Yesterday Machine, The

2277. THE YESTERDAY MACHINE (1963-USA). With TIM HOLT. Ed Wood would have been proud to call this side-splittingly inept crazy-Nazi-scientist melodrama his own. It’s the saga of Margie The Majorette and Letterman Howie, two innocent college kids on their way to a football game, Howie had decided to take a “crazy nowhere shortcut.” His car has broken down, leaving the couple stranded in the wilderness. Didn’t they see a farmhouse a few miles back? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to head there? Margie and Howie ignore a sign warning them to “Keep Out” as they attempt one more shortcut back to the farm. They wander on and on, finding nothing. Soon it gets dark. Margie becomes scared. Then she and Howie find themselves confronted by a couple of odd and belligerent characters. He is shot and ends up in the hospital. She runs off and disappears. A determined reporter and Margie’s sister set out to find the coeds, a search which leads them right to the lair of your standard-issue brilliant but warped scientist. This one was a friend and sponsor of Adolph Hitler. His experiments in time-travel have enabled him to escape the past and come to the present to continue his evil doings. He laments that he was unable to perfect his time machine before his Nazi pals lost World War II. Otherwise “vee voulda von duh var,” he brags. The actor playing this bozo gives what might be the most over baked performance in movie history. Bear in mind as the story unfolds that, as the reporter ever so casually observes, it’s all “utterly fantastic!” 79 minutes. Science Fiction