This is one of those films I’ve been wanting to find for a long time.
Fortunately, I’ve read enough about it by now that I had low expectations for it.
Supposedly this one got its start because the writer/director, Howard R. Cohen visited Roger Corman’s Corcorde films lot and was struck by the fact that he had a laboratory set and a castle set right next to each other. This gave him the basic idea for the film, and he sold Roger on it.
It’s almost inspiring.
About a century from now, a group of scientists have just invented the first time machine. Unfortunately one of them, Dr. Zandor, decides to use it for his own benefit, so he runs off, apparently to kill off the ancestors of a whole bunch of important people — including Dr. Craig, the man who invented the time machine.
Well, maybe he thought he could manage to invent it on his own. But then, this is one of those films where it doesn’t pay to spend too much time thinking about the details.
So two young scientists (including Craig’s daughter) and a historical expert race to stop him, following him first to 1991, where they stop a murder and accidentally pick up a new passenger, a tough comic relief cop played by Ned Beatty.
Before long, they end up in Medieval England, where they will spend the next hour involved in complex plots and machinations as they try to stop Dr. Zandor from seizing the throne and killing Dr. Craig’s ancestor.
I’ve got to say that this is a rather amiable sort of production, with a bit of inept science fiction, a bit of inept car chase/cop film, and a large chunk of inept Medieval drama, with a Robin Hood (or maybe Scarlet Pimpernel)-like figure taking on the sinister Zandor.
But you really have to avoid asking a lot of questions here: how does Ned survive a ride through time on the outside of the machine? Why does the young Earl of Mansfield go around telling everyone who he is if he’s trying to attend Zandor’s big party anonymously? Why, if they’re so concerned with not changing the past for fear of the damage it will do to the future, are our heroes so enthusiastic about beating, stabbing, hacking and shooting all those guards?
And I’m sure there are more. Lots more.
I feel a bit sorry for Ned as he’s underused here. He gets a few mildly amusing lines, but never gets much in the way of comedy. Parley Baer, who played Chester Proudfoot on the radio version of Gunsmoke, gets a little better part, playing a devious Monk who’s helping the not-so-mysterious hero, the Iron Duke. However, the script doesn’t given him too many laughs, either.
But that’s not his fault.
It’s also true that Doctor Craig is, in fact, Professor Carrington from The Thing from Another World: Robert Cornthwaite. Not that you would recognize him.
But, again, he’s just there because Corman loved to load his productions with classic genre actors, and he’s not given a lot to do, either.
It’s also true that the contrived romantic ending is one which freaks out a few viewers. I tend to shrug and say, well, they really aren’t that closely related, not with over a thousand years between them, but I guess I’m a bit more amused by the notion that somehow this has always happened.
So I guess it’s a good thing they invented that time machine or we’d all be in trouble.
The best thing is to file this one under “mildly amusing” and to remember that, if one of Roger Corman’s films isn’t easily available, there’s usually a reason. It’s not exactly bad, but it never rises above its inspiration: “hey, we’ve got these two sets right next to each other, let’s make a movie!”
But at least it does manage that part.
Even if we really don’t see that much of that laboratory…
rivets on the poster 
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