Dr. Henry Marco (Boris Karloff) is in a bed at State Hospital dead of pneumonia; or maybe just sleeping — it’s hard to tell with Karloff.  Wait, he’s breathing, barely hanging on.  The doctor says he has had no visitors and no one knows where he came from.  Karloff claimed he was from the future, but no one believed him.  In his stupor, he mumbles for penicillin, but the doctors in 1910 have never heard of it.

We flash back, and by back I mean forward, to 1953 where Marco’s wife is nagging him to unlock the basement door where he is working on his experiments.  He opens the door so Jane can berate him about their money problems and “this fantastic, stupid comic book idea of yours!”  She motions toward a seat surrounded by chrome and metal disks.  He asks her what she would say if he told her he could go back to any time in the past.  Jane threatens to smash the time machine and runs back upstairs.

Dr. Marco sees the time machine as the answer to all his problems.  He is tired of being poor, and he is tired of merely treating headaches and colds.  He might also want to visit the young Henry Marco back around the Civil War and tell him to steer clear of that Jane chick.

He takes off his lab jacket, and puts on a proper suit jacket.  He grabs a few items < 3.4 ounces from the fridge and sits in the time machine.  As he goes back in time, we see stock footage of catastrophes such as Hiroshima (1945), Pearl Harbor (1941), and FDR’s inauguration (1933).  He finally sees some good news about Charles Lindbergh making it (1927) and plops down in 1923.

He tries to introduce modern medicines to the 1923 medical community, but they are understandably skeptical.  He finally gets in to see Dr. Giles and Dr. Laskey without an appointment. ^[1]   They are hesitant to try his miracle drug without proper testing. Also because he wants $250,000 in bonds which will mature in 1953.  Marco asks for a test subject on the verge of death from meningitis, pneumonia, or the boogie-woogie flu.  He will revive the poor sap with his so-called “penicillin.”

Dr. Giles is a smart dude and leaves.  Dr. Laskey is interested, though.  He tells Marco there is a great candidate in the children’s ward — a little girl hours from death.  Karloff is giddy with excitement.  He injects the girl with 300,000 units.  Her temperature continues to go up.  He gives her another 300,000.  Then she gets better.  No, wait, she dies an agonizing death with a 105 degree temperature.

Karloff’s excuse is that she was a little too close to death for the penicillin to be effective.  Besides, one case is not enough to evaluate his cure.  He asks for another test subject, but is refused.  To make amends to Dr. Laskey whose career he killed along with the girl, he gives them a bottle of penicillin for free.

Marco goes back home to 1953 for no reason that I can see.  While there, he invites Jane to go back to 1923 with him, also for no reason  I can see.  She declines, so he offers to bring her back a souvenir, “an autographed picture of President Taft” even though Harding or Coolidge was the president in 1923.  Jane isn’t scared, she just thinks he is tampering with things beyond his understanding.  He says, “Some people look to the future for their success.  I get mine out of the past.”  He explains, “I wanted to bring them the benefits of penicillin,” but leaves out the part about the $250k. ^[3]

Marco decides to try again.  He will go the the same company, but in 1910!  Dammit, Giles is running things then too.  He held on to that job like Justice Ginsberg.  Even in 1910, he is experienced enough to not use untested drugs.  He has Marco hauled away for impersonating a physician, and just generally being a lunatic.

It is not clear what happens to bring us back to the opening scene.  It is six months later, still 1910, so Marco somehow got pneumonia the same year he arrived.  He dies, and Laskey holds the penicillin bottle in his hand.  “If only there were such a drug!”  Wait, was he carrying that bottle around for six months?

So Dr. Marco failed at saving millions of lives by inventing penicillin 18 years early.  Did he at least drop Charles Lindbergh a note telling him to keep an eye on his kid? ^[2]

Footnotes:

• ^[1] As he is introduced, we learn that the time travel has apparently changed his name to Harry.  Or the other actor screwed up.
• ^[2] Although, to be fair, Lindbergh was only 8 at the time, so it probably wouldn’t have helped.
• ^[3] I’m sure he had that earmarked for Alexander Fleming and family after denying him the discovery.