Original subtitles

Your ignorance makes me ill and angry.

There is nothing wrong with your television set.

Do not attempt to adjust the picture.

We are controlling transmission.

We will control the horizontal.

We will control the vertical.

We can change the focus to a soft blur

or sharpen it to crystal clarity.

For the next hour, sit quietly,

and we will control all that you see and hear.

You are about to participate in a great adventure.

You are about to experience the awe and mystery

which reaches from the inner mind to...

Where are we going?

Life... the timeless, mysterious gift...

Is still evolving.

What wonders or terrors does evolution

hold in store for us in the next 10,000 years?

In a million? In 6 million?

Mrs. Ives?

Mrs. Ives?

Perhaps the answer lies in this old house

in this old and misty valley.

What are you doing here?

I'm Kathy.

Oh.

Indeed.

I brought you fresh bread,

and I was looking to be paid by your housekeeper... Mrs. Ives.

That woman is never around when she's needed.

It's impossible to find good help here.

I can't even find an assistant.

Fresh bread did you say? Give it here.

Ah...

One and tuppence, please.

Oh, yes.

I didn't take any time out for breakfast,

and I've been working all night. One and tuppence.

Thank you.

Uh, what kind of work is it you do here?

I'm a professor of genetics.

This bread is very good. Do you have any more?

That was the last, but I can bring you some more

if you can wait.

I can wait. Only hurry. I can't wait very long for anything.

Hurry up.

Genetics?

Genetics.

Ah, Darwin. Oh, you're hungry, too, eh?

Well, you've had a hard night. There.

Have you teached it any tricks?

Oh, much more than that. He earns his keep.

Here. File these under "mg."

Oh.

Molecular genetics.

However did he become so smart?

I made him that way.

Can you do that with people, too?

That, my dear, is what I want...

Why do you ask?

I'd like to be smart.

There's someone I'd like to be smart for.

Who are your parents?

I don't have any.

Could you make me halfway smart?

I'd like a sample of your blood.

It's all right. It won't hurt.

Extend your arm.

There we are.

Now make a fist.

12 loaves at 1 and tuppence.

And all you bring home is 12 and tuppence?

You're holding back 1 and 9.

No, Gert.

Little miss innocent eyes herself,

thieving from her own sister. Give it to me.

It must've been the professor give me the wrong change.

I'm going to teach you to count

if I have to beat it into you.

No, Gert. I'll get the right change.

I've got to go back, anyway.

Here... here now, miss witch.

Leave the helpless child be.

My customers cheat her out of the right change,

and she isn't bright enough to know.

Beating up never made anybody bright, girl.

That's love and fondness

is makes ladies think the right way.

You know that, don't you, Gert?

Ooh, please, Wilt. Please, Wilt.

I'll let you go if you give me one little sisterly kiss.

Hey, knock it off, Wilt.

Distract me friend, Gert.

He annoys me terrible.

Isn't this town dirty enough?

Thanks, Wilhelm.

Well, if the professor wants another loaf,

take it to him.

I'm going that way.

I'll walk with you.

The foreman told the manager

that I'd been making trouble among the miners...

Spreading discontent

and acting myself superior.

Manager called me in his office.

Asked me if I thought I was too good for the job.

So I told him that maybe I was.

So it's down tools for me, and I'm out of a job.

That's it, isn't it?

Yes, Wilhelm.

All right, then, I'll wait for you here.

No. Come on.

Well, there's one good thing.

I'll be able to turn me back on that mine.

I wish I could turn my back on that whole town forever.

Life should go forward, see, and not backward like here.

How can a man go forward here?

It's the most backward place in the world.

Where would you go, then?

Oh, anywhere... To get out from under,

away from all this dirt and stupidity,

away from that black mine that's to blame for it all.

It would give me great pleasure

to see this whole town utterly destroyed.

You'll go forward, Wilhelm. You're smarter than the others.

I'm too smart to go on eating coal dust

for the rest of my life.

I wish I was smart.

Well, you're not stupid.

That's the big difference between you and them others.

All I need is one lucky break, see.

A job where I could use my head, and I'd show them.

I'd be riding around in a sports car

and wearing a big gold ring on my finger.

So that's him?

Who?

The professor from London.

Hmm. Why don't you ask him for a job?

Don't be ridiculous.

Excuse me, Professor Mathers.

Young Kathy's come to see you.

Oh, Kathy. Show her in, Mrs. Ives.

Oh, Kathy, I'm sorry I have to disappoint you.

I'm afraid your blood is the wrong type.

Oh, professor, it wasn't for that I've come.

Here's my friend... Wilhelm Griffith.

Kathy tells me you're in need of an assistant.

I come to apply for the job.

Do you think you're eligible for this particular job?

I can do anything another man can do.

And better, maybe.

Oh...

I work here on high-frequency electronics

on a molecular level.

Are you familiar with solid-state circuitry?

Any experience in ordinary lab techniques?

Microscopy, biopsy, protein analysis and synthesis?

Know anything about the mechanical side of office work,

computer technology,

filing procedures,

stenography?

Are you trying to make a fool of me?

On the contrary. I was merely suggesting

that you are best adapted for what you've been doing.

Wait. If you could teach that monkey,

couldn't you teach Wilhelm,

who's smarter than anyone else in town?

Afraid it isn't that simple.

Learning is worthless

without the brain capacity to use it.

That's what I'm working on.

Racing against time, trying to speed up

the slow process of evolution

by a molecular approach to genetics.

I've already succeeded with that ape.

He's almost human.

Now, if I could do it with a man,

if I could create the man of the future,

we could rise above the animal passions

which lead to violence and self-destruction

and develop the intelligence that's necessary

for a peaceful and civilized co-existence.

Will you do it with me?

You?

Yes.

You realize an experiment always has its dangers.

I'm game for anything,

sooner than go crawling back to that mine after my job,

spend the best of my life like an animal in the dark.

Mrs. Ives.

Take him out and clean him up, Mrs. Ives.

Would you take your jacket off and sit down over there?

I need to take a sample of your blood.

Extend your arm.

When the physical test is completed,

and if it's successful, well...

Now...

Make a fist.

Have I passed the test?

You'll do.

Let's get on with it, then.

Immediately.

What'll we do, then?

Use of selective wavelengths,

and I can stimulate the genes in every cell of your body

so that the superior genes become much stronger

than the backward ones and eventually dominate them,

thereby accelerating the inborn mechanism of evolution

to a fantastically high speed.

These generators are directed into this chamber.

They're controlled by this panel.

This lever encompasses the entire evolutionary history

of the human race...

Backward to the protozoa,

forward... to what?

Each degree on this dial

represents 10,000 years of evolution per minute.

You'll be the first man ever to go forward

into our biological future.

Still determined to go through with it?

You're praying that your experiment

may be a blessing and not a curse on mankind.

Now you're hoping you may be forgiven

for what you did only a few years ago

when you helped to invent an atomic bomb

that was so powerful, it could destroy

all the life on this planet.

It's this sense of guilt

that's made you bury yourself down here,

trying desperately to find a way

of making war impossible.

How do you know that?

It's your dinner tray,

for you and the young man, professor.

Leave it, Mrs. Ives. We can't be disturbed now.

As you like, sir.

Don't let it get cold now, sir.

All right. Good night, Mrs. Ives.

It would be very unwise and premature

for her to see you at this stage.

You didn't tell me my body would change.

I wasn't prepared for a physical mutation

in the man of 20,000 years from now.

However, it's understandable,

since we evolved from the caveman in less time.

Why didn't he change?

Not all species of monkey evolved into man.

His obviously lacked that potential.

Your heightened forehead

indicates more currents in your neuronic synapses

required for greater intelligence

and telepathic function.

Your eyes have developed a wider field of vision

and a power of charged concentration.

Your hand reveals the bud of a sixth finger,

which suggests an additional dexterity

will develop in the man of the dim future.

It is a high price to pay for power over other men.

Misgivings, professor?

Afraid you maybe gave power to the wrong man?

What makes you say that?

You should have realized by now, Professor Mathers,

that I can read your mind.

Professor?

Yes, what is it?

Are you all right?

You've not touched your dinner tray.

It's stood here all night.

We're too busy to stop. Take it away, Mrs. Ives.

Very good, sir.

Useless, like the others.

Our intelligence tests aren't sufficiently developed

to measure your mind in its advanced state.

What good is intelligence without knowledge?

I'm hungry to know things. Learn everything.

Aah!

Fetch me books,

books about everything.

All the books you have! I want to read them all!

Do you understand?

2 loaves... 2 and 4 pence. Here you are, love.

Thank you, Mrs. Ives.

Uh, how is Wilhelm keeping himself?

I ain't seen hide nor hair of him since he first come.

Something peculiar is going on, and it can't be good.

Look what the professor done with that monkey.

It ain't natural.

If you was to tell...

That won't do no good.

One of these days, I'll get to the bottom of it.

Maybe he'd see me, please.

Ah, if you don't believe me, come on.

You have a visitor.

I can't see anyone.

Tell him it's me.

It's miss Kathy come to see you.

Get away. Don't bother me.

He's right, he is,

not wanting the likes of me

breaking in on his studies.

Come on... Sing, Gert.

It's been years since I heard your tender voice.

Don't be daft. What have I got to sing about?

Humph. the funeral dirge I'd be singing...

For all the lost things.

Speaking of lost things, where have you been?

Delivering the bread, Gert.

All this time? What do you do with such a plain-faced liar?

Plained face. I don't say plain faced.

I'd say, um, pudgy.

Aye... maybe even pretty

in a sad way.

Go on, get a move on.

Speak to her gentle, Gert.

She's hurting enough these days.

That's true, ain't it?

Please, Wilt.

Not seeing handsome hide nor golden hair

of your precious Wilhelm.

That must be hurting you real deep.

Oh, leave her be, Wilt. He isn't a precious anything.

He's busy. He's very busy

doing very important work

and trying to better himself,

trying to make himself better

than any of us will ever be.

Ha ha ha ha. Are we that typical?

The little thing finally speaks her piece,

and who does she speak it for?

A worthless rotter who can't even hold down a job

in an honorable profession.

You can laugh at me, but you can't laugh at him.

He's not to be laughed at.

Come in, professor.

I'm very grateful to you.

You've given me the ability to observe your culture

through the eyes of a man 20,000 years in the future.

Amazing, isn't it?

Things that endure the ravages of time and taste.

This simple prelude, for instance.

Bach will quite probably outlive us all.

Have you always been able to play this well?

I have never before touched the keys of a piano.

Playing the piano is only a matter of mathematics

and, to a certain degree, of manual dexterity.

Man produces little that is lasting.

Truly lasting.

It's understandable.

It is?

Fear, conformity, immorality...

These are heavy burdens,

great drainers of creative energy.

And when we are drained of creative energy,

we do not create.

We procreate, but we do not create.

I must get some sleep.

Yes, you must.

Your playing won't disturb me.

Oh, I shall stop soon, anyway.

Good night, then.

Good night, professor.

I finished these books.

Almost dawn. Why aren't you asleep?

I no longer have any need for sleep.

You've continued to evolve.

Your hand. The sixth finger.

When did it develop?

Sometime during the night.

I was too absorbed in reading to notice it.

How is it possible?

Must the pupil explain to the teacher?

It's really quite simple.

You've released the mechanism of evolution,

which is a self-generating force.

It's now mutating under its own impetus.

I am now where man will be

approximately 1 million years from today.

Why are you laughing?

I am laughing at what is in your mind, professor.

You think that I've become a monster.

Need I remind you that everything is relative?

To me, you look as monstrous as the missing link.

We must stop this self-generating process

before it's too late.

You must return to the chamber immediately.

I'll set the dial backwards, somewhere nearer to man.

Would you be willing to go back to an ape, professor?

Who's there?

More books for you.

Set them outside.

Very good, sir.

Ahh!

Wait.

No... please...

She's dead.

Was it... An accident?

Your race is too prejudice

to tolerate any differences from its own kind.

She saw me only as a monster.

It was in her mind to run to the village

and arouse its inhabitants.

They would've come with their primitive weapons

to obliterate me.

I wanted to stop her.

I stopped her heart.

You feel no remorse?

Would it bring her back?

She was, after all, a human being...

Same as ourselves.

Same as you, professor.

In relation to me,

she was no more advanced than a monkey.

She wouldn't have become civilized

for another million years.

Heart attack. Hmmph!

She was strong as an ox.

If that woman's heart stopped,

it's because somebody

put the fear of the devil in her.

And Wilhelm Griffith is just the one.

Ahem!

Only yesterday,

she said there was somethin'

"very peculiar" goin' on up there...

And she was goin' to get to the bottom of it.

And look at her now.

Poor soul.

Here I am... Tellin' all of this to you,

when it's Constable Wicks

I should be talkin' to.

Come in, Kathy.

It's no longer possible for me to hide from others.

I've come to warn you.

I know. The constable's already sent 2 men down here.

Ignorance breeds fear.

Why aren't you afraid of me?

We're friends, Wilhelm.

You've always been kind to me.

Are you still not afraid of me?

Ooh!

What happened?

I saw him.

What happened to him?

What terrible thing have you done?

You rotten old man!

Unhh!

Bring him back.

Please, sir...

Bring him back to me...

The way he was...

My Wilhelm.

Where are you going?

The whole town must be utterly destroyed.

An example must be made.

You're wrong!

The human race has a gift, professor...

The gift that sets it above all the other creatures

that abound upon this planet...

The gift of thought...

Of reasoning, of understanding.

The highly developed brain.

But the human race has ceased to develop.

It struggles for petty comfort

and false security.

There is no time for thought.

Soon there will be no time for reasoning,

and man will lose sight of the truth.

The whole town must be utterly destroyed.

An example must be made.

Stand back.

Are you hurt?

No.

All that is left of my Wilhelm is...

Is his hatred of the town.

Your ignorance makes me ill and angry.

Your savageness...

Must...

End.

What happened?

He was just like a blinding light!

Then all of a sudden, well...

But he didn't hurt me.

It was just as if he'd

suddenly changed his mind.

Don't be afraid.

I came back because I knew you were here.

What've you done?

I was going to destroy everyone.

And suddenly...

It no longer mattered.

I evolved beyond hatred or revenge...

Or even the desire for power.

I could feel myself...

Reaching that... Stage

in the dim future of mankind...

When the mind will cast off

the hamperings of the flesh

and become all thought...

And no matter...

A vortex...

Of pure intelligence

in space.

It is the goal of evolution...

Man's... final destiny

is to become

what he imagined in the beginning...

When he first learned the idea

of the angels.

But that is far ahead,

and I'm impatient to go the whole way.

That is why I need your help.

My help?

You're the only one I can trust.

Will you help me to go forward?

I shall return to that chamber.

You must turn this dial

to its furthest limit...

All the way into the future...

Into infinity.

You understand?

You're crying.

You mustn't go any further!

Come back.

Come back to me the way you were.

Kathy...

It was you who took me out of the blackness.

It was you who helped me

to come this far...

To make it possible.

Won't you help me now...

To achieve the ultimate?

Come, Kathy.

We haven't much time.

As soon as I enter the chamber,

push this to the word "forward"

all the way.

Do you understand?

Not backward.

That's into the past.

And that operates the door.

Open the door.

Now must I break the last barrier

between the flesh and the spirit.

Good-bye, Kathy.

I... can't let you go.

I brought him back.

And he's glad.

He touched me.

An experiment too soon, too swift.

And yet...

May we not still hope

to discover a method by which

within one generation the whole human race

could be rendered intelligent...

Beyond hatred or revenge or the desire for power?

Is that not, after all,

the ultimate goal of evolution?

We now return control of your television set to you...

Until next week at this same time

when the control voice will take you to...