- Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen met and fell in love during the filming of Time After Time (1979). They later got married (but it didn't last).
- The role of Amy Robbins went to Mary Steenburgen. However, the studio had wanted Sally Field. Director Nicholas Meyer's first choice was his girlfriend, Shelley Hack. She reportedly didn't want to become famous due to her boyfriend - but she did accept a small role as a docent at the museum Wells transports into.
- The studio had wanted Richard Dreyfuss for the role of H.G. Wells.
- Nicholas Meyer's first choice to play the Ripper was Edward Fox.
- Nicholas Meyer wanted Malcolm McDowell since he was a big fan of Lindsay Anderson.
- The movie premiered on August 31, 1979.
- Corey Feldman's first film role.
- Director Nicholas Meyer wrote a book about Sherlock Holmes. In Time After Time (1979), Wells refers to himself by that name and Inspector Gregson is a name from the Holmes lexicon.
- In the scene in which John visits Shirley's apartment, a poster from the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies can be seen. Stephen Sondheim had contributed an original song ("I Never Do Anything Twice") to The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), Nicholas Meyer's previous film.
- Both stars, Malcolm McDowell and David Warner, played the Wing Commander character Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn: Malcolm McDowell in Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994) (VG) and Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996) (VG), and David Warner in Wing Commander (1999).
- When Wells gives a false name to the police, he uses "Sherlock Holmes". And one of the police officers is named Inspector Gregson, a character from the original Sherlock Holmes stories. Also, director Nicholas Meyer wrote The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), which is considered to be one of the best Sherlock Holmes story not written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
- Wells always refers to his time machine simply as "the time machine" or "the machine". When the machine is first shown, however, the name "Argo" is visible on the front. This is the name Wells gave to his machine in the novel that inspired the film.
- Mick Jagger was originally considered for the part of Jack the Ripper, but director Nicholas Meyer couldn't see Mick Jagger convincingly playing a Harley Street surgeon, John Leslie Stevenson's career when he wasn't stalking Whitechapel.
- Stevenson commits six murders over the course of the film - one in 1893 London and five in 1979 San Francisco. The film itself takes place over a little less than a week, from the perspective of Wells and Stevenson. The historical Jack the Ripper killed a total of five women over the course of 11 weeks in 1888.
- Director Nicholas Meyer's first choice for Wells was Derek Jacobi.
- During chase scenes at the hotel, David Warner is replaced with a stunt double for far shots because he was still on the mend from two broken ankles. In close-up shots, he can be seen running very carefully as not to hurt himself. Also, for scenes where Malcolm McDowell is running through the columns, he is also replaced with a double because of a sprained ankle.
- Amy Robbins is the name of H. G. Wells' second wife in real life.
- The scenic elevator in the Hyatt Regency Hotel is the same elevator used in The Towering Inferno (1974) and High Anxiety (1977).
- Jack went forward in time to November 5, 1979. In the movie Back to the Future (1985) November 5 was the same date used to go forward to 1985.
- The tune played by Jack the Ripper's Pocket watch is based on Chants d'Auvergne, "The Spinner".
- Wells's landlady is named "Mrs. Turner." Sherlock Holmes refers to his landlady as "Mrs. Turner" once (in "A Scandal in Bohemia") even though her name is "Mrs. Hudson" in all the other stories. Nicholas Meyer, a Holmes aficionado and author of three well-known Holmes pastiches, is familiar with this inconsistency in the Holmes canon (he even mentions it at one point in his DVD commentary on Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)) and apparently included it as an inside joke, along with the several other Holmes references in the film.
- The movie's title inspired Cyndi Lauper's song "Time After Time", when she browsed a copy of TVGuide for "imaginary song titles".
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- SPOILER: Mary Steenburgen in Back to the Future Part III (1990) also fell in love with a time traveling scientist and joined him on his journey through time.
- SPOILER: Patti D'Arbanville plays two characters who are murdered by Stevenson. First the prostitute in 1893 at the opening of the film and the second victim Stevenson murders in 1979, Shirley in the apartment.
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