Time After Time (1979)

Directed by Nicholas Meyer. Starring Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, David Warner, Charles Cioffi, Patti D’Arbanville, Andonia Katsaros, Kent Williams, James Garrett, Keith McConnell, Leo Lewis. [PG]

Endearing bit of speculative fiction suggests that idealistic writer H. G. Wells (McDowell) actually built a real time machine in London near the turn of the century and was unknowingly friends with Jack the Ripper (Warner). To evade police, Jack uses the time machine with Wells in pursuit, and they both end up in modern day San Francisco. A delicate balancing act that’s pulled off with few faults (utter preposterousness chief among them)—cute and lighthearted in between the scenes with the Ripper, with restrained fish-out-of-water gags, mild suspense, a sweet romance, and hope at the tail end of so much foreboding philosophy about man’s inescapable destructive nature. McDowell has rarely been so relaxed and good-natured onscreen, and Steenburgen is a low-key delight as Wells’ modern gal love interest. Fine Miklós Rózsa score, and the location shooting throughout the city could almost be passed off as a tourist video brochure. Meyer’s directorial debut; he’s also the screenwriter, and would go on to co-write the script for the fourth Star Trek movie, which also involves time travelers arriving in contemporary San Francisco. Turned into a short-lived television series almost forty years later. Look for a very young Corey Feldman in a bit part at the museum (his first film role).

75/100