The Yesterday Machine

I was honored to play Dectective Laskey in this Yesterday Machine movie. Tim Holt was a true professional to put up with a bunch of local Dallas actors and even thou this is a typically Bad Science Fiction movie-- for the time, it is OK to watch. The reason I am writing this today is I just found my VHS copy of the movie and made a DVD of it for my own restoration and to have something to play for my Grandkids. Actually, the quality of the DVD turned out pretty good even thou the VHS is quite old. I had a recording studio in Dallas, Texas at the time of the shooting of this movie and most of the interior scenes were done in the back rooms of my studio---sets built for the dungeons, and the time machine locations, etc. All of the music was recorded at my Studio with the Nick Nicklas band doing the playing. All in All-----it is a really good example of a Bad Sci-fi 1960's movie and worth the watch----if you can find a copy. I'm glad I have one and now a DVD that will last for a few more years.

Jim Crandall or Callie (James Britton) gets shot with a mini-ball. Majorette, Margie De Mar (Linda Jenkins) disappears. Reporter Jim Crandall (James Britton) and inept nightclub singer Sandy De Mar (Ann Pellegrino), who happens to be the sister of Margie, searches for the missing Margie near an old Dallas farmhouse and ends up in the lab of mad scientist Professor Ernest Von Hauser (Jack Herman.) Will they ever be seen again or will the mad scientist, using his time machine, bring back his friend Schicklgruber from the past and restore the rightful order of history?

The acting is hokey; it is probably on purpose. The background music will grate on your nerves. Shot in black and white. The accents are east Texas so we know it was made in Dallas and not Ft. Worth.

The only redeeming portion of the film is the mad scientist who takes more time than usual to explain Einstein and does not overact the part. Is he wearing Tom Ford glasses?

We are left with these thoughts: "Yesterday should be left alone. Because today the world has enough problems just trying to be sure we'll have a tomorrow." - Police Lt. Partane (Tim Holt.)

This film is incredible! It has everything you could hope for in an enjoyable bad film. An amazing plot, Hitler's director of "scientific warfare" Dr. Ernst Van Hauser (played by Jack Herman, an ex-Yiddish theater player who was a drama coach at a local black college) is living underneath a farmhouse in Dallas, Texas (where the movie was made). He is doing time travel experiments and giving lectures to captured subjects about his theories of "Superspectronic Relativity and the Minus Ray" (while his drawings on the blackboard are redrawn twice during his lecture). He states that his theories are far more advanced than Einstein's. He captures a baton twiller and her sister a bad night club singer ("the girl with the orchid voice" the film lets us know) who sings a funny bad song written by the director Russ Marker (I think). The director was an associate of Texas film maker Larry Buchanan and uses some of his stable of actors like Bill Thurman. Also stars a somewhat over the hill Tim Holt as a police detective who immediately knows when a baton twiller disappears in Texas it must by Nazis and Dr. Ernst Van Hauser. Jack Herman's over the top performance as Dr. Ernst Van Hauser is beyond words (William Shatner looks tame and controlled by comparison). Some amazing bad films, with wonderful low budget charm, came out of Texas in the 1960's and this takes its place as a classic along side such bad films as Manos Hands of Fate or any of the Larry Buchanan epics of the period. Highly recommended for bad film scholars. Needs to come out on DVD!

If "Goofy" had a scale from 1-10, this would be about a 8.5.

It's a Scienece Fiction, or roughly Science Fiction, bit about a time machine invented by a Nazi.

It starts off okay, and when you watch how it begins, you will get a big thrill, because you will recognize a later classic for using much of what you see here. If you see it, you'll instantly know the name of the satire that uses much of the early part of this movie.

There are a few things to like. The girl with the legs at the start vanishes for a while, but then you get to see her again.

We have the "reporter and cop friend" cliché, which is sometimes not too bad, depending on how much "atmosphere" you get. This movie does give a pretty good amount of atmosphere for the few special effects it has.

Most of the early sixties and late fifties science fiction has good atmosphere, and a camaraderie among local folk. We get that here. What we don't get are good lines. These movies aren't usually this "corny". And the acting usually isn't this poor, either. I am usually not that particular with "acting", but these actors cross the line. They are truly just reading lines. Ironically, the best acting comes from the hot babes. The men are the dweebs here.

The atmosphere would usually let me forgive the corny writing and acting, but the second half just had too many "horrible" scenes. The worst one is where a girl helps the heroine escape, and the heroine just stands and watches while the girl who helps her is strangled to death. No explanation can cover this. Then there is the Hitler's scientist, whose lines are the most "expository" you will ever see on celluloid.

Not the worst, by far, but it leaves you with a feeling that even for a low budget horror, it should have been much better.

This movie, its poor production values and picture qualities, and absolutely ABYSMAL Sound qualities aside, is actually a pretty effective sci-fi Horror story, told to the viewer in a pretty much intelligent manner.

I have always liked the actor TIM HOLT, going back to his playing the clean-cut young Prospector in "The Treasure of The Sierra Madre" with Bogart and Walter Huston. In this flick, his Police Lieutenant Partane character adds some semblance of credibility to his role and the overall storyline.

And Jack Herman, the apparently LIFELONG Yiddish Theatre Actor, who plays the "ESCAPED, VIRULENT NAZI SCIENTIST, Ernest VON HAUSER," absolutely steals the show, with his Mad Scientist's "Time-Travel Slave and Death Camp" of a deserted farmhouse, in Texas, no less!(* Actually, the Lonestar State has always been one of THE "All-American" Locales, for great MONSTER, HORROR and SCI-FI, Cinematic "Carnage"!)

All the usual mad Nazi "thoughts" and CRUELTY is there of course, in "The Yesterday Machine," yet there is indeed thoughtful DIALOGUE, as Mr. HERMAN'S Von Hauser character explains the "real science" behind time travel, to the heroic news gatherer-guy, "Jimmy Crandell," whom I believe is played by James Britton.

There are a couple of VERY WEAK, climactic plot points as the film closes out, but this one is still an A-OK to Good piece of SCHLOCKO Movie "AUTEUR-SHIP," let us, RIGHTLY, call it such!