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Never underestimate the power of cable television. This is, perhaps,
the greatest lesson the film Somewhere in Time (1980) taught the
film industry. The story of a man in the 1980s traveling back in time
to be with his true love in the 1910s was not one that generated much
interest among critics or audiences during its release in 1980, and it
promptly flopped. But the film was fated to have a second life, as the
cast and crew would come to find out over the next twenty
years.
Christopher Reeve was riding high off the success of
Superman (1978) in the late 70s and had his pick of countless
film roles for his sophomore effort. Among the flicks he declined were
Body Heat (1981), The World According to Garp (1982), and
The Bounty (1984) - William Hurt, John Lithgow, and Mel Gibson,
respectively, got his leftovers. Reeve, however, was looking for a more
sensitive and romantic leading man angle, a role he would find in the
character of struggling playwright Richard Collier in Somewhere in
Time. He signed on to the project, declaring the story to be "an
absolutely honest attempt to create an old-fashioned romance. It's not
based on sex or X-rated bedroom scenes." Piety may have been on his
mind; at the time, Reeve was receiving some harassment from the press
for living with his girlfriend in London and having a child out of
wedlock. He would soon travel to Mackinac Island, Michigan, to begin
the shooting of the film.
The story of Somewhere in
Time is based on Bid Time Return, a novel by Richard
Matheson. Matheson, best known as a horror and fantasy writer, also
authored The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), I am Legend
(1954), which became the basis for two films (The Last Man on
Earth (1964) and The Omega Man, 1971), and, more recently,
the screenplay for What Dreams May Come (1998). Matheson was
inspired by a chance stop at the opera house in Virginia City, Nevada,
during a family trip. A photo of the early 20th century stage actress
Maude Adams stirred him to write about a man similarly moved by an old
photograph. Despite this story, there are some discrepancies about the
movie's true origins as noted by the striking parallels between Bid
Time Return and another novel, Time and Again, written five
years earlier by Jack Finney. The author of the second book even
receives a homage in the film; the professor Collier consults about time
travel is named Finney.
In the novel Somewhere in
Time, Matheson set the action at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego;
due to such obstructions as television antennas, the film's producers
looked for an alternate location. They found it on Mackinac Island at
the Grand Hotel; the hotel was built in 1887, and the owners reportedly
offered the use of the hotel and surrounding grounds for free to the
production in exchange for a favorable treatment in the film. Mackinac
Island itself fit in very well with the themes of the film; no
automobiles are permitted, and the island relies instead on horses or
bicycles. The cast and crew of Somewhere in Time each had their
own numbered bike, although the use of one vehicle was negotiated
successfully for the purposes of transporting equipment only. As Reeve
explains in his 1998 biography, Still Me, "We began filming in
late May 1979, and the location quickly cast a spell on our entire
company. The real world fell away as the story and the setting took
hold of us. I've rarely worked on a production that was so relaxed and
harmonious. Even the hard-boiled Teamsters and grips from Chicago
succumbed to the charms of the island and the mellow atmosphere on the
set." What the producers didn't know was that Reeve, an avid pilot, had
a small plane hidden on another part of the island; on days off, he,
Jane Seymour, and other members of the cast would jet off for secret day
trips.
Although Reeve found himself mobbed on the island by
Superman-crazed fans (who eventually left him alone after he
struck a deal to meet and greet them after the shoot), the rest of the
cast quietly went about their business uninterrupted. Jane Seymour,
best known up to this point as a Bond girl (from Live and Let Die
, 1973), was cast as Elise McKenna, the enchanting young beauty who
provides the motivation for Collier's time traveling. When she first met
Reeve, she discovered he had been training for the part with a Method
acting coach who recommended that Reeve practice writing daily since he
was playing an author. Seymour was amused but pointed out to the actor
that his character has writer's block, recalling that Reeve "got this
funny look on his face; kind of startled, you know? 'You're absolutely
right,' he said. 'Let's go have dinner.' And that was the end of the
writing." Needless to say, Reeve and Seymour got along famously and
generated an undeniable onscreen chemistry together, but their ballroom
dancing was another matter; guess who was dubbed "Superfoot" after
stepping on his co-star's toes one too many times?
As for
the supporting players, Christopher Plummer was featured as McKenna's
ambitious and overly protective manager; the Canadian actor was
immortalized as the Baron Von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965),
while recently appearing in such fare as The Insider (1999), A
Beautiful Mind (2001) and Nicholas Nickleby (2002). Teresa
Wright appears as a previous caretaker for the aging version of McKenna.
Wright scored a hat trick with her first three film appearances -
The Little Foxes (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), and
Mrs. Miniver (1942) all earned her Oscar nominations, the last
being a Best Supporting Actress win for her. Susan French, who played
the elderly version of Elise, is the originator of the funniest moment
in production. In the beginning of the film, the old McKenna finds
Collier backstage after a 1972 college play. She presses an old pocket
watch into his hand, and the script calls for her to say cryptically,
"Come back to me." During a take, French reportedly put the watch in
Reeve's hand and said, "Have it fixed." That scene, incidentally,
features bit parts by two then-unknown actors; George Wendt (Norm) of
the television show Cheers fame, and William H. Macy, rising star
of such flicks as Fargo (1996) and Magnolia
(1999).
Upon the film's descent into post-production, the
need to have a moving and effective soundtrack to accompany the action
became obvious but due to the modest budget, director Jeannot Szwarc
worried about the caliber of talent the film would be able to afford.
It was Seymour who would save the day; her friendship with composer John
Barry paved the way for his work on the film. Barry agreed to a
percentage of the soundtrack sales in lieu of an up-front payment, a wise
move: due in large part to its use of Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a
Theme of Paganini", the score became one the most successfully selling
movie soundtracks of all time.
With the release of
Somewhere in Time, however, the bubble burst: critics were
brutal, with one stating that "Christopher Reeve looks like a
helium-filled canary." (Well, the suit was a little tight.) Audiences
rejected its uber-romantic premise and gauzy overlay - the movie was
actually shot with two different film stocks, one with crisper tones for
present day action, the other with softer, sepia tones to reflect the
antiquated feel of the 1910's scenes. Universal, its distributor, was
thus delighted when a Los Angeles-based cable company purchased the
rights to air it. After repeated showings, video rentals began to
increase steadily and the film became an underground cult classic,
thanks to television. Ironically, ten years after its release, a
dedicated fan club sprang up, that continues to hold annual conferences
at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac. Both Seymour and Reeve eventually
received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, due in part to pressures
applied by the Somewhere in Time fan club, called INSITE
(International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts!). The
film recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary, and continues to grow
in popularity worldwide.
Producer: Stephen
Deutsch
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Screenplay: Richard
Matheson
Art Direction: Mary Ann BiddleCinematography: Isidore
Mankofsky
Editing: Jeff Gourson
Music: John
Barry
Cast: Christopher Reeve (Richard Collier), Jane Seymour
(Elise McKenna), Christopher Plummer (William Fawcett Robinson), Teresa
Wright (Laura Roberts), Bill Erwin (Arthur).
C-103m. Letterboxed.
by Eleanor Quin
 
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31 Days of Oscar Highlights for March 1
Among the many award-winning films scheduled on this day are Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick's visually eloquent tale of migrant workers, plus Richard III, (1955), Little Big Man (1970), Quo Vadis (1951) and 6 more.
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