Time Flies (1944) Plot Summary Explained

Tommy is actually a valet who has been borrowing his employer's clothes and expensive apartment to pose as a wealthy businessman. He's been running a scam called Time Ferry Services Limited to get people like Bill to invest in the Professor's time machine project.

• tommy valet
• time ferry services
• scam
• professor time machine investment

Tommy accidentally activated the Time Ball while hiding inside it from the police. When his employer arrived and police were called, Tommy panicked and closed the hatch, which triggered the device and sent the group back to Elizabethan London.

• time ball activation
• time machine
• elizabethan london
• accidentally sent back

The Professor was arrested and jailed in the Tower of London for being a Scottish spy. The Elizabethan authorities suspected him because he was a Scottish man with strange inventions and no clear explanation for his presence in England.

• professor arrested
• tower of london
• scottish spy
• elizabethan england

They needed to get an audience with Queen Elizabeth to beg for the Professor's pardon. After meeting the real John Smith and Pocahontas in a tavern, they stole their identities and letters of introduction to gain access to the Queen.

Foreshadowing: Earlier in the tavern, they encountered the real explorers who provided the names and credentials they would later steal.

• captain john smith
• pocahontas
• queen elizabeth
• identity swap
• tavern scene

Their identity deception was uncovered when the Queen realized they were not who they claimed to be. The Queen sentenced all of them - Bill, Susie, Tommy, and the Professor - to be burned alive inside the Time Ball as punishment for their deception.

• execution sentence
• queen elizabeth
• unmasked
• burned alive
• time ball

As the Queen's soldiers attempted to burn them inside the Time Ball, the Professor managed to repair the malfunctioning device. He activated it just in time, sending them back to the present day and escaping their execution.

• escape execution
• professor repairs time ball
• return to present
• burned alive

After arriving in Elizabethan London, Tommy befriended Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth and launched a new scam. He claimed to 'own' America and sold parcels of American land to gullible courtiers, exploiting their ignorance about the New World.

• tommy sells america
• walter raleigh
• land scam
• elizabethan court
• new world

Susie encountered William Shakespeare and, in a playful moment, recited some of his own famous lines back to him. The playwright eagerly wrote them down, thinking they were original ideas - a humorous twist on time travel allowing her to 'inspire' the famous bard.

• susie meets shakespeare
• famous lines
• time travel humor
• elizabethan london

They returned to the present several weeks too early, creating a temporal paradox. Because they arrived before they were supposed to, they began fading away from existence - a consequence of messing with the timeline.

Foreshadowing: The Time Ball had already shown its instability when it initially misfired, hinting at the dangers of imprecise time travel.

• fade away
• temporal paradox
• weeks too early
• time travel consequences
• present day

The Time Ball was Professor Stewart McAndrew's primitive time machine, which he developed with funding from Bill's $10,000 investment. It was a device that could send people through time, though it was unreliable and prone to malfunctioning, as demonstrated when it misfired and sent the group to Elizabethan England.

Foreshadowing: The initial misfire during the Professor's demonstration established that the Time Ball was an untested and dangerous invention.

• time ball time machine
• professor stewart mcandrew
• time travel device
• misfire