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Storyline
In middle age, inventor Stephen Minch is happy enough with his life, despite the fact that he has never risen to prominence even though his innovations have made others rich. His wife Martha, however, resents his lack of drive, his complacency, his willingness to live hand-to-mouth, and his ever-present and ever-annoying sidekick Hanus Wicks. Confronted by the evidence of Martha's years-long regret over how their lives together have turned out, Stephen decides to use his newest invention to repair her unhappiness. The new invention: a time machine. Written by
Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
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That six people before me voted high-ratings for this long-unseen PBS broadcast from the '60s indicates that a few other people enjoyed it as I did. Anderson's play, from the '30s, featured Burgess Meridith and Lillian Gish in its original staging-- the story involves a disappointed inventor whose time-machine gives him a chance to revamp his life. Appealingly, the "early days" he and his buddy return to is a turn-of-century idyll (much of the broadcast was videotaped outside, near a lake). Orson Bean cuts a surprisingly romantic figure, and he has a lovely tenor solo of the traditional hymn "Jerusalem". But his stooge, a gnomish misfit with a compulsive belch, gets all the attention-- a very young Dustin Hoffman muttering and engagingly skulking in the shadows. Before THE GRADUATE appeared, this film anticipated the career to come. The film is once again available on videotape (priced expensively, for institutional use), and it will appear fitfully in retrospectives.