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Somewhere in Time (1980)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2015 4:23 pm    Post subject: Somewhere in Time (1980) Reply with quote



Even though time travel is involved, this is most definitely a love story rather than a sci-fi tale, unless "the power of the mind" can be stretch to explain how Christopher Reeve manages to spirit himself back to 1912 so he can woo and win the love of Jane Seymour in this cinematic version of "Bid Time Return" by Richard Matheson.

Matheson, who also wrote the script, has authored several much more overt science fiction novels and screenplays.

But this really is a fine love story. The two stars convince us they're deeply in love, and a little thing like 58 years can't keep them apart. The weak link in the story is Christopher Plummer, who also seems to be in love with Miss Seymour — or he's just an ambitious promoter who doesn't want the famous actress to get all filled up with babies and not fit into her stage costumes.

We're never sure which — and that fact has always annoyed me. He's a "villian" whose motivations are too damn murky. Rolling Eyes

Before traveling through time, Reeve consults with his old college professor concerning the possibility of willing oneself back in time. The professor is played by George Voskovec, who was the scientist who saved the world in The 27th Day (1957)

If you're a Christopher Reeve fan he'll win you're heart too in this bitter-sweet tale of true love, tragic loss, and time traveling hotel beds.
Very Happy
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2015 10:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I mentioned this on The Black Hole thread and thought I'd say something here about it too.

Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" is really what sells that movie, and I was surprised when I learned after seeing the movie that the theme I loved so much wasn't John Barry at all.



Here's the complete soundtrack for Somewhere in Time. After listening to it today I realized it was better than I'd remembered.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 02, 2017 12:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I first saw this movie in 1980 and fell in love with it at once. It is the perfect example of what could be called "Romantic Science Fiction".

Also, the soundtrack is so amazing!

Here's an edited blurb from Wikapedia on it:

Somewhere in Time is a 1980 American romantic science fiction drama film directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It is a film adaptation of the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay. The film stars Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer.

Reeve plays Richard Collier, a playwright who becomes smitten by a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel. Through self-hypnosis, he travels back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour). However, this relationship may not last as long as the two of them think; Elise's manager, William Fawcett Robinson (portrayed by Plummer), fears that romance will derail her career and resolves to stop him.

The film is known for its musical score composed by John Barry. The 18th variation of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini also appears several times.

Elise McKenna's character was loosely based upon the life of theatre actress Maude Adams, who was born Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 11, 1872. She died in Tannersville, New York on July 17, 1953. Her manager, Charles Frohman (the basis for the William Fawcett Robinson character) was very protective of her. He died on the RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915 when it was torpedoed by a German submarine during World War I

Despite reviews calling the film "horrible" and a "superficial tear-jerker," the International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts (I.N.S.I.T.E.), an official fan club, was formed in 1990 and continues to meet regularly.

During the month of October, the Grand Hotel hosts a Somewhere In Time Weekend the club uses for an annual convention for such events as a big-screen showing of the film, panel discussions with some of the film's celebrities and crew, and a costume ball of members dressed in Edwardian attire.

Adding to the film's legacy is a Ken Davenport produced Broadway theatrical adaption of the story in the works with assistance from Matheson on the story book.




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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

____________
_________

___________ Somewhere in Time Official Trailer


__________


This was Christopher Reeve's first starring role after the first Superman picture (1978).

This film would probably be labeled as fantasy by many, but the sci-fi elements of time travel are definitely here, though Reeve's character, Richard, basically 'wills' himself backwards through time, rather than employing some kind of machinery (as was done in The Time Machine, Time After Time, and the Back to the Future films).

The focus of Somewhere in Time is a love story and traveling much further than a continent to make that romantic connection.

___________

The story begins in the early 1970's. At that point, Richard has just begun a career as a young playwright and is approached by an elderly lady who places an old watch in his hands, saying "Come back to me."

Richard has no clue what this is about and soon forgets about the incident. Eight years later, Richard, feeling unfulfilled, he drives to the Grand Hotel to relax his mind.

There, he becomes entranced with a photographic portrait of actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), whose heyday was in 1912. Quickly researching her life, he comes across the last known photo of Elise and is stunned to find that she is the elderly woman who gave him the watch! Soon after, he finds evidence that he visited the Grand Hotel in 1912, as impossible as that seems.

Well, even if you haven't seen the film before, you can kind of guess where things go from there.



Reeve was oddly suited to this role. As an actor, he was kind of a throwback to the stars of the 1930's & 1940's — tall, kind of old-fashioned — and he never fit in very well in contemporary roles.

For the role of Elise, the filmmakers needed a certain serene kind of beauty and Seymour certainly fit the bill. Even her photo in this film, the one that mesmerizes Richard, has a beguiling quality to it, almost like a more recent version of the Mona Lisa.

After all this time, this may very well turn out to be Seymour's signature role. Christopher Plummer has the only other substantial role in the film, as Elise's manager and watchdog. He provides the only element of possible menace and threat, but it's all rather benign.

___________

I believe that, especially nowadays, with all the quick cutting and frantic pace that informs many films, this film is too leisurely for many people — especially young people — and others will not really understand it. This was even true back in 1980; many critics were not fond of it and it did not do good box office.

When I first viewed it (I was about 20 years old), I myself found it a bit on the dull side and a little sappy, even as I admired the fantasy elements.

That changed later.

There's one scene, as the last third begins, when we realize that when that portrait of Elise was taken, she was looking at Richard. It's a haunting, beautiful moment that transcends the usual limitations of film art.

Click on the images below to visit the official website:

___

This is one of those films which has developed a sizable cult following — I won't say of mostly older people, but perhaps old souls, those who appreciate a well-told romance, one which proceeds in an unfussy manner, without some contrived subplots to supposedly energize the story. It's all about making a connection — an impossible connection, it seems — but, hey, that's what the better movies are about, eh?

BoG's Score: 7.5 out of 10




BoG
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bog.....You got it right!
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

In view of the fact that Andrew past away five years ago, I guess your comment should just read, "BoG got it right," without appearing to address the diseased directly.

Unless they have wi-fi in heaven, in which case your compliment will be much appreciated. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, I don't know about that Bud.

A post is eternally a present tense extension of a past memory.

Posting is a type of immortality.

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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Fair enough, sir. Then perhaps the right wording would be "BoG's post has it right." As far as immortality goes, I may not have raised Andrew from the dead, but I am resurrecting his posts from Andrew's dead message board. Wink

I was tempted to log on as BoG and reply to your post with this.

"Bud is right, Gord. We do have wi-fi in heaven. And thanks for the compliment." Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat May 02, 2020 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

IMDB has 60 trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text. Very Happy
________________________________

~ While Christopher Reeve was filming this movie, the local theater decided to show his latest hit Superman (1978). Many of the "Somewhere" cast joined the locals for the event. Early into the screening, the sound went out. Reeve, who was seated next to Jane Seymour, stood up in the audience and delivered all the lines.

Note from me: A quaint story . . . but most likely bogus. The theater wouldn't just keep running the movie if the sound system gave out! And Christopher couldn't have remembered "all the lines" very well, I'm sure.

There's lots of reasons to doubt this claim. Rolling Eyes

~ Although the film was a box office disappointment in the United States, it was a huge hit in Asia. Somewhere in Time (1980) is one of the highest-grossing films in China, and played in Hong Kong for eighteen months.

Note from me: Curious. I wonder why this America romantic melodrama was such a hit in China. Confused

~ Playing the older Elise McKenna, actress Susan French only has four words of dialogue in the whole film. These were spoken when she gives Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) the antique gold fob-watch.

The four words of dialogue were "Come back to me," a very serious key scene in the movie. During one take, as a joke, French said instead four other words, "Have it fixed, dear," which caused the whole set to crack-up with laughter.


Note from me: That's a hoot! Laughing

~ The moment when Richard Collier first sees the portrait of Elise McKenna in the film was also the first time Christopher Reeve saw the portrait. Reeve did not want to see the portrait ahead of time, which helped meet the director's objective of getting a genuine reaction from him when he first sees the portrait as Richard.

Note from me: Christopher's long, slow approach towards the framed photo was brilliantly filmed. At one point he passes through a bright beam of sunlight from a skylight, and the brightness makes it hard for him to see the picture until he gets past the beam and finds himself close to the picture.

It's a symbolic moment that foreshadows his journey into the past so he can meet the woman in the picture. It's a magnificent scene.


________ Somewhere in Time - The Portrait [HD]


__________



~ According to the DVD Bonus Features, Jane Seymour tells a story about Christopher Reeve's airplane, which was parked on the island. Late at night, Seymour and Reeve would discreetly leave and go for plane trips. Seymour states that they flew to Toronto in Canada several times.

Note from me: Holy Mackerel! Christopher might not be Superman, but he actually took the lovely lady out flying at night . . . the way he did with Margot Kidder! Cool

~ The book has Richard knowing that he is dying of a brain tumor, and it ultimately raises the possibility that the whole time-traveling experience was merely a series of hallucinations brought on by the tumor.

Note from me: Well now, doesn't that little tidbit kill the romantic mood in this tale of eternal love? Rolling Eyes

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat May 02, 2020 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_______________________________________________

Somewhere in Time — How It Should Have Ended!




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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2022 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maureen Lee Lenker
April 25, 2022, 4:13 PM

Somewhere in Time has remained a romantic favorite since it first hit theaters in 1980, but it turns out the real love story went beyond the one on screen.

At the TCM Classic Film Festival this past weekend, Jane Seymour opened up about her and costar Christopher Reeve falling hard for each other while making the time-travel romance. The actress has long spoken of the enduring friendship she and Reeve cultivated on the film but has rarely discussed their romantic relationship.

"Well, here comes the story that I'm officially telling you now, because Chris and I, when we made the film, we literally fell madly in love," Seymour confessed to TCM host Alicia Malone and an audience of several hundred classic movie lovers.

"When you see this film, you will see the real thing. But we didn't let anyone know. So a few of the people who worked on the show kind of sussed it out, but we were as subtle as we could be about it."

Seymour has previously acknowledged her romance with Reeve, including on PeopleTV's Couch Surfing, which you can watch above. But she got into the particulars at the TCM festival, becoming visibly emotional when discussing their love for each other and the forces of the universe that broke them apart.

If the revelation of their romance wasn't enough of a case of art imitating life (or vice versa), Seymour also said their relationship ended the same day she filmed the scene in which her character, Elise, loses Reeve's Richard.

"We were madly in love and life was wonderful," she recalled. "We were both single. It was a fantastic, amazing experience."

And then one day I came in to work [to film] one of the biggest scenes in the movie. Just before that, Chris had had an earlier call, and I came in a half hour later. A member of the crew said, "Chris needs to talk to you about something."

I thought, "That's really odd, we've had a long time to talk about things, so what could it be?"

"It was about how is ex-girlfriend was going to have a baby, and she hadn't told him, and that she'd just announced it to the world," Seymour continued.

Reeve's ex, Gae Exton, was pregnant with their son, Matthew. (The two would go on to have a second child together, daughter Alexandra.)

But Seymour still had to complete the day's work after hearing this crushing news — filming a scene in which Elise is deliriously in love with Richard after they've made love for the first time, only to lose him to the vagaries of time.

"I then had to put my big-girl pants on," she said. "When I watch that scene, I can literally see the tears coming halfway up my eyeballs. And I just kept saying, "You can't cry, you can't cry, you can't cry, you're happy. Elise is really, really happy right now."

Seymour and Reeve remained lifelong friends, which she recently discussed with EW while reflecting on her most memorable roles. She even named her son Kristopher after her former costar.

"The good part of the story is that Chris went on to have these two beautiful children, and we met one another on many occasions," Seymour told the festival audience. "We remained really close friends, literally until the day he died. I have to believe that I will one day see him somewhere in time."

(Now let me just find my box of tissues, guys. ) Sad

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2022 2:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Gprd, you have single-handedly renewed my faith in the fine members of All Sci-Fi during this unfortunate drought in our posts!

You're comment is fascinating, and it elevates this thread to a whole new level.

Thanks, my friend. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2022 10:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you for the shout-out Bud! But then, this is one of my all time favorite films . . . and I fell in love with it the first time I saw it on the movie screen in 1980!

Here's a decent review.
________________________________________________

How do you follow up portraying Superman on the big screen?

If you’re Christopher Reeve you slip naturally into the role of playwright Richard Collier, “the sort of man each woman dreams of in the deepest and most secret reaches of her heart.”

That’s how stage actress Elise McKenna (played by Jane Seymour with far-away eyes) describes Collier in a rhapsodic improvisation mid-performance at the truly grand Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan.



The year is 1912 and Collier and McKenna have just met and fallen in love — decades before he was born.



Based on a novel by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay, Somewhere in Time tells a tale of time travel and long lost love.

One is tempted to call it science fiction, but Matheson’s elegant conception of the means for journeying across the years is so evocative of the tenuous dream-like quality of a love affair that science can have nothing to do with it.

Plagued by writer’s block, a young Collier escapes Chicago for the Grand Hotel circa 1980, where he becomes enthralled by a photo of Miss McKenna hanging in the venerable establishment’s “Hall of History.”

Further research not only convinces Collier that he and McKenna were lovers over 60 years earlier, but that self-hypnosis could reunite them in the past. Literally willing himself back in time, Collier finds McKenna on the eve of that fateful performance, and the two fall headlong into a romance for the ages — even though it’s doomed from the start.



Around his star-crossed couple, director Jeannot Szwarc conjures a soft-focus fantasy of post-Gilded Age America. Collier and McKenna’s first romantic turn around the hotel grounds rapturously unfolds like a live staging of Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte.”

John Barry’s swooning score and recurring passages of Rachmaninoff complete the film’s heady, intoxicating atmosphere.



Though Somewhere in Time was released to withering reviews and tepid box office, it has since become one of Hollywood’s most beloved romances with a devoted international fan base.

—Paul Malcolm

Count on me as one of that fan base! 20 or so years ago my wife and I visited the Grand Mackinac Hotel during the gathering of the fan base. Jane Seymour was a quest and even attended the dinner dance that concluded the gathering. I can say that I had the opportunity to dance with "Elise McKenna" if just for a few minutes.

And yes...It was MAGIC!

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2022 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Good Lord, Gord! Shocked

Your post is magnificent, and the gallery of images you provided pumps 1.21 gigawatts of energy into your wonderful contribution to All Sci-Fi. What an amazing experience you had.

I'm green with envy! Mr. Green

I'm willing to bet that you're planning to "hypno-time-travel" yourself back to that magical evening so you can waltz Miss Seymour around the dance floor one more time. Very Happy

Just remember to empty your pockets before you go back! Even though they say that "Loose slips sinks ships", it's also true that "Loose change wrecks romances!"
Shocked
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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tmlindsey
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 17, 2022 8:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just watched this film for the first time today, with my wife.

The story is fine but, MAN, was it slooooooow! It certainly could have used some tighter editing to quicken the pacing a bit.

I found some of the scenes to be over-the-top/melodramatic and found myself tuning out at times just wanting it to be over.

The downer ending surprised me.

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