The Yesterday Machine

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.

I was hooked by the first two minutes, like something from a Werner Herzog film. Competent writing, over the top acting, a torch song and a physics lecture. What else do you need? Spoiler alert: Nazis are bad mmm-kay? Enjoy with some popcorn on a stormy day.

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!

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!

Years ago, I read about this movie in a book, and it stated that actor Jack Herman gave an incredibly campy performance as an evil Nazi scientist. The prospect of seeing some really bad acting made me want to see the movie, but I couldn't find a copy of it in any video store. But today I found the movie on YouTube, so I could finally watch it, and I was mostly let down. For the most part, I found the movie to be very forgettable. The first half of the movie is really boring, with almost no action (and what action there is is extremely lame), and is filled with drab scenes of people engaged in dull chat that is clearly padding out the movie past the breaking point. The second half of the movie is a bit more successful, having a bit more energy and punch to the story. However, the highlight is Jack Herman's acting, which is indeed campy and over the top at times, though actually I was expecting something even more overdone than I had been lead to believe. But even at his "best", Herman isn't enough to save the movie and make it worth watching. I would only recommend the movie to true aficionados of mad scientist performances.