Time After Time Movie Review

In Victorian London, circa 1893, H. G. Wells (whom filmmakers love to portray as an eccentric inventor, rather than the novelist and historian he was in real life) is experimenting with his time machine. He discovers the machine has been used by an associate (who turns out to be Jack the Ripper) to travel to San Francisco and wreck havoc in 1979. Wells follows to stop any further murders and the ensuing battle of wits is both entertaining and imaginative. Malcolm McDowell is charming as Wells and Mary Steenburgen is equally fine as Wells’ modern American love interest. Several years later, Steenburgen would play the heroine of another time-travel romance, Back to the Future, Part 3.

1979 (PG) 112m/C Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen, Patti D'Arbanville, Charles Cioffi, Kent Williams, Andonia Katsaros; D: Nicholas Meyer; W: Nicholas Meyer; C: Paul Lohmann; M: Miklos Rozsa. National Board of Review Awards ‘79: 10 Best Films of the Year. VHS, Beta, LV WAR