Elapsed Time: Rod Taylor & HG Wells’ Time Machine

When actor Rod Taylor died last week, I was in the midst of reading a short story by Georges Rodenbach called “The Time” about a man trying to synchronize a roomful of clocks and thereby his life.

From the same era, the 1890s, my favorite in period literature, comes HG Wells’ “The Time Machine.” The 1960 adaptation, Rod Taylor’s best-known film, features him in a room full of clocks symbolizing his obsession with time and desire to venture — to use another phrase from the turn-of-the-century — au-dessus du temps, or beyond the bounds of time.

The film of course features another archetypal masculine interior: the mad scientist’s lab. That’s a topic worth revisiting later with the classic films of the 1930s.

“The Time Machine” can be viewed on YouTube for $2.99. Below is the original trailer: