Rod Taylor: Ignoring the Girl

When I was a kid, we drove 300 miles east to Indiana two or three times a year to visit my parents' many relatives.  My Aunt Mavis, who lived in a trailer on my grandfather's farm, was deeply into science fiction, or pretended to be to please her son, my cousin Buster.  She watched The Invaders with us, searched the night sky for UFOs with us, bought us Space Family Robinson comic books, and sometimes took us into town to see sci-fi movies at the drive-in.  During the summer of 1971, she took us to see The Time Machine (1960).

It was based on the H.G. Wells classic about George (Rod Taylor), a man who travels from the Victorian era to several dates in the future, finally the far distant future, where humanity has evolved into the monstrous Morlocks and the childlike Eloi.  He meets an Eloi girl named Weena.

Not yet ten years old and nodding off in the back seat, I didn't catch the heterosexist "boy meets girl" plot; I thought Weena was like a daughter to him (by the time of the 2002 remake, I was quite aware).  Instead, I was busy watching George and his friend Filby (Alan Young), whom he meets often on his travels, as if they are bound together through time.

That fall I saw Rod Taylor in Bearcats!, a sort of pre-World War I Route 66, with two hunky buddies (Rod Taylor, former Physique Pictorial model Dennis Cole) driving around in a Stutz Bearcat in sleveless muscle shirts.

It aired at the same time as another buddy drama, Alias Smith and Jones, and lasted only 14 episodes.










But they were really good episodes.

Sometime in 1972 or 1973, Chuck Acri's Creature Feature showed the peplum Colossus and the Amazon Queen (1960), with Rod Taylor as the ancient Greek muscleman Pirro, who is captured by the evil Amazon women and must be rescued by his partner Glauco (bodybuilder Ed Fury).  Glauco falls in love with the Amazon Queen, but who was paying attention?  He was a boy rescuing a boy!








Around the same time, I saw The Hell with Heroes (1968), starring Rod Taylor and Peter Deuel two former air force pilots trying to build a life together in North Africa after World War II.  They are forced to participate in a smuggling scheme, and Pete's character meets a girl, but who was paying attention?  They were trying to build a life together!







I've seen Rod Taylor in a few other movies over the years: The Birds (1963), Zabriski Point (1970), Inglorious Basterds (2009).  

But nothing matches his gay-subtext record of the early 1970s.  Even if I had to keep ignoring The Girl.