Time After Time

Time After Time is a 1979 American science fiction film written and directed by Nicholas Meyer and starring Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, and Mary Steenburgen. Filmed in Panavision, it was the directing debut of Meyer, whose screenplay is based on the premise from Karl Alexander's novel Time After Time (which was unfinished at the time) and a story by Alexander and Steve Hayes. The film presents a story in which British author H. G. Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century. Plot In 1893 London, popular writer Herbert George Wells displays a time machine to his skeptical dinner guests, and explains how it works, including having a "non-return key" that keeps the machine at the traveler's destination and a "vaporizing equalizer" that keeps the traveler and machine on equal terms. The police constables suddenly arrive, searching for Jack the Ripper. A bag with blood-stained gloves belonging to Wells' friend John Leslie Stevenson, a surgeon, leads them to conclude that Stevenson may be the infamous killer. Wells races to his laboratory, but the time machine is gone. Stevenson escapes to the future, though without the "non-return" key, causing the machine to automatically reappear in 1893. Wells then pursues Stevenson to November 5, 1979, where the machine is now on display at a San Francisco museum. Wells finds the future deeply shocking, having expected an enlightened socialist utopia. Instead he sees chaos in the form of airplanes, automobiles and a history of global war, crime, and bloodshed. At a bank, Wells exchanges some British bank notes for present-day currency. Hungry, he enters a McDonald's and is alternately puzzled and pleased with 1979 dining options.