Taglines: Someday in the past he will find her.
Somewhere in Time movie storyline. Christopher Reeve got away from Superman and related costume roles in this dramatic fantasy film, adapted from Richard Matheson’s 1960s vintage novel Bid Time Return. A young playwright, Richard Collier (Reeve), is approached by an elderly woman on the occasion of his first triumph in 1972 — all she says to him is “Come back to me” and leaves him with a watch that contains a picture of a ravishing young woman.
Eight years later, he visits the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and comes upon a photograph of the same woman, whom he discovers was an actress who made an appearance at the hotel in 1912. He becomes obsessed with the image and what the woman — who died the night she approached him in 1972 — meant by what she said. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of the film Laura, he falls in love with her and her image as he learns more about her life and career.
Then he comes upon the suggestion of a professor at his former college that time travel may, in fact, be possible, using an extreme form of self-hypnosis to free the person from the place they occupy in the time-stream. Collier’s feelings for the woman are so strong that he succeeds, bringing himself back to the hotel in 1912 on the eve of her triumph. He meets the actress, Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), and the two fall in love despite the machinations of her obsessive, autocratic manager (Christopher Plummer), who feels threatened by Collier’s presence.
Somewhere in Time is a 1980 American romantic fantasy 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 obsessed with a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel. Through self-hypnosis, he wishes himself back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour), but comes into conflict with Elise’s manager, William Fawcett Robinson (portrayed by Plummer), who 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.
Production Notes in Brief
The movie was filmed on location at the Grand Hotel, as well as the Mission Point Fine Arts building of the former Mackinac College (now Mission Point Resort), both located on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Additional scenes were filmed in Chicago, Illinois.
Bringing cars onto the island for use in the film required special permission from the City of Mackinac Island. Motorized vehicles, other than emergency vehicles and snowmobiles in the winter, are prohibited on the Island. With very few exceptions, transportation is limited to horse and buggy or bicycle.
Director Jeannot Szwarc had a slight problem directing the scenes between Plummer and Reeve in that whenever he said “Chris,” both men would respond with “Yes?” Szwarc resolved this by addressing Plummer as “Mr. Plummer” and addressing Reeve as “Bigfoot”.
The final scene between Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour before Reeve’s character is thrown back into his own time was difficult for Reeve to shoot as he had just learned that his girlfriend and companion, Gae Exton, was pregnant with his first son Matthew. For much of that day his attention was understandably elsewhere. Reeve says on the bonus material of the 2000 DVD, “The day we shot the picnic scene on the floor I found out, and the world found out, that I was about to be a father for the first time.”
In the film, Reeve’s character consults with a Dr. Finney (played by George Voskovec), a time travel theorist. This is a deliberate nod to author Jack Finney, whose novel Time and Again, published five years before the 1975 Richard Matheson novel Bid Time Return, on which this film is based, features an almost identical theory on the mechanics of time travel.
Elise McKenna was a fictional actress. Collier is filmed in the library searching and looking through an old theater album, which has photos of historic stage actresses. The three little girls are Blanche Ring and her sisters. A child holding a doll is actress Rose Stahl. A faded picture of a woman in nun’s habit is Ethel Barrymore in a 1928 play, The Kingdom of God. (Barrymore’s head is left out of the frame as she would be readily recognizable by alert fans of old films.)
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.
At two points in the movie Christopher Reeve is seen listening to the radio. The first time is during a sequence in which Reeve is driving northbound on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. The second time is when Reeve returns to the present and turns on the radio in his room at the Grand Hotel in Mackinac. In both instances the radio announcer is Reese Rickards; A long time fixture at Chicago AM radio station WJJD. While the movie portrays the radio station as having a jazz format, Rickards plays an actual jingle from WJJD which was at the time, a country station.
Somewhere in Time (1980)
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright, Bill Erwin, George Voskovec, Susan French, John Alvin, Eddra Gale, Audrey Bennett, Susan Bugg, Christy Michaels
Screenplay by: Richard Matheson
Production Design by: Seymour Klate
Cinematography by: Isidore Mankofsky
Film Editing by: Jeff Gourson
Costume Design by: Jean-Pierre Dorléac
Set Decoration by: Mary Ann Biddle
Music by: John Barry
Distributed byL Universal Pictures
Release Date: October 3, 1980
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