Not in Our Stars

by Conrad Arthur Skinner

After a meteor strike and some scientific mumbo-jumbo, Felix Menzies wakes up in a jail cell on the day before his execution for murdering the man he wrongly thought was his wife’s lover—an act he doesn’t remember—, and then he starts waking up on each previous morning, whereupon he begins to think he can cheat Destiny by not murdering the guy in the first place.

— Michael Main

If he did meet Savile, he was prepared to shake hands with him in the old way, and to realize what a neurotic fool he had been: also that Destiny had made an idiot of itself with the careless blundering born of the knowledge that nobody would ever know, nobody, that is, except himself; and, of course, Destiny safely relied on the assumption that nobody would believe him.

Not in Our Stars by Conrad Arthur Skinner (T. Fisher Unwin, 1923).

The Road to Yesterday

by Jeanie MacPherson, Beulah Marie Dix, and Howard Hawks, directed by Cecille B. DeMille

Bickering newlyweds Kenneth and Malena Paulton are thrown back to previous lives in Elizabethan England where they are a knight and a gypsy. The film is loosely based on the earlier play of the same name by Dix and Sutherland.

Safety note: Do not attempt this movie’s method of creating a timeslip—via a fiery train crash—at home.

— Michael Main

I know I love you, Ken! But today—during the marriage service—something seemed to reach out of the Past that made me—afraid!

The Road to Yesterday by Jeanie MacPherson, Beulah Marie Dix, and Howard Hawks, directed by Cecille B. DeMille (at movie theaters, USA, 15 November 1925).

The Dancing Cavalier

by Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown, and Kathy Selden, directed by Roscoe Dexter

Of course, this early talkie shouldn't be in our list because the writer himself—as Cosmo Brown—says it’s all just a dream, but when one of our correspondents pointed out that none other than Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont starred in The Dancing Cavalier (née The Dueling Cavalier), we couldn’t resist. Note: Lina Lamont’s voice was dubbed over by writer Kathy Selden, but due to Lamont’s underhanded ploys, Selden went uncredited in the original release.

— Dora Bailey

How’s this? We throw a modern section into the picture. The hero’s a young hoofer in a Broadway show, right? Now he sings and he dances, right? But one night backstage, he’s reading A Tale of Two Cities, in between numbers, see? And a sandbag falls and hits him on the head, and he dreams he’s back during the French Revolution, right? Well, this way we get in the modern dancing numbers—♫Charleston, Charleston♫—but in the dream part, we can still use the costume stuff!

The Dancing Cavalier by Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown, and Kathy Selden, directed by Roscoe Dexter (premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, California early May 1928).

A Connecticut Yankee

by William M. Conselman, Owen Davis, and Jack Moffitt, directed by David Butler

This version of Twain’s story borrows some sf tropes from Shelley’s Frankenstein (a mad scientist) and Kipling’s “Wireless” (recovering sound from the past), although all that is small potatoes next to Will Rogers’ folksy wit. His character—Hank “Martin—is tossed back to Camelot when a bolt of lightning and a suit of armor knock him over at the mad scientist’s lab, and at the end, he returns via a similar timeslip. In between, we get one-liners, tommy guns, tanks, cars, characters that are eerily familiar from Martin’s present-day life—and a lot of time to debate whether this version has a real timeslip or is just a dream.

— Michael Main

Think! Think of hearing Lincoln’s own voice delivering the Gettysburg address!

A Connecticut Yankee by William M. Conselman, Owen Davis, and Jack Moffitt, directed by David Butler (at movie theaters, USA, 6 April 1931).

Berkeley Square

by Sonya Levien and John L. Balderston, directed by Frank Lloyd

Leslie Howard reprises his dual role of two Peter Standishes from the 1929 Broadway stage performance of Balderston’s Berkeley Square, which in turn was loosely based on Henry James’s unfinished novel The Sense of the Past. The timeslips result in 18th-century Peter exchanging places with his 20th-century version, and they occur via thunderstorms and an overpowering belief by present-day Peter that the house and a diary he found there are somehow calling him to the past.

— Michael Main

I believe that when I go back to my house at Berkeley Square at half past five tonight, I shall walk straight into the 18th century and meet the people living there.

Berkeley Square by Sonya Levien and John L. Balderston, directed by Frank Lloyd (premiered at an unknown movie theater, New York City, 13 September 1933).

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

by Edmund Beloin, directed by Tay Garnett

Bing Cosby’s delightful portrayal of the Yankee Hank Martin (why not Morgan?!) begins in 1912 after he’s already returned from Camelot. He’s just traveled to England and sought out the very castle of his 6th-century musical adventures, where he proceeds to tell his story to the master of the castle.

Based on Hank’s knowledge of the castle and its displays, the time travel definitely occurred in this version, with both the travel back and travel forward caused by clonks on the head. And based on the ending, Hank might not have been the only traveler through time.

— Michael Main

Docent: Kindly notice the round hole in the breastplate, undoubtedly caused by an iron-tipped arrow of the period.
Hank Martin: [shakes head and grunts]. . . I mean, well, that happens to be a bullet hole.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Edmund Beloin, directed by Tay Garnett (premiered at an unknown movie theater, New York City, 7 April 1949).

The House in the Square

by Ranald MacDougall and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, directed by Roy Ward Baker

John Balderston’s play Berkeley Square is updated to the 1950s where Peter Standish, now an atomic scientist, is once again transported back to the 18th century (unfortunately, not via a nuclear accident) to woo beautiful Kate Petigrew.

— Michael Main

Roger, I believe the 18th century still exists. It’s all around us, if only we could find it. Put it this way: Polaris, the North Star, is very bright, yet its light takes nearly fifty years to reach us. For all we know, Polaris may have ceased to exist somewhere around 1900. Yet we still see it, its past is our present. As far as Polaris is concerned, Teddy Roosevelt is just going down San Juan hill.

The House in the Square by Ranald MacDougall and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, directed by Roy Ward Baker (at movie theaters, UK, October 1951).

Unusual Tales #6

Caveman

by Joe Gill [?] and Charles Nicholas

Herman Pringle despairs of ever having the respect of his wife Clara, so much so that he daydreams of living the life of of a caveman where every man’s wife was his servant.

— Michael Main

But she’d never push me around if we lived back in the time of the cavemen! No, siree! I’d be boss.

“Caveman” by Joe Gill [?] and Charles Nicholas, Unusual Tales #6 (Charlton Comics, February 1957).

Unusual Tales #25

The Confederate Girl

by Joe Gill [?] and Steve Ditko

Civil War mythbuster Hiram White moves to a small Georgia town where the townspeople believe that Confederate ghosts still ride through the dusk.

— Michael Main

Miss Belle Herbert once lived here! During the Civil War she was a southern spy and captured by Major Joshua White!

“The Confederate Girl” by Joe Gill [?] and Steve Ditko, Unusual Tales #25 (Charlton Comics, December 1960).

The Twilight Zone (r1s02e13)

Back There

by Rod Serling, directed by David Orrick McDearmon

An engineer in the 1960s slips back to the night of Lincoln’s assassination.

— Michael Main

I’ve got a devil of a lot more than a premonition. Lincole will be assassinated unless somebody tries to prevent it!

The Twilight Zone (v1s02e13), “Back There” by Rod Serling, directed by David Orrick McDearmon (CBS-TV, 13 January 1961).

Unusual Tales #32

Out of “Ur”

[writer unknown]

A man and his future wife show up in the 20th century with a bag of diamonds and a fabulous story of ancient royalty.

— Michael Main

I refuse to make any statement about whether or not those two crossed a Time Barrier.

“Out of ‘Ur’” [writer unknown], Unusual Tales #32 (Charlton Comics, February 1962).

Unusual Tales #33

Death of a Hot Rod

by Joe Gill [?], Charles Nicholas, and Rocco “Rocke” Mastroserio

After high school, young Joe Bragan is offered a job driving his hot rod around the deserts of Libya.

— Michael Main

He looks for real! So does the chariot!

“Death of a Hot Rod” by Joe Gill [?], Charles Nicholas, and Rocco “Rocke” Mastroserio, Unusual Tales #33 (Charlton Comics, mAY 1962).

Peggy Sue Got Married

by Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner, directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Middle-aged Peggy Sue has two grown children and an adulterous husband whom she married at 18, so will she do things the same when she finds herself back in 1960 in her senior year of high school?

— Michael Main

Well, Mr Snelgrove, I happen to know that in the future I will not have the slightest use for algebra, and I speak from experience.

Peggy Sue Got Married by Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner, directed by Francis Ford Coppola (New York Film Festival, 5 October 1986).

Field of Dreams

written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson

Corn farmer Ray Kinsella is called to build a ballpark in his cornfield; once the field is built, various ballplayers from the past come. The players seem more like ghosts who regard the field as their heaven rather than time travelers, so the actual time travel element is slight, arising from a walk when Ray slips into 1972.

— Michael Main

If you build it, they will come.

Field of Dreams written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson (at limited movie theaters, USA, 21 April 1989).

Deuxième vie

Literal: Second life

by Patrick Braoudé and Francis Palluau, directed by Patrick Braoudé

Shortly after the tragic French loss in the 1982 World Cup, an indecisive and depressed thirty-year-old Frenchman is thrown sixteen years into the future by a car crash, where he sees the French national team finally win a World Cup, and his ignoble future self shocks him into doing everything he can to go back to ’82 to ply a nobler course.

— based on Wikipedia

Deuxième vie by Patrick Braoudé and Francis Palluau, directed by Patrick Braoudé (VCU French Film Festival, Richmond, Virginia, 18 July 2000).

Displacement

written and directed by Kenneth Mader

Brilliant physics student Cassandra Sinclair finds herself running from the evil Initiative Organization—which includes her childhood friend Josh and a posh lady with an English accent—who are after the equations in her thesis notes that somehow (she’s not quite sure how) launched her on multiple slips back in time (we counted eight) that may or may not result in destroying yourself by getting too close to yourself, a closed timelike curve, quantum entanglement, and/or solving the Grandfather Paradox (without ever having anything that resembles the Grandfather Paradox, quantum entanglement, or a closed timelike curve). We suspect that writer/director Kenneth Mader had been reading “Experimental Simulation of Closed Timelike Curves,” but the actual science didn’t fully translate from the lab to the silver screen.

Handy Hint: The movie is eminently more watchable in a late-night group where everyone shouts “Great Scott!” whenever a character spews a sequence of pseudoscientific quantum mumbo jumbo that vaguely resembles an English sentence.

— Michael Main

We’ve been running simulations to resolve the Grandfather Paradox, and we experienced an unusual electromagnetic pulse at the school that was triggered remotely. We were able to locate the source, but I suspect someone may have taken our simulations a step further. . . . The equation in your daughter’s thesis notes may have actually solved the paradox. But they’re untested and now they’re missing, and you said Charles has been absent. Could he have taken them and induced an entanglement?!

Displacement written and directed by Kenneth Mader (Boston SciFi Film Festival, 7 February 2016).

Opposite of Always

by Justin A. Reynolds

When high school senior Jack Ellison King’s first girlfriend Kate dies from complications of sickle cell anemia, Jack is thrown back to the moment they first met—all of which happens again and again.

— Michael Main

I know this game. I’ve seen this game. State goes on a frantic late run and wins with an off-balance three at the buzzer.

Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds (Katherine Tegen Books, March 2019) [print · e-book].