A
teenage couple break down on route to a football game. On their way to a gas station, they cross
through a wooded area with a posted “No Trespassing” sign. The girl disappears into thin air and the boy
is shot by, get this… Confederate soldiers! A befuddled reporter and the missing girl’s lounge
singing sister investigate and run smack into a Nazi plot to build a time
machine.
The
Yesterday Machine is just different enough from the norm to be memorable, but
it’s not quite weird enough to be called “good”. Things kick off with a memorably cheesy beginning
featuring a cheerleader standing along the roadside and twirling her baton to a
rock n’ roll beat. The highlight though
is the hilarious lounge number, “Leave Me Alone”, sung by Ann Pellegrino, one
of the surliest performers I’ve ever heard.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculously pessimistic songs
recorded on film. This song alone is
almost enough to make it recommended. I
don’t think Pellegrino has sung anything before or since. She probably wanted to quit while she was
ahead.
Unfortunately,
whatever merits the film may have are canceled out by the sluggish pace. It also suffers from a truly crappy villain. Jack Herman, who plays the Nazi doctor, sounds
like Ludwig von Drake and is about as menacing too. Once he shows up, the whole thing gets bogged
down with a lot of talky scenes of unending scientific gobbledygook. Old time cowboy star Tim Holt gives the movie
a shot of class as the police lieutenant on the trail of the Nazis, but the
majority of the performers are amateurish at best.
In
short, if it wasn’t for “Leave Me Alone”, I doubt I would remember The
Yesterday Machine tomorrow.
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