Time After Time (1979 film)

Plot[edit]

In 1893 London, popular writer H. G. 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. Police constables suddenly arrive, searching for Jack the Ripper. A bag with blood-stained gloves belonging to Wells's friend John Leslie Stevenson, a surgeon, leads them to conclude that Stevenson may be the 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 museum in San Francisco. 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 American currency. Hungry, he enters a McDonald's and is alternately puzzled and pleased with modern dining options. Reasoning that Stevenson also needs to exchange British money, Wells visits various banks searching for him. At the Chartered Bank of London, he meets employee Amy Robbins, who directed Stevenson to the Hyatt Regency hotel. Smitten with Wells, she gives him her card, saying he should “give her a ring”.


Upon being confronted by Wells, Stevenson confesses that he finds modern society pleasingly violent, stating: "Ninety years ago, I was a freak. Today, I'm an amateur." Wells demands he return to 1893 to face justice, but Stevenson instead attempts to wrestle the non-return key from him. Their struggle is interrupted by a maid and Stevenson flees, getting hit by a car during the frantic chase. Wells follows him to the hospital emergency room and assumes Stevenson is dead.


Wells meets up with Amy again and she initiates a romance. Stevenson returns to the bank to exchange more money. Suspecting that Amy led Wells to him, he frightens her into giving Wells a message and later discovers where she lives. To convince a highly skeptical Amy that he is telling the truth, Wells takes her three days into the future. She is aghast to see a newspaper headline revealing her own murder as the "San Francisco Ripper's" fifth victim.


Wells persuades her that they must go back to prevent the fourth victim's murder, then prevent Amy's. Upon returning, they are delayed and can do no more than phone the police. Stevenson kills again, and Wells is arrested due to his knowledge about the killing. Amy is left alone, totally defenseless against Stevenson.


While Wells unsuccessfully tries to convince the police of Amy's peril, she attempts to hide from Stevenson. When the police finally investigate her apartment, they find a woman's dismembered body. Believing him innocent, the police release a now-heartbroken Wells. Stevenson actually killed Amy's co-worker, who was the dead body in Amy's apartment. He contacts Wells to state that he has taken Amy hostage and demands the non-return key.


Stevenson flees with the key – and Amy as insurance – intending a permanent escape in the time machine. Wells erratically drives Amy's car and follow them to the museum. While Wells bargains for Amy's life, she escapes. As Stevenson starts up the time machine, Wells removes the "vaporizing equalizer", causing Stevenson to vanish while the machine remains in the present. Stevenson has been sent traveling endlessly through time.


Wells proclaims he must return to his own time and destroy a machine that is too dangerous for primitive mankind. Amy pleads with him to take her along, saying she has no remaining ties in the 20th century. The film finishes with the caption: "H.G. Wells married Amy Catherine Robbins, who died in 1927. As a writer, he anticipated socialism, global war, space travel and women's liberation. He died in 1946."