Certainly one of my favourite fantasy or science fiction films and time has not dulled the entertainment value of this wonderful 1960 picture. Time has, however, not been kind to some of the special visual effects of “THE TIME MACHINE” – they run the gamut from sublime to, with a hint of sadness in my voice, embarressing, and now we’ll take a look back at them.
This George Pal directed film was the big Oscar winner in the special effects category in 1960 and was a popular film and remains so today with it’s engaging cast lead by charismatic Australian leading man Rod Taylor who is ideally cast here. The production is good and appears to be a ‘just below medium’ budgeted picture. Much use is made of the then still magnificent MGM backlot and standing sets. Even though the film was released by Metro the effects work was entirely farmed out to the small specialty effects house Project Unlimited run by Gene Warren snr, Tim Barr and Wah Chang. Project Unlimited has a place in the hearts of all fantasy film buffs with their imaginative and often sensational effects work in films such as “THE POWER”, “THE 7 FACES OF DR LAO”, “THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM” and television shows such as “THE OUTER LIMITS”. The effects house even provided uncredited prosthetic corpses at various scales for Stanley Kubricks’ “SPARTACUS”. Little known are the other effects Project Unlimited supplied in more mainstream films such as the Universal comedy “THAT FUNNY FEELING” where they built and crashed a pair of locomotives head on and supplied the brief but dazzling post credit sequence with a major pile up on the LA freeway – all furnished via stop motion animated models by Jim Danforth and Pete Kleinow.
Variety was Project Unlimiteds’ mandate, though sadly some of the technical finesse wasn’t always evident, none more so than in “THE TIME MACHINE”. The film is almost wall to wall photographic effects – from wonderful examples of time lapse photography and stop frame animation through to extensive application of generally effective blue screen work and a number of matte paintings which in run the range from marvellous to mediocre…
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A Tribute to Golden Era Special FX
Please Note: Now that I am all caught up with Matte & Effects Films Celebrated, I am going further back into the archives of Matte Shot – A Tribute to Golden Era Special FX to feature even more great articles from this great site.
This blog is intended primarily as a tribute to the inventiveness and ingenuity of the craft of the matte painter during Hollywoods’ Golden Era. Some of the shots will amaze in their grandeur and epic quality while others will surprise in their ‘invisibility’ to even the sophisticated viewer. I hope this collection will serve as an appreciation of the artform and both casual visitors and those with a specialist interest may benefit, enjoy and be amazed at skills largely unknown today.