Time After Time

Now, you mind your step, Jenny.

Nah, go on, don't you worry none about me.

I can hold me gin.

I'm right as rain.

- Ta-ta, love. - Oops.

Mind how you go.

Go.

Oh!

It's..

Oh.

- Evenin'. - '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.

Oops!

Come along.

Oh. Right you are, sir.

Wouldn't want to break it.

Oh!

That's lovely!

'We got our own band!'

'Ha ha ha!'

Come on, then.

I'm hot..

And gettin' colder, if you take my meanin'.

Ooh.

'What's your name, dearie?'

'John.'

John..

John..

'Oh, John..'

Oh, John!

John..

'But my friends all call me Jack.'

Oh..

'Is the gazette going to continue'

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

Free love sells newspapers.

Gentlemen, I give you the fleet street Casanova.

Hear, hear!

Well, I've got my little experiments to pay for.

You're the hero of the working class, H.G.

Free love is the only sort they can afford.

Oh, Lord, don't start him on socialism in heaven's name.

We'll have to listen to a sermon on the subject

from Father Wells.

You oughtn't call it a sermon.

You know, I don't believe in organized religion.

Socialism is the path mankind must inevitably tread

on its way to a utopian society.

Mckay's right, you know, we've heard all that.

'What's this great announcement'

'you've brought us all to supper for?'

Have you found the cure for gravity?

I think I'd prefer to wait until we're all here.

Dr. Stevenson is here, Mr. Wells.

Thank you very much, Mrs. Turner.

Would you send him in?

Good evening, John.

- Gentlemen, good evening. - Hello, John.

We'd begun to despair. Have you dined?

There's still a little roast beef I think.

- Hopefully good. Try some. - Thank you, no.

Perhaps a little brandy to take away the chill.

I'm sorry to have missed supper, but a physician's hours

are not his own, I'm afraid.

Gentlemen..

- Good health! - Cheers.

Now, what has Herbert left for me tonight?

'Chess will have to wait, John.'

'You're only just in time for the big surprise.'

Isn't he, H.G. The great, big whatever-it-is?

- Am I? - I was waiting for you.

I'm all attention.

Very well.

Gentlemen, I have called you together tonight

to bid you farewell.

Farewell? Where are you off to?

Another holiday in Scotland, eh?

No. No, I am going traveling

but I'm not leaving London.

Indeed, I do not expect to be leaving my laboratory.

Mmm, riddles again.

Gentlemen, I am talking about traveling through time

in a machine constructed for that very purpose.

What?

Poppycock!

'Why?'

Electric light, gentlemen.

Courtesy of Thomas Edison, the modern Prometheus.

Good heavens..

You were really serious!

Good God, I don't believe it!

You've actually built the bloody thing!

Well, free love has paid for most of it.

Yes, I've no doubt.

I didn't think practical jokes

was in your line of sport.

Twelve years ago, a French engineer

harnessed the power of the sun to run a printing press.

My time machine derives its power from the very same source.

You can't be serious.

You mean 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 lifts, or literally rotates, the machine

out of one time sphere into another.

'The cruising speed is two years per minute.'

You can go into the past or future at will.

Two years per minute.

Acceleration will keep the machine and its occupant

outside all time spheres

in a conscious but vaporized state.

How do you determine in which direction you're journeying?

Well, if you rotate to the west, you gain yesterdays.

To the east, you accumulate tomorrows.

Balderdash! Go North, you get to Glasgow.

The machine is designed with several safety features.

'The reversal-rotation lock'

automatically returns the machine to its starting date

after the completion of a voyage.

If the occupant is injured during the course of a flight

the passenger is returned to the point of departure..

Unless he uses this key to countermand the device.

'Without that key, then, the thing's a bloody homing pigeon.'

And what, may I ask, is this?

Well, John..

This... is the vaporizing equalizer.

Without it the passenger journeys through time

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?'

Oh, the past, surely. He'll want to meet Cleopatra.

The future.

Now why the future?

Because I belong there.

Within three generations

the social utopia will have come to pass.

There will be no more war, no crime, no poverty

and no disease, either, John.

Men will live like brothers and on terms of perfect equality

with women as well.

Oh, dear. Let's have the past.

Hear, hear!

I can't agree with you. Check.

Really, you astonish me, H.G.

In the midst of all your theorizing

you manage to ignore the facts.

'The evidence of human history is that'

we live in a cosmic charnel house.

Mankind has not changed for 2,000 years.

We hunt. We're hunted.

That's how it is. That's how it shall always be.

The future will prove you wrong.

The future will tell.

Anyway, I have just one question for myself.

When do you leave?

Uh, I'm not sure.

'Human frailty at last.'

Well, to be quite candid..

I haven't quite worked up the nerve.

Oh, first time H.G. ever lacked nerve!

No, but I will.

All I've got to do is to set the date

and activate the switches in sequence.

'Of course you'll find it, and I'll inherit the Hope Diamond.'

Checkmate, Herbert.

'How does he do it?' - 'Not again.'

'Every time.'

I know how he thinks, that's all.

One day I shall win.

Yes, when you learn how I think.

Oh, sorry to interrupt, Mr. Wells

but there are two gentlemen from Scotland Yard

who would like a word with you.

Gentlemen, what is the meaning of this?

Uh, beg pardon, sir, I'm sure.

Mind we have a word with you, sir?

The Ripper? In this vicinity?

'I'm afraid so, sir.'

We've cordoned off the entire neighborhood.

We're asking the folk hereabout to cooperate.

Will that be alright with you, sir?

Your housekeeper will sleep the better for it.

- Of course, by all means. - Oh, thank you very much, sir.

What's happened?

Apparently, the Ripper has struck again.

- No! - Oh, my Lord! Goodness!

He hasn't been heard from for years!