12:01 PM (1990 film)
Encyclopedia
12:01 PM is a 1990 short film starring Kurtwood Smith
. Directed by Jonathan Heap, it originally aired on cable television
in 1990 as part of the Showtime 30-Minute Movie anthology series. It was nominated for an Academy Award.
It is the first film adaptation of the short story "12:01 PM
" by Richard A. Lupoff
, which was published in the December 1973 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The major plot device is a time loop
or time bounce.
plays Myron Castleman, an everyman
who keeps repeating the same hour of his life, from 12:01 PM to 1:00 PM. The character is fully aware that the sixty-minute time loop is occurring, although no one else appears to be aware of the repeating hour. Each time the hour resets, Myron retains his memory (or as the film puts it, his consciousness). Myron soon becomes bored, irritated, and later insanely furious, going so far as to scream at his secretary and toss his briefcase into traffic. Despite his best attempts to understand what is happening, he cannot figure it out, so he talks to a scientist who studies time loops. Although reluctant at first, the doctor believes him, and tells him that he is entirely helpless to prevent the time bounce. A nearly hysterical Myron shouts that he is God, and he attempts to break the loop by shooting himself, as he reappears, alive, at the next hour; he is trapped in the loop for eternity.
Kurtwood Smith
Kurtwood Larson Smith is an American television and film actor. He is best known for playing Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop and stern parental characters , and for his appearances in the genre of science fiction...
. Directed by Jonathan Heap, it originally aired on cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
in 1990 as part of the Showtime 30-Minute Movie anthology series. It was nominated for an Academy Award.
It is the first film adaptation of the short story "12:01 PM
12:01 PM
"12:01 PM" is a short story by American writer Richard A. Lupoff, which was published in the December 1973 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story was twice adapted by Hollywood, first in 1990 as a short film, and again in 1993 as a television movie...
" by Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
, which was published in the December 1973 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The major plot device is a time loop
Time loop
A time loop or temporal loop is a common plot device in science fiction in which time runs normally for a set period but then skips back like a broken record. When the time loop "resets", the memories of most characters are reset...
or time bounce.
Plot
Kurtwood SmithKurtwood Smith
Kurtwood Larson Smith is an American television and film actor. He is best known for playing Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop and stern parental characters , and for his appearances in the genre of science fiction...
plays Myron Castleman, an everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
who keeps repeating the same hour of his life, from 12:01 PM to 1:00 PM. The character is fully aware that the sixty-minute time loop is occurring, although no one else appears to be aware of the repeating hour. Each time the hour resets, Myron retains his memory (or as the film puts it, his consciousness). Myron soon becomes bored, irritated, and later insanely furious, going so far as to scream at his secretary and toss his briefcase into traffic. Despite his best attempts to understand what is happening, he cannot figure it out, so he talks to a scientist who studies time loops. Although reluctant at first, the doctor believes him, and tells him that he is entirely helpless to prevent the time bounce. A nearly hysterical Myron shouts that he is God, and he attempts to break the loop by shooting himself, as he reappears, alive, at the next hour; he is trapped in the loop for eternity.