You are visiting an amateur website, without commercial purpose, neither cookies nor trackers. It is intended for librarians and collectors to present and hopefully complete our inventory of the promotional images from George Pal's movie The Time Machine.
Publicity and Set Stills of the 1755th MGM's Release
Welcome to Morcki's inventory of publicity and set photographs from George Pal's The Time Machine.
In partnership with the Don Coleman Collection, we have gathered most of the B&W images used as promotional materials when the film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The author of almost all the photos presented on this site is Frank Shugrue, the still photographer who worked on the filming in 1959.
Morcki 's inventory
Since 2019, we've been working to collect as many images as possible related to this classic science-fiction film. These photographs come in part from our collection of original prints or reprints. Others were used as illustrations in books or magazines, or have been found on the Internet. In November 2020, Don Coleman joined us and significantly enriched this inventory by giving us access to his invaluable collection of original photos and publicity materials.
The photographs used to promote The Time Machine (1960) are classified into five groups. The first includes all the images selected by the M.G.M. publicity department. There are two kinds of images in this series: photos of scenes taken during filming, and studio photos where the actors pose in a setting set up for the occasion. But all these images have one thing in common: a reference number starting with 1755 (the production number at M.G.M.) followed by a serial number. This series of 95 images is almost complete since only two images are still missing to date. In the second group are the Unreferenced Photos which could have appeared in the main series, but to which there is no reference. The two missing images may be among these. The last three pages are dedicated to the various photos relating to the film: the photos of the actors Off-Camera (called Production Stills), the technical photographs used as Set References (all from Don Coleman's collection of original stills), and finally those showing the Miniature Sets. As for the Bonus page, you will see that it's about the film... in another way.
Of course, we wondered who the author of all these photos was. Thanks to Don Coleman we have learned that the letters "S,H,U,G" which appear on some versions of the set reference photos, are in fact the shortened version of the name of the still photographer Frank Shugrue (1910-1995) who worked on numerous M.G.M. movies and yet, as it was customary at the time, was hardly ever credited for his work. Besides these set continuity images, he also used to produce scene stills and publicity portraits of actors.
We've assumed that, since all the set reference images were made by Frank Shugrue, he was most likely the appointed photographer for the entire film. We are now sure that he is also the author of the photos taken during the shooting (the scene stills) as well as the advertising photos. There was indeed no reason that another photographer was working at the same time as him on the film since it was a rather low-budget production. As for the off-camera photos of the actors, it is very probable that he was still the one who took them, although press photographers may occasionally have taken a few of the pictures. Since the release of the film in 1960 and during all these decades, no one had found it necessary to identify the photographer, of which so many collectors still seek today what became cult images. We do not claim to have discovered Frank Shugrue, but we are happy to have helped out his name from oblivion. He is now starting to be finally recognized and mentioned by a few cinema enthusiasts.
We were lucky enough to find some of Frank Shugrue's family who kindly helped us. This is how we would like to thank Frank's grandchildren. First, David Shugrue, thanks to whom we were able to start our investigation. His initial help was so useful to us afterward. Next, his sister, Nicole Scalise, who patiently gave us her time, made us discover photos belonging to her family, and whose help was appreciated for shedding light on some periods of Frank's life and allowing us to reconstruct his personal and professional journey. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to their cousin Michael Shugrue who showed us part of Frank's archives, what remains of his work today. Michael introduced us to films that his grandfather contributed to, that we didn't know about. We hope to collaborate with him soon.
About the pictures found on the Internet, we would like to cite here some important sources. First, and foremost, The Time Machine Project website, which has been an essential source of information since our inception and has inspired us immensely. Also worth mentioning are Sandra Petojevic's very well-documented website, the Internet Archive, and the collections of the Academy of Motion Pictures (A.M.P.A.S.) and of the British Film Institute National Archive. We likewise found some precious information thanks to James Christensen from Coyotechrist and in the monstrously wonderful magazines published by Forest J. Ackerman.
Through this catalog, we want to pay tribute to the memory of George Pal, Rod Taylor, Alan Young, and all the other participants in the film. To end up, it has already been two years since Yvette Mimieux left us and we dedicate all these pages to her.
Do not hesitate to contact us if you need any info or would like to share yours.
This is a nonprofit website. All potentially copyrighted images depicted on these pages belong to their respective holders/owners.
Detailed informations about The Time Machine (1960) George Pal's classic movie are available from the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and the IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
The typeface used for titles is the "Freckle Face" font created by Brian J. Bonislawsky for Astigmatic (AOETI) 2012
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