The Time Machine (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)

Album Review

Russell Garcia's music for a pair of George Pal-produced movies, The Time Machine and The Lost Continent, are represented on this nicely produced CD. The music for The Time Machine is, except for one lighthearted moment, serious, reflecting the tone of the movie itself. There isn't a lot of development in the material — apart from "London 1900" (which is subtitled "Filby's Theme") — owing to the short duration of most of it, but the various "stings" and other devices used to emphasize the shock value of the visuals for which they were written are memorable, and the love theme, when it comes up, makes for a sharp contrast with most of what has come before. The music for Atlantis, the Lost Continent is represented by a six-minute overture that contains most of the principal themes from the larger score. The sound quality is surprisingly good, considering the 1960 vintage of the source material and the fact that it was never intended to be heard free-standing this way.