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Time After Time
Directed by	Nicholas Meyer
Produced by	Steve Hayes
Written by	Karl Alexander (story) and Steve Hayes (story), Nicholas Meyer (screenplay)
Starring	Malcolm McDowell David Warner Mary Steenburgen
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography	Paul Lohmann
Editing by	Donn Cambern
Distributed by	Orion Pictures
Release date(s)	August 31, 1979
Running time	112 min
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Time After Time is a 1979 American feature film produced by Orion Pictures, starring Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, David Warner, and Charles Cioffi. It was written and directed by Nicholas Meyer. The screenplay was based on the novel of the same name, written at the same time as Meyer's screenplay by his University of Iowa associate, Karl Alexander.

The movie tells of how science fiction author H.G. Wells (McDowell) builds a time machine in 1893 London, the same one Wells fictionalized in his novel The Time Machine. Before he is able to test the machine, a physician friend of his (Warner) is discovered to be Jack the Ripper, who steals the machine to escape capture by going to 1979 San Francisco. Wells pursues, but has difficulty functioning in the future time. These difficulties begin with the ineffectual use of a false name of a popular literary character from his time he mistakenly thought would be forgotten; Sherlock Holmes.

Mary Steenburgen and Malcolm McDowell in Time After Time.

Eventually, he meets and falls in love with bank employee Amy Robbins (Steenburgen). The duo try to stop the Ripper, who has resumed his killings. Jack finds modern society to be pleasingly bloody; he remarks at one point that in 1893, he was a monster, whereas in 1979, he is an amateur.

In an effort to prove that his time machine is real, Herbert takes Amy three days into the future. Amy is then horrified to find a newspaper with her own obituary, revealing that she is to be the Ripper's fifth victim. Herbert and Amy go back three days to try to change history, but Herbert is arrested for suspicion of the serial killings and Amy is left unprotected. As Herbert unsuccessfully tries to convince the police of Amy's danger, Amy attempts to hide from Jack. When the police finally enter her apartment, they find a brutally mangled corpse that seems to be hers. Herbert mourns Amy for dead, until he discovers that Amy is still alive, but held hostage by the Ripper (her friend, whom she had invited to dinner prior, was the body that was found). Ripper attempts escape in the time machine, but releases Amy following Herbert's pleas for her freedom. Herbert removes a device (the vaporizing equalizer) from the exterior of the machine's cabin, which causes the Ripper to vanish into infinity without the machine. Herbert and Amy then board the machine themselves and return to Wells' own time, after which (actual) history records that the two marry. Amy Robbins was, in fact, the name of Wells' second wife; the movie is consistent with this, as Wells tells Amy about his first wife.

This short section requires expansion.

• Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells
• David Warner as John Leslie Stevenson
• Mary Steenburgen as Amy Robbins
• Charles Cioffi as Police Lt. Mitchell

This short section requires expansion.

• Time after Time at the Internet Movie Database

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