaker 1: Fame for us of death Men fame. I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody is actually of death Men fame. But but it's
Speaker 1: got a fun cast and the premise is essentially this,
Speaker 1: what if the Jack the Ripper murders were not due
Speaker 1: to a human killer, but we're due to some sort
Speaker 1: of of an alien space snake that goes that that
Speaker 1: travels into people's mouths and then emerges from their bellies,
Speaker 1: thus creating the abdominal wounds associated with the Jack the
Speaker 1: Ripper killings. Yeah, so it's okay. David Warner play the snake. No,
Speaker 1: David Warner plays um Scotland yard investigator and uh, Carrie
Speaker 1: Ellis plays a former doctor turned opium and um what
Speaker 1: is he is? An he's an opium atic, but also
Speaker 1: he's drinking too much, too much, absentthe and is just
Speaker 1: generally depressed and sweaty all the time. And so so
Speaker 1: he there's a lot of great overacting from him, like
Speaker 1: just the right level of overacting the type of overacting
Speaker 1: you you want from Carrie Elwis. Okay, well, I guess
Speaker 1: I gotta see that one. Maybe it'll come up in
Speaker 1: a in a future anthology episode. Al right. Um, as
Speaker 1: far as other people the film, like, these are really
Speaker 1: the three main characters, I'm not sure how many of
Speaker 1: these other individuals we need to go into. Some of
Speaker 1: them are only in it briefly. Um, there are some
Speaker 1: cameos that pop out. Corey Feldman shows up as a child.
Speaker 1: I don't think he has any lines, but I just
Speaker 1: saw him and I was like, wait, that's Corey Feldman.
Speaker 1: And then screen he may say something like look mom,
Speaker 1: a time machine or something like that man's in I
Speaker 1: don't know, he maybe says something, but yeah, this was
Speaker 1: his film debut. Another film debut. I believe this was
Speaker 1: at least his first credit film screen credit is mc gainey,
Speaker 1: who just plays one of the London Bobbies. But this
Speaker 1: is an actor born. You may not envisioned him in
Speaker 1: your mind when I say his name, but if you
Speaker 1: look him up, you'll be like, oh, that guy because
Speaker 1: he's a character actor frequently cast as rotund creepers, bikers
Speaker 1: and bad cops. Uh. Yeah, I think about the the
Speaker 1: pilot of the plane in con Air. Yeah, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: that was him. Now, I you really pinpoint the music,
Speaker 1: and I should pinpoint the music in this one as well.
Speaker 1: It is a score by Michelos Rosa, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: o seven through nineteen So if you're watching this in
Speaker 1: the score to this film feels very traditional. Well that's
Speaker 1: because Rosa cut his teeth on film scores in the
Speaker 1: thirties and forties. He was a Hungarian American child prodigy.
Speaker 1: His earliest successes included The Four Feathers in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: nine and The Thief of Baghdad in nineteen forty. He
Speaker 1: earned seventeen Academy Award nominations, including three Oscars for Spellbound
Speaker 1: in forty five, A Double Life and forty seven, and
Speaker 1: Been Her in fifty nine. So huge name in the
Speaker 1: score business in the Golden Age of Hollywood. He composed
Speaker 1: a good hundred scores and also maintain a career as
Speaker 1: a concert composer. So even though it's not the sort
Speaker 1: of film score that I would I would want, I
Speaker 1: would personally want to listen to outside of the viewing experience. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fine score by a legendary composer. It
Speaker 1: is a nonsense score that you will allow. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I will allow it. So I guess we're getting kind
Speaker 1: of close to the end here. It doesn't make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense I think for this one to talk
Speaker 1: in much detail about about the plot or scene by scene,
Speaker 1: but I mean broadly, the main thing is you have
Speaker 1: this set up where you establish the characters in the
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, and then there and then there is invocation
Speaker 1: of the time travel mechanisms. So Jack the Ripper escapes
Speaker 1: to the future and uh, and H. G. Wells realizes
Speaker 1: what has happened, realizes that his friend is in fact,
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper has escaped to the future using his
Speaker 1: time machine that he invented, and now it's his responsibility
Speaker 1: to track him down and bring him to justice. So
Speaker 1: that's one half of the plot, is this sort of
Speaker 1: chase through time, and then the other half is broadly
Speaker 1: the love story. When H. G. Wells arrives in the future,
Speaker 1: he and Mary Steen Virgin, they meet each other at
Speaker 1: a bank because he is trying to exchange hundred year
Speaker 1: old British pounds for money that he can use to
Speaker 1: buy palm Fritz at McDougall's and um and she is
Speaker 1: working there at the currency exchange. They meet and they
Speaker 1: fall in love and there's a very sweet love story
Speaker 1: that develops between them as as the as the plot
Speaker 1: goes on, and that the threat of Jack the Ripper
Speaker 1: is sort of looming in the background. But apart from that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, drawing on the themes, I think
Speaker 1: one thing that's interesting in this movie is, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: very pointed about h. G. Wells reaction his extreme resistance
Speaker 1: to arming himself with weapons in his struggle against Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper. Like he when he goes to try to
Speaker 1: apprehend him, at first, he doesn't arm himself or try
Speaker 1: to use force in any way. He just goes and
Speaker 1: tries to talk him into coming back with him, and
Speaker 1: even later on, as the threat becomes more and more dire,
Speaker 1: it's only at a point of sort of like breakdown
Speaker 1: an extremity that he finally gets a gun. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: something that he's been urged to do, I think by
Speaker 1: Mary Stein Virgin and maybe other characters before that time.
Speaker 1: And I wondered what you thought about that there was
Speaker 1: an interesting decision to make this character who's so almost
Speaker 1: irrationally resistant to using weapons or arming himself. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: I did wonder at that point in the film, like
Speaker 1: what it was ultimately supposed to mean. Like maybe I
Speaker 1: guess it was probably more about the character and the
Speaker 1: necessity of the plot, Like it maybe one of those
Speaker 1: situations where you you you're like, Okay, he's in a
Speaker 1: life and death struggle. Surely he would break and get
Speaker 1: some sort of a weapon at this point. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then it also helps with the whole situation where the
Speaker 1: police have apprehended him and they find him not only
Speaker 1: behaving suspiciously but also armed. So I guess it has
Speaker 1: its role in the plot. I don't I was I
Speaker 1: struggled to getting anything more significant out of it. Well, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I think it probably has something
Speaker 1: to do with like his utopian ideal, because Wells is
Speaker 1: imagining you know, he's his character and the actual H. G.
Speaker 1: Wells in in the late nineteenth century, like was a
Speaker 1: member of the Fabian Society and didn't think that, you know,
Speaker 1: that incrementalist change in a progressive direction would eventually eliminate
Speaker 1: war and poverty and all that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 1: so if he's thinking of the utopian ideal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems that he is committed to the utopian ideal
Speaker 1: of non violence in a way that even could be
Speaker 1: very self destructive and could be seen as irrational in
Speaker 1: these cases where like clearly he's dealing with like a
Speaker 1: dangerous killer one on one. Yeah. And and it's interesting
Speaker 1: that the time when he breaks this is in a
Speaker 1: moment of weakness. It's when he's sort of like lost it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I thought that also had interesting implications. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to spoil anything, but for how how the
Speaker 1: conflict is finally resolved in the end. Another point I
Speaker 1: would I would make about the time machine because I,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to step into a movie like
Speaker 1: this and I expect to sort of geek out about
Speaker 1: the particulars of time travel a bit. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because if you ask me to explain exactly how the
Speaker 1: time machine works, and I'm not talking about like the
Speaker 1: you know, the power system at all. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: be like solar powered or something, but there's still powered
Speaker 1: even though it's in his basement, right, But there's this
Speaker 1: whole bit about, uh, the different keys that make it
Speaker 1: do different things, and I cannot tell you what how
Speaker 1: these exactly worked? Uh? But the film, the film screenplay
Speaker 1: and presentation is so effective that you you don't really
Speaker 1: have to think too much about it. Uh. But it's
Speaker 1: almost like the whole situation where it's like you you
Speaker 1: have to try and draw a bicycle. You have this
Speaker 1: vision of the bicycle in your head and you think
Speaker 1: you understand it, but then you really don't, not enough
Speaker 1: to draw it. Uh. And I feel like that's how
Speaker 1: the time machine functions in this this plot, Like they
Speaker 1: it works it. I understand how it functions in the
Speaker 1: plot and ultimately in the the climax of the picture,
Speaker 1: but I also would struggle to explain how these keys
Speaker 1: work and which one does what. That's one type of
Speaker 1: writing skill, I mean, one good quality of writing is
Speaker 1: writing that gives you the illusion of explanatory depth. I mean,
Speaker 1: most stories that you enjoy, you probably couldn't go through
Speaker 1: and explain in the same level of detail as the
Speaker 1: author why exactly everything happen ends and stuff. But there
Speaker 1: there's a sort of ease you settle into with certain
Speaker 1: types of storytelling, with good writing and all that, where
Speaker 1: where you just kind of like forget about it. You
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, and you you accept that everything
Speaker 1: makes sense even when it often doesn't. And I mean,
Speaker 1: and one way in which it doesn't that I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring up is how this movie does not get
Speaker 1: into the archetype of the time travel story the arms
Speaker 1: race that I was talking about earlier, and I was
Speaker 1: thinking about how different the movie could have been if
Speaker 1: it had embraced that ethic. So when Jack the Ripper
Speaker 1: flees to the future, the way H. G. Wells decides
Speaker 1: to deal with it is he's going to go to
Speaker 1: the same time in the future and bring him back
Speaker 1: instead of going one day in the past and preventing
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper from stealing his time machine in the
Speaker 1: first place. Like that. That might have been a wiser choice,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't have made for his fun of motion picture. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just different storytelling sensibilities. Um. And ultimately, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it comes down to what is it that the
Speaker 1: storyteller really wants us to think about. In this case,
Speaker 1: I think they want us to think about, uh, the
Speaker 1: qualities of the present age in which the movie was made,
Speaker 1: sort of the the arc of history, and how that
Speaker 1: would be sort of metabolized by somebody from the past
Speaker 1: with utopian ideals and and things like that, and it
Speaker 1: wants to tell that kind of story more than it
Speaker 1: wants to tell the kind of story about the power
Speaker 1: that would be granted by a time machine and and
Speaker 1: how people would use that power. Yeah. My final note
Speaker 1: on this film is that there's a scene later on
Speaker 1: where H. G. Wells is using a phone booth. Oh
Speaker 1: my wait, let me back up another great point in
Speaker 1: this film where I was laughing out loud and disturbing
Speaker 1: my wife while she's trying to work in the next room.
Speaker 1: It was the whole scene with the garbage disposal. Like,
Speaker 1: there's a scene where somebody goes to use a garbage
Speaker 1: disposal and you just see the hand. It turns out
Speaker 1: it's not H. G. Wells, but you're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: don't let H. G. Wells use the garbage disposal. He
Speaker 1: is not ready for this technology. Very good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's repeatedly confused by phones that he eventually gets
Speaker 1: the hang of them. Um. But but yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: great part where he goes to a telephone booth and
Speaker 1: and there's some like graffiti that I think is supposed
Speaker 1: to to display the sort of like violence and callousness
Speaker 1: of the age. Yes, it says eat razor blades, which
Speaker 1: which is great because it's one of the I love
Speaker 1: it when movie graffiti is like clearly orchestrated. It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like an organic bit bit of legit graffiti art
Speaker 1: from the age like this is the prop Department. But
Speaker 1: it feels perfect for this film. Like it. It feels
Speaker 1: in line with the sort of worries about the future
Speaker 1: in the present that are inherent in this tale of
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper traveling through time. All right, well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna probably go and close it out here. Obviously, we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there. If you have
Speaker 1: not seen Time after Time, well lucky you. It's widely
Speaker 1: available on disc and as a digital purchase or rental
Speaker 1: or a physical rental if you have a video store
Speaker 1: like say video Home in your area. As of this recording,
Speaker 1: it's currently streaming on HBO Max in the US, So
Speaker 1: if you sign into that app, if you if into
Speaker 1: that app, if you use that service, you can skip
Speaker 1: all the Mortal Kombat and Suicide Squad stuff, go right
Speaker 1: to the classics they have. They really have a great
Speaker 1: selection of older films on there. Oh, Yeah, I've lately
Speaker 1: been impressed by by the selection of older movies on HBO.
Speaker 1: Max thumbs up on that. In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: want to check out other episodes of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: you'll find it on Fridays and the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, but
Speaker 1: on Friday's we put aside most of the science discussion.
Speaker 1: I guess there's been more of it and here since
Speaker 1: we're talking about time travel, but generally Friday's that those
Speaker 1: are those are our days to just talk about weird films,
Speaker 1: and thus here we are huge thanks as always to
Speaker 1: our wonderful audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.