Science Fiction Pint and Pizza Night featuring The Time Machine (1960)

The best in B science fictions movies, drive-in classics, psychotronic weirdness and more. We’ll also do raffle prizes throughout the evening so expect some very cool, very strange science fiction prizes including figurines, posters, books, cards, VHS movies and more for that inner science fiction enthusiast in us all. Sponsored by La Dolce Video, The Arcata Eye, Daisy Drygoods, Vintage Avenger, Tin Can Mailman, The Clothing Dock and more.

The Time Machine whirls you to a world of amazing adventure in the year 800,000!

The Time Machine (1960) is an American science fiction film based on the 1895 novel by H. G. Wells. Rod Taylor stars as George, a young scientist fascinated with the concept of time travel. On December 31, 1899, George seats himself in his jerry-built time machine and thrusts himself forward into 1917. A dyed-in-the-wool pacifist, George is distressed to see that World War I is raging all about him. He moves past the 1920s and 1930s into the 1940s, only to be confronted by another, even more terrible war. Next he stops in 1966, just as London is destroyed in a nuclear explosion. Retreating to his Time Machine, George is sealed in his cellar by molten lava. By the time he and his machine manage to escape their tomb, the year is 802,701. Looking around, George observes a seemingly idyllic world populated by gentle people. But he also notices that the citizens of the future, known as “Elois,” behave more like mindless sheep than human beings. Befriending the lovely Weena (Yvette Mimieux), George learns to his dismay that humankind has forgotten all that it has learned through the centuries, preferring instead to frolic endlessly under the sun. Plot holes and inconsistencies abound in The Time Machine, but the film’s true selling points was its Oscar-winning special effects; in this respect, producer-director Pal succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Another plus: the haunting musical score by Russell Garcia.

Journey to the Center of Time is a 1967 science fiction film, directed by David L. Hewitt, and starring Scott Brady and Anthony Eisley. Dr. von Steiner and his assistants, Mark Manning and Karen White, demonstrate their unfinished time capsule to Stanton Jr., the heir of their research center’s founder. The machine breaks down, and all are thrust into the future (6968 A.D.), to discover a totalitarian Earth under attack by alien laser beams. They escape in the capsule but are hurled back to the year 1,000,000 B.C. Their attempt to ward off an assault by a prehistoric beast results in the destruction of the ruby that provides the time capsule’s power. The three men find a volcanic cave filled with precious jewels that will enable them to return to the present, but von Steiner stumbles to his death in molten lava. Stanton flees in the capsule with a fortune in gems, but not fully comprehending the controls…