Take the backdrop of the one of the all-time classic novels, take a darkly iconic killer from the late 19th Century – and transpose it across time and space. The result?
Nicholas Meyer’s TIME AFTER TIME.
Jack The Ripper (David Warner) is slaughtering women in London – and his best friend happens to be HG Wells (Malcolm McDowell, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE). Wells has just created the real version of his TIME MACHINE – and Jackie-boy decides to use it to travel forward to 1979 San Francisco – and Wells follows suit.
Inevitably, it isn’t long before a few mysterious deaths start emerging in the modern locality – and time has become the enemy for Wells….
Made six years before the blockbusting BACK TO THE FUTURE, TIME AFTER TIME – which, incidentally, landed Meyer the directorial gig on STAR TREK II – THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982), arguably the best film featuring the original cast from the 1960s show – sparkled across the board to critic and modest commercial acclaim.
McDowell and Warner are excellent in their respective roles and the culture and time clash as Wells adjusts to the effect of his invention (although how he crossed a continent as well as time is open to question, but not a worry for the sheer enjoyment of the film!) provide memorable fun moments, as well as some competent moments of suspense.
In the UK, as a bit of extra trivia, the film was re-released in a double-bill with a documentary in 1981 with an Orson Welles-narrated documentary about Nostradamus, THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW.