JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME (1967) ½ *

David L. Hewitt had an all or nothing career.  Sometimes, he made classics like Monsters Crash the Pajama Party or the immortal The Mighty Gorga.  Mostly though, he made crap like The Wizard of Mars and this boring turd.  

Journey to the Center of Time plays like a bargain bin version of The Time Travelers (which Hewitt provided special effects for).  A group of scientists are in danger of losing their funding, so they make a last-ditch effort to get their time machine working.  The experiment winds up sending them hurtling into the future where a race of blue skinned aliens who now rule the Earth are losing a war for control of the planet. 

It would be one thing if Journey to the Center of Time was merely bad.  To make matters worse, it’s dull as all get out.  If you’ve been having trouble sleeping during quarantine, put this flick on.  It’s a surefire cure for insomnia.  It’s full of boring scenes of actors glumly spouting an avalanche of impenetrable scientific gobbledygook, static camerawork, boring exposition dumps, and inexplicable barrages of unrelated stock footage.  This, coupled with the droning soundtrack and nonexistent pacing, will have you seeing the back of your eyelids before the halfway mark. 

I like many of the actors involved, but even they can’t salvage this mess.  Hewitt used Scott Brady and Anthony Eisley much more effectively in The Mighty Gorga a few years later.  I did have fun spotting a young Lyle Waggoner from Wonder Woman as one of the aliens.  The person who makes the biggest impression though is the hilariously named Poupee Gamin, who plays the busty bombshell alien leader.  Too bad she doesn’t stick around for very long. 

Poupee is about the only bright spot in this otherwise turgid affair.  I guess it's not Hewitt's fault that this is such a sluggish, boring movie.  Afterall, the plot revolves around changing the space time continuum, so it only makes sense that the 77-minute running time feels like an eternity. 

AKA:  Time Warp.