Somewhere in Time (1980)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Jeannot Szwarc

Writers:

Richard Matheson (screenplay)
Richard Matheson (novel)

Release Date:

3 January 1981 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | Fantasy

Tagline:

Some day in the past, he will find her.

Plot:

A Chicago playwright uses self-hypnosis to find the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel.

Plot Keywords:

Love | Hotel | Playwright | Hypnosis | Pocket Watch

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 6 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Christopher Reeve	...	Richard Collier
Jane Seymour	...	Elise McKenna
Christopher Plummer	...	William Fawcett Robinson
Teresa Wright	...	Laura Roberts
Bill Erwin	...	Arthur Biehl
George Voskovec	...	Dr. Gerald Finney
Susan French	...	Older Elise
John Alvin	...	Arthur's Father
Eddra Gale	...	Genevieve
Audrey Bennett	...	Richard's Date
William H. Macy	...	Critic (as W.H. Macy)
Laurence Coven	...	Critic
Susan Bugg	...	Penelope
Christy Michaels	...	Beverly
Ali Marie Matheson	...	Student (as Ali Matheson)

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Brazil:Livre | Sweden:11 | Canada:G (Quebec) | USA:PG (certificate #25953) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | Australia:G | Singapore:PG | UK:PG | France:U

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Rastar Pictures

Trivia:

The professor in the movie is named "Finney". The book's author Richard Matheson gave this character the name in tribute to Jack Finney, the science fiction writer. It is (controversially) said that Matheson stole or borrowed his idea for "Bid Time Return" - the book's title, published in 1975 - from Finney's book "Time and Again", published in 1970.

Goofs:

Plot holes: The watch "walks in circles" through time, and was never, at any moment in history, actually fabricated.

Quotes:

[seeing Richard for the first time]
Elise McKenna: Is it you? Is it?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Back to 'Somewhere in Time' (2000) (V)

Soundtrack:

Somewhere In Time

The film affirms that love is an undeniable force which goes beyond us...

Christopher Reeve takes on the role of (Richard Collier) a successful Chicago playwright who is approached (in May 1972) by a very old woman (Susan French) who will alter the course of his life eternally...

The thoughtful old lady presses a classic pocket watch, from a past existence, into his right hand and intensely whispers four haunting words 'Come back to me,' which will affect him forever...

Eight years have passed and Richard is seeing his work incredibly sterile, gently afflicted with a case of lesser inspiration... So he packs his luggage and heads out to an island of enchanting beauty, to the Grand Hotel on the Straits of Mackinac waterfront...

While waiting for the huge dining hall to open, he tours the grand old building's museum, and sees a portrait of a lovely woman... He becomes obsessed about finding the truth behind the old photograph and begins questioning the people that knew her past... What emerges is a wonderful woman who is the first American stage actress in 1912 to create a mystique in the public's eye... She is the same lady who visited him that night at the premier of one of his plays...

Richard finds himself intrigued... There is so much to hear... People who knew Elise McKenna when she was young said that she was quick and bright and full of fun... Strong, willful, not at all the way she was later...

Seeking help from an old philosophy teacher who had written a book about 'Travels through time,' Richard attempts to disassociate himself entirely from the present, move everything out of sight that could possibly remind him of it, hypnotize his mind, and transport himself backward into the past, into June 27, 1912, into the life of the stunningly beautiful and talented Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour).

Nominated for Best Costume Design, the motion picture is a romantic fantasy that avoids any use of machinery in action... The time travel theory is completely non-scientific... The film captures the idea of a fine young man moving back among other time periods, and affirms that love is an undeniable force which goes beyond us, a force with no limit to the spiritual power, with no end to the potential of spiritual expansion...