Alan Young (David Filby/James Filby) is the only actor to appear in both this film and the remake, The Time Machine.
George Pal had long planned to do a sequel to this film. Several submitted scripts were reportedly rejected by MGM.
Yvette Mimieux was actually underage when shooting began (she turned 18 during the shoot) and was not legally supposed to work a full shooting schedule, but did. She was inexperienced - as she worked on this film she kept getting better and better so that by the end of the shoot they wound up going back and re-shooting some of her earliest scenes.
Also, during the air raid scene, as all the people rush into the shelter a little girl crossing the street stops to pick something up that she dropped. When she does, you can quickly see she picks up a small Woody Woodpecker figure
Director George Pal was a close friend of fellow animator Walter Lantz, ever since Lantz did some cut-rate Woody Woodpecker work for Pal's Destination Moon. As tribute, Pal tried to include Woody Woodpecker references in all his subsequent films. In the scenes where the Eloi are having a good time, every so often you can distinctly hear the "Woody Woodpecker" laugh.
Singer and lyricist Peggy Lee wrote a song for the film called "The Land Of The Leal" which was not used.
The "lava" in the volcano scene in downtown was actually oatmeal with orange and red food coloring spilled onto a platform and slowly moved down the miniature set.
The miniature version of the Time Machine was kept by producer-director George Pal. It was lost when Pal's home was destroyed by fire.
The original time machine was sold at the MGM studio auction in 1971, the same auction that originally sold the Ruby Slippers (see trivia for The Wizard of Oz). The winner of the auction was the owner of a traveling show. Five years later, the prop was found in a thrift store in Orange, CA. Film historian Bob Burns purchased it for $1,000. Using blue prints his friend, George Pal, had given him years earlier, he and a crew of friends restored it. The restoration crew included D.C. Fontana script consultant and writer on Star Trek and Michael Minor art director on Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Please see www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/props/timemachine.html for further info on this amazing prop.
The plaque on the control panel of time machine reads "Manufactured by H George Wells."
The shape of the time machine itself was inspired by one of George Pal's favorite types of childhood vehicles - a sled. This is the reason for the sled-like design of the machine, so that it could 'slide' into time.
This was the last film to be shown on New York station WNBC-TV's (Channel 4) afternoon movie showcase, "Movie 4", on 26 April 1974.
When George arrives in the year 802701 his time machine reads the date of October 12th. So George arrives into a "New World" on the anniversary of Columbus' first reaching the "New World" of the Americas.
When the question about which three books did George take, it is interesting to note that the most of the books in the bookcase have been rearranged sometime between the beginning of the movie (when George was writing the dinner note) and the time when Filby asked which three books.
When they were rebuilding the Time Machine they had to completely remanufacture the missing chair (originally a barber's chair), the disk and the control panel. The panel had been removed from the machine during production so that the close-up shots of it could be filmed. What became of the original props is not known.