Journey to the Center of Time (USA, 1967) 82 min color DIR-SCR: David L. Hewitt. PROD: Ray Dorn, David L. Hewitt. MUSIC: Marlin Skiles. DOP: Robert Caramico. CAST: Scott Brady, Anthony Eisley, Gigi Perreau, Abraham Sofaer, Lyle Waggoner. (American General Pictures)
This bargain basement remake of the 1964 AIP sci-fi mini favourite The Time Travellers has that film’s co-story writer, David L. Hewitt, as writer, director and co-producer. One can imagine a pre-production dialogue going like this: “A couple of things, though: we just have a half-finished control room, a black backdrop, black-and-white stock footage, and a not-bad spaceship interior. What can we do?” Well, rest assured, Hewitt knew how to make something out of very little. In the latter half of the 1960s, he turned out a handful of genre pictures with the barest minimum of production values: half-completed sets (and monsters), and the ubiquitous generic black backdrop. Such titles as The Wizard of Mars or Return from the Past became 4 AM staples, and shelf fillers during the VHS age. Video distributors would plaster the video boxes with the names of its veteran cast members who had joined the “anything for a buck” club, including Lon Chaney Jr., Scott Brady, Anthony Eisley, and of course, John Carradine. A Hewitt production is however distinguished by its genuinely ambitious writing, which make a viewer wonder why the producers even attempted a buck ninety-eight production budget with such adventurous screenplays?
Mr. Stanton (Scott Brady, doing a Lawrence Tierney impersonation – haha) is tightening the belt on grants that were issued by his late father. He comes to the laboratory of Dr. Gordon (Abraham Sofaer), who is working on a revolutionary time travel experiment (based on a really heady theory which is divulged in the opening credits matted over a stock shot of a spiral galaxy). He booms, “You have 24 hours to gets some results!”
The next day, Stanton, Gordon, and his trusty assistants Mark Manning (Anthony Eisley) and Karen White (Gigi Perreau) are in a control room. These assistants are on hand as the hopeful love interests, and for the requisite subplot of hot-blooded young scientist locking horns with insensitive bureaucrat. Suddenly they are transported in a capsule 5000 years into the future, where Earth is seen as black-and-white bombed out miniatures on the telescreen. They are visited by friendly peroxide-haired aliens in mismatching uniforms and skin tones, who stand on multi-gelled risers. The otherworldly visitors are repairing their ship, but are also under siege by Earth people who want their weapons. They humbly advise the time travellers to return home, and just in the nick of time, too. Shortly after our heroes’ departure, we are given a little harrowing glimpse of the future as the aliens are then invaded by Earth people. This fierce battle in front of a black curtain is presented in a layered montage of awkward, shaky hand-held fight scenes.
This quartet jettisons back to prehistoric times, only after they view more black-and-white stock footage of World War II, Civil War movies, swashbuckler films, and gladiator sub-spectacles. Finally, they reach One Million B.C., and Raquel Welch is nowhere in sight. However, there IS a styrofoam set partially concealed by dry ice, and nature footage with a normal-sized lizard made to look big with extreme close-ups, that opens its mouth and suddenly a huge roar is heard on the soundtrack.
Meanwhile in present day, the hard-working scientists (including Lyle Waggoner, from TV’s Wonder Woman!) sweat it out in the half-finished control room, which is a bunch of gauges glued to some plywood, with a bare black backdrop supplied by the Ed Wood Charity Fund for Thrifty Art Direction, as they toil to bring back the renegade capsule and restore time to its original order.
PS- in One Million BC, what time is it on Scott Brady’s watch?
In a 1987 Fangoria interview, Anthony Eisley (who starred in many ultra-cheap genre pictures, like The Doll Squad or Monstroid) praised Hewitt for being a very bright filmmaker, yet also lamented that he never had any proper money to work with. (They would also work together on The Mighty Gorga.) Still, one had to admire him for striving to make something worthwhile. After directing several movies, Hewitt went on to supervise special effects on many films, including Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Because Journey to the Center of Time is mistakenly thought to be in the public domain, it has appeared on numerous budget VHS and DVD labels. (In the early days of DVD, the notorious Beverly Wilshire distributed the title.) My DVD copy cost a whole dollar (released in a cardboard sleeve by a company called, yes, Dollar DVD.)
