Time After Time

Mind your step, Jenny.

Don't you worry none about me.

I can hold me gin.

I'm right as rain.

Ta-ta, love.

Mind how you go.

- Evening.

- Good evening.

- It's a raw night, isn't it?

- Yes. Raw.

- You'll ruin them fine clothes.

- Would you like this?

Come straight to the point,

don't you, love?

Well, my place is right along here.

No.

There.

We are in a hurry, aren't we?

Come on, then.

Come along.

Oh, right you are, sir.

Wouldn't want to break it.

Wow. That's lovely.

We got our own band.

Come on, then.

I'm hot and getting colder,

if you take my meaning.

- What's your name, dearie?

- John.

John.

John.

Oh, John.

Oh, John.

John.

John.

But my friends all call me Jack.

Will The Gazette continue

with your pieces on free love, H.G.?

Free love sells newspapers.

Gentleman, the Fleet Street Casanova.

Here, here.

I've got my little experiments

to pay for.

You're the hero of the working class.

Free love is all they can afford.

Oh, Lord.

Don't start him on socialism.

We'll have to listen

to a sermon on it.

Don't call it a sermon. You know

I don't believe in organized religion.

Socialism is the path man must tread

on the way to a utopian society.

We've heard all that. What's this

great announcement we're here for?

- A cure for gravity?

- I want to wait until we're all here.

Who's missing?

- Dr. Stevenson is here.

- Thank you. Send him in.

- Good evening, John.

- Herbert.

- Good evening.

- Hello.

We'd begun to despair. Have you dined?

There's still roast beef.

Thank you, no. Perhaps a little brandy

to take away the chill.

I'm sorry I missed supper, but

a physician's hours are not his own.

- Gentlemen.

- Good health.

Cheers.

What has Herbert left for me tonight?

Chess must wait.

You're just in time for the surprise.

Isn't he, H.G.?

The great big whatever-it-is?

- Am I?

- I was waiting for you.

- I am all attention.

- Very well.

Gentlemen, I have called you here

tonight to bid you farewell.

- Farewell?

- Where are you going?

- Another holiday in Scotland?

- No. No, I am traveling...

...but I'm not leaving London.

I don't expect to leave my laboratory.

- Riddles again.

- Gentlemen.

I am talking about traveling

through time.

In a machine constructed

for that very purpose.

What?

- Poppycock.

- Why?

Electric light, courtesy of Edison,

a modern Prometheus.

Good heavens. You were really serious.

I don't believe it. You've actually

built the bloody thing.

- Free love paid for most of it.

- I've no doubt.

I didn't think practical jokes

was in your line.

Twelve years ago, an engineer used

the sun to power a printing press.

My time machine

uses the same power source.

- You can't be serious.

- This thing is propelled by sunshine?

This cup catches

the rays of the sun...

...converting its heat

to electricity here.

Electricity does the rest. Juxtaposing

fields of energy creating friction.

The result is an ever-increasing

series of reactions...

...that literally rotates the machine

out of one time sphere into another.

Cruising speed is two years per

minute. Go into the past or future.

Two years per minute?

Acceleration keeps the machine and

occupant outside all time spheres...

...conscious, but vaporized.

- How do you determine direction?

West, you gain yesterdays.

East, you accumulate tomorrows.

Balderdash!

Go north, you get to Glasgow.

The machine is designed

with several safety features.

The reversal rotation lock returns

the machine to its starting date...

...after the completion of a voyage.

If the occupant is injured

during a flight...

...the passenger is returned

to the point of departure.

Unless he uses this key

to countermand the device.

Without that key,

it's a bloody homing pigeon.

And what, may I ask, is this?

Well, John...

...this is the vaporizing equalizer.

Without it, the passenger journeys

without the machine...

...and without the machine,

there is no coming back.

Well, H.G., which is it to be?

The past or the future?

The past, surely.

He'll want to meet Cleopatra.

- The future.

- Why the future?

I belong there. In three generations,

social utopia will have come to pass.

There'll be no war, crime or poverty.

And no disease either, John.

Men will live like brothers,

and in equality with women.

- Oh, dear. Let's have the past.

- Here, here.

I can't agree with you. Check.

You astonish me. In the midst of all

your theorizing, you ignore the facts.

We live in a cosmic charnel house.

Mankind has not changed in 2000 years.

We hunt, we're hunted. That's

how it is. How it will always be.

The future will prove you wrong.

The future will tell.

Anyway, I have just one question

for myself. When do you leave?

- I'm not sure.

- Human frailty, at last.

Well, to be quite candid...

...I haven't worked up the nerve.

- First time for that.

But I will. All I have to do is set

the date and activate the switches.

And I'll inherit the Hope diamond.

- Checkmate.

- How does he do it?

- Not again?

- Every time.

I know how he thinks. That's all.

- One day I shall win.

- When you learn how I think.

Sorry to interrupt. Two gentlemen from

Scotland Yard want a word with you.

What is the meaning of this?

Beg pardon, sir.

Might we have a word with you?

- The Ripper? In this vicinity?

- I'm afraid so, sir.

We've cordoned off the neighborhood.

We're asking for cooperation.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes