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Doctor Marco (Boris Karloff) is a physician trying hard to make ends
meet - but every minute of his spare time, he spends developing a time
machine which he figures could bring him millions - as he plans to invent
Penicilin years ahead of its time (it was actually introduced in 1928). So
he goes back to 1923 and tries to persuade one Doctor Chiles to let him
demonstrate the power of penicilin on one of Chiles' pneumonia patients.
Chiles turns down the suggestion, but his assistant Doc Lasky is more
sympathetic to Marco's cause and gives him access to a patient suffering
from permanent pneumonia - but the pneumonia was already too far advanced,
so the patient dies anyways, and Marco is kicked out of Chiles' hospital. Marco
isn't one to give up though, he next goes back to 1910 and shows up at
Chiles' hospital again with the very same suggestion - to try Penicilin on
one of his patients. But the young Chiles is even more cautious than the
old one, and he hands Marco, who hasn't even got an academic track record
in 1910, over to the authorities - and since he claims he's from the
future, he's thrown into the loonie bin, where he soon contracts pneumonia
... In an ironic twist, Marco dies from pneumonia in the end, and
Penicilin, the drug he wanted to introduce into 1910's world, could have
easily saved his life. A man travelling to the past trying to
get rich with Penicilin - that sounds like a great plot. However, the
execution of the story is less than great: Putting a shot of the pneumonia
stricken Marco at the beginning of the film derives much of the movies
punchline, also the fact that a simple physician is able to invent a time
machine seems like a bit much to swallow, plus his insistence to sell
Penicilin but to one hospital in different times (without realizing he
hasn't been there before but after) might raise a few
eyebrows - but at least Karloff's performance is flawless.
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