The special effects are a bit dated as you might expect from a movie made in 1960 but the story will live forever. One of my all-time favorite movies.

If H.G Wells had lived to see his book "The Time Machine" adapted for this 1960 film, I believe he would have been happy with the final results. The film captures the essence and imagination of the novel very well. I agree with the plot being presented in a flashback form as that was how H.G Wells wrote his novel in the first place. Rod Taylor is well cast, he makes the main character of the time- travelling scientist both intelligent and also for being a man of action. The film's pace never lets up from beginning to end and the script, direction and photography are well above average. The budget for the film was certainly a respectable one and it needed to be, in order for the film to convey the details from the plot of the book.

The star of this film is the fancy time machine. A dandy chariot. Also, Weena the empty-headed Eloi is very sweet. A lot of the scenery is lush. Rod looks good, but is remarkably stiff and awkward in his speech and manner, and he uses a sort of crummy trans-global Anglophone accent. Most of the film is very slowly paced, and Rod's climactic fight with the hairy Morlocks is comically fake.Time travel is a tricky theme to handle in the cinema. It needs a deft hand. Far better movies are "Back to the Future", or "The Terminator". We had Raquel Welch in her fur bikini one million years BC, which admittedly stretched things a bit. But for man to devolve over eight hundred thousand years AD into dopey Eloi and cannibalistic Morlocks may be a fun idea, but simply does not convince, and consistently works against any sympathetic identification with Rod's problems. If the Eloi are bred like cattle to make dinner for the Morlocks, it's understandable there aren't any old ones, but why aren't there any little ones? The FAQ claims to have spotted two of them. Why do the Morlocks, who are supposed to be running this place, leave the Eloi's skeletons and bones lying untidily around their habitat? Why doesn't Rod return to his home just immediately after he leaves it, since he can travel to any point in time? How come there's no explanation for why the Eloi can all speak the English of today ? And the Morlocks can't, or don't, speak anything ? You'd think previous generations would have provided their descendants with some kind of multi-language mental translation machine, just in case, along with the pointless history rings, and endless shelves of 20th century books, already now on their way out. Perhaps this was not foreseeable by George Wells in 1899. He should have stopped off for a quick butcher's in, say, 3000 AD. The original book has to be better than this movie. This has just not been thought through in the slightest.I feel obliged to say here that there's no point in recounting the story, or, as it's sometimes called, the plot. In fact I never understand why anyone spells out the plot, if someone else has already done so. Surely once is enough? Also, it's been sensibly pointed out, on one of the discussion threads, that time machines do not vanish from the present: it's the present that vanishes from the time machine. This applies to the dinky little model on the dinner table, and proves that there's little or no logic to this narrative.Still, the film is memorable, just like "The Outlaw", the world's worst and most memorable. I will always remember Rod, sitting comfortably in that sumptuous, velvet-cushioned Victorian machine.

It must be said that one has to be ambitious to tackle a literary giant like H.G. Wells. This master has crafted works that persist as classics more than 50 years after his death. Never one to shy away from heavy themes, H.G. Wells' work is one that would unnerve me to explore on film. Nonetheless, The Time Machine (1960) directed by George Pal brings Well's words to life on screen. Tackling such heavies as class, society, and modernization, The Time Machine fails to disappoint in either format.The Time Machine starts out as another backwards tale, which I am quite partial to. We meet a group of friends in a dining hall when a disheveled scientist George (Rod Taylor) arrives with unkempt hair and tattered clothes. He is visibly shaken at first, and then begins to explain to his friends about his unique travels. Having met his friend Filby's (Alan Young) son on his travels, he is especially interested in telling him his stories. George didn't just take any trip, he traveled through time. As Filby and George previously discussed, George has a preoccupation with time. He believes he has been born to the wrong time, and because of this feeling, devotes his scientific research to trying to manipulate time. George hopes to discover a utopia in the future in which minds are celebrated and innovation encouraged. On the eve of the 20th century, his time machine finally works and George sets out, cautiously, to explore the future he will never know. After gingerly going hours then weeks in the future, George has made up his mind to travel hundreds of years. When he finally lands, many thousands of years into the future, George is greeted with a civilization of sheep, all following one another with no knowledge of how their government works or if they even have one. George is optimistic to find that war and famine are worries of the past, but disheartened when he is taken to the "library" of the civilization to see all the books being stored there crumbling to dust. George is devastated to learn that the utopia he was so sure to find is actually a dystopia. These people are called Eloi, and at first assumption look as though they lead care-free lives, once the city becomes dark however, we can see that is far from the truth. The Eloi actually live in constant fear of the Morlocks, a group that provides the Eloi with clothes and nourishment, as well as periodic population control. Blindly following the Morlocks' command, George is committed to showing the eloi that they needn't be under the Morlock's control, even if that means rescuing them himself.The Time Machine has been hailed for its use of special effects, which were way ahead of their time. It only makes sense that a film about traversing time would have effects that also superseded it. As George firsts experiments with his machine and is dancing through the hours and the days, we see the flowers in his garden rapidly grow and die again. Seeing the flowers blooming and retracting was a nice special effects tool for the audience to witness. We also see in George's travels, the earth succumbing to a fierce magma. I do not know how this magma was created, but its thickness and texture was incredibly realistic. When we see George pitted against the Morlocks we see that they all have beaming eyes. This effect was also interesting considering it was 1960. These effects today would all be easy to create, but considering this film was made almost 60 years ago, they were definitely ahead of their time.H.G. Wells was noted for his exploration of themes that concern the human condition. This film definitely fits into that category. Civilization is greatly explored, as George is certain that the future will only produce advancements for society. When he sees that the future society has devolved to such a great extent, he learns that advancement does not always produce a positive outcome. Modernization is also explored as we learn with George that production means are irrelevant if the human mind stops growing. Finally, the most blatant issue explored in The Time Machine is class. We are introduced to two classes, producers and consumers. The consumers are subservient and completely dependent upon the producers. The producers are shown to be ugly, nonhuman like creatures, while the consumers are beautiful, yet the exact same as one another. One can draw the conclusion that, as we see the producers coming up from underground in which they live that the production of society is the grunt work done only to preserve itself. Even though the Morlocks are hideous and primitive, the Eloi live in constant fear of them, yet completely dependent upon them for everything with which to sustain life. They also live in blissful ignorance about what they are missing out on, unrestricted life. Clearly, Wells reserves no love for the producers; even classifying them as cannibalistic. This film does wonders to show the dangers of submitting to a ruling class of producers and warns one to always maintain individuality.I quite enjoyed The Time Machine, and would recommend this version to anyone who enjoys any of H.G. Well's works. I also would recommend this film to fans of the sci-fi genre. It is interesting to see the early workings of such a prolific genre, and to see the special effects achieved by a film of this nature. Something about this film felt very nostalgic and comfortable for me. I am not sure why I felt a kinship to this film, as I have never before seen a film like it. For that reason alone, I would also recommend this movie as it exists as a cautionary tale of maintaining individuality.