THE YESTERDAY MACHINE (1965)

When one person is in charge of directing, producing and the screenplay, beware. They might be a genius or like Russ Marker, the man responsible for this eighty-five-minute debacle. The executive producer nor the entire crew offered no concerns, even for its length. This budgeted film for Carter Film Productions could not even afford a lobby poster for me to post. I doubt there is one cast member of familiarity with the possible exception of Tim Holt, yet even he is hardly recognizable here. One could write numerous paragraphs on why Don Zimmers’ music was used. Worse than the score may be the inept sound engineering by Nick Nicholas, one of the musicians saddled with playing Zimmers’ creativity. There are simply too many disastrously funny things to mention but here are some obvious points.

I imagine the casting interview might have gone like this for Linda Jenkins, who plays Baton Margie:

"So, Miss Jenkins, we were reading over your resume. Not really that good, is it? Except your baton-twirling abilities are pretty hot. We would like your baton to open our newest movie in the tradition of the snow globe in “Citizen Kane.” Picture yourself in front of a 1960 Buick, with the hood up, twirling the baton while doing an "ants in your pants" dance. You know, something like the Twist. Just sign here and here."

Despite her limited screen time and acting ability, Margie's baton routine is arguably the most famous segment of the film. She turns out to be central to the film. In contrast, Howie’s stalled Buick does not get near the attention it deserves. As cheerleaders, they have to get to the football game by walking. They are totally lost by nightfall. Wrong campus. A campfire in the middle of nowhere is an encouragement but danger lurks there. Howie tells Margie to ‘run like the devil’ back to the car. He fends off two Civil War infantrymen, one of which, strangely, he knows by name. Howie uses his cheerleader skills to knock out one soldier with a capital “T” gesture, but running away takes a musket ball above the kidney. The credits resume rolling.

Cut to a jazz score and a newspaper office studio set covered by one area microphone. Two “community players” are delivering their lines with the reporter, Jim (above), being sent out to make sense of the film’s strange opening in his 1964 Rambler American. A cinema first. Jim’s performance is one of the film’s better efforts but, in perspective, do not forget how awful this film started. He later meets with the police lieutenant, Holt, who recalls a preposterous experience he had in Germany during World War II about a young Nazi officer and his experiments. The kind of scary story a camp counselor would make up around a crackling fire at a YMCA youth camp. Meanwhile, Howie recovers in the hospital, and Holt's conversation with him about what happened is totally irrelevant. Holt learned nothing. But we do learn of the reporter’s sense of humor. Jim: Dr. Wilson Blake and the rusty scalpel. Nurse: Oh, you know him? Jim: I should. He broke into me once and stole an appendix. I was disappointed that the sound department did not include a drummer’s rim shot.

One investigator, turning in a credible monologue, returns with a grocery bag. Inside are Margie’s sweater and a Confederate soldier’s cap. He has confirmed the cap is authentically from the Civil War period. The sweater is definitely from Sears and Roebuck. Every time he mentions a strange about his discoveries, the sound department throws in a one-second weird effect. The first as a glass handbell choir then as fingers strumming across the wires of a grand piano. One of many funny insertions from the sound department.

Margie’s older sister, Sandy, is a nightclub singer in a blonde costume wig from a “Dollar Tree” store. This is her only film role and that becomes quite obvious as the movie unravels, unlike her wig. Her solo number, not unsurprisingly, also written by Russ Marker, is agonizing. By all accounts, she apparently did the singing but her deadpan engagement with the audience is so unconvincing that I find that difficult to believe. The bombastic vocal does not match her limp physical delivery. She enlists the help of Jim to find where Margie may have disappeared. They ultimately return to Jim’s spunky Rambler, now vanished, finding themselves briefly in the 19th Century before being transported to the laboratory of the Nazi youngster Holt referred to. Now an old crotchety Nazi, he is a raving lunatic with extreme mood swings. This time machine scientist is simply laughable with a ridiculous bit of overacting on cue. The guy can really hold a grudge, too. The madman reveals all the groundbreaking Nazi things happening near the end of the war. A war he thinks the yesterday machine would allow them to win if given a second chance. Prophetic words from a delusional Nutzi.

But good news! Margie is imprisoned at the lab, whisked away on her devil run back to the Buick. Jim and Sandy, after a bit of imprisonment themselves, get help from an Egyptian Princess (I guess) who sets the wheels in motion for their escape. They rescue “Miss Baton of 1965” and escape from the underground lab through an escape hatch at ground level. How grass could possibly grow on top of a steel door is a greater mystery. Against the most inappropriate, comic background music, Holt goes into the bunker, shoots the Nazi sympathizer with return fire and destroys the time machine. The scientist slumps into the time machine’s transportation chair and vanishes as if the unthinkable might happen. Like a sequel. Holt ends the film under military-style muted trumpets and a lame warning to Jim about their current real dangers. The hydrogen bomb. Your neighbors. High-fat foods. History is so...yesterday, Jim.

Note: Tim Holt bowed out of Hollywood in 1971 after one more film and a television appearance. For his early fans, this film would be an embarrassing end to a career that started out strong with films like, “The Magnificent Ambersons” or “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” He was a popular Western star, something he predicted upon graduation from Indiana’s Culver Military Academy.

CAUSE FOR ALARM! (1951)

To Have And To Hold Until Paranoia Do Part

This seventy-four-minute MGM film, directed by Tay Garnett, suffered a six-figure loss at the box office. But then, it did not cost much to make. The screenplay is by Mel Dinelli and Tom Lewis with the film being produced also by Lewis, Loretta Young’s second husband. Young narrates the entire film to retell her frightening day of the week. I found it difficult to ignore her over-the-top performance. Young had some good successes in the Thirties and Forties, winning an Oscar four years before in, The Farmer's Daughter. No nomination this time around. Young seems to be the wrong actress for this paranoid character. Perhaps a “stronger” actress in the mold of Anne Baxter or Patricia Neal might have toned down the hysterics. Neither, of course, was married to the producer. Then again, here, Young is “married” to Barry Sullivan who is also paranoid. 

Sullivan has a limited role as a bedridden patient with a scripted bad heart. He is also a little touched in the head with irrational jealousy, convinced Young and his doctor, his old Navy buddy, dull Hollywood newcomer Bruce Cowling, are having an affair and both plotting to kill him. Sullivan goes so far as to write a detailed letter to the district attorney suggesting so. His plan is to kill her before she gets to him. But before firing a shot, he collapses from a fatal heart attack. Young’s posture and expression, wedged between the door frame and dresser, (lower right image above) are straight out of a Carol Burnett show skit. She is acting so hard it is laughable. 

It is near this point, that the film is cause for alarm as hysterical Young discovers the contents of Sullivan's letter and tries to get it back after giving it to the postman, the always befuddled or opinionated Irving Bacon. A by-the-book postal carrier with the gift of gab and concern about securing his pension. His impeccable performance should allow one to hang on until the end. The exchanges between him and Young are good, though she is obviously rattled to the point of being ridiculous. She pleads with Bacon to give her the letter, but he cannot. It is Sullivan who wrote the letter to the D.A. and he must sign for it. Bacon is more than happy to take it to him. Young bursts that is not possible so he instructs her to pick up the letter at the post office later. In the meantime, angst prevails. As the only good news for Young in the film, Bacon returns to inform her the letter could not be delivered anyway. Insufficient postage. My preferred title for the film. 

Note: There is a brief uncredited appearance by Robert Easton and his pal, Carl Switzer. Both are involved in their personal automotive maintenance program.