Somewhere in Time
It is May 19, 1972, opening night of a new drama at the Millfield College Workshop.
As students and teachers propose yet another toast to its author,
senior Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) at an after-play party,
an old woman (Susan French) appears in their midst.
Taking Richard's hands into her own, she places an antique watch on his palm and whispers,
"Come back to me," disappearing as mysteriously as she came.
His celebrants look to Richard for an explanation, but he has none.
The old woman returns to the nearby Grand Hotel, oblivious to a greeting from her secretary- companion,
Laura Roberts (Teresa Wright).
She walks over to a rocking chair by the window and listens to a favorite piece of classical music,
looking out on the harbor.Her rocking suddenly stops
In 1979, Richard Collier, although now a successful playwright,
is visibly disturbed as he struggles to put words on blank paper.
He owes his agent a new play he can't even get started.
He's split with his current girlfriend.
Annoyed, he walks abruptly out of his expensive apartment.
Nostalgia takes Richard back to the scene of his sweetest triumph, Millfield,
and he checks into the Grand Hotel. He is shown to his room by an aged porter named Arthur (Bill Erwin),
who recalls his own arrival at this venerable establishment in 1910,
when his father became the Grand's chief desk clerk.
Wandering into the Hall of History, where memorabilia of the hotel's past century are on display,
Richard is overwhelmed by a photograph of a beautiful young woman.
The image absolutely transfixes him--it is as if she is trying to speak with him.
He runs out to the porch to ask Arthur who she was,
and the porter tells him about Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour),
a famous actress who starred in a play at the hotel theatre back in 1912.
Richards's curiosity takes him to the library.
Paging through volumes, he learns of the mystique that built up around the actress in her day--
she never appeared in public, was never quoted in the press, never married.
Her early career was devoted to light comedy,
although her reputation was made later as one of the world's great tragediennes.
Elise McKenna died on May 19, 1972; the date fails to ring a bell until he spots a picture of
the actress in her final years and realizes it is the same old woman who gave him the gold watch.
Laura Roberts, author of one of Elise McKenna's biographies, lives near the Grand Hotel,
and Richard immediately visits her. She is reluctant to talk
with the agitated young stranger until he pulls the watch from his pocket.
She gasps at the sight of it--the timepiece disappeared the night Elise McKenna died eight years ago
Shaken, Miss Roberts answers Richards' questions about the actress and her iron-willed manager,
William Fawcett Robinson (Chrisopher Plummer).
She shows Richard some of the things Elise left her, among them a parapsychological survey,
Travels Through Time, written by Dr. Gerald Finney (George Voskovec), a professor at Millfield College
Miss Roberts recalls Elise reading books on the elusive subject of time quite often.
She also shows Richard a perfect scale model the actress had made of the Grand Hotel.
She lifts the cupola on the roof, and it's a music box.
Richard is stunned-the classical melody it plays is his own favorite music.
Richard visits the professor and asks him about time travel.
Dr. Finney responds that one must disassociate himself entirely from the present by
removing from his proximity everything anachronistic to the era he hoped to achieve
Taking Finney's advise, Richard buys a three-piece suit and bowler hat and cuts his hair to a dapper turn-of-the-century style.
Removing his modern-day coins and filling his pockets with money from the period,
he dictates into his tape recorder, over and over again: "You're lying on a
bed in the Grand Hotel, and it's June 27, 1912. Your mind accepts this absolutely..."
But, his mind will accept nothing of the sort. He falls into an uneasy sleep.
In the middle of the night, he suddenly wakes up with another idea and
has the groggy Arthur take him up to the hotel attic.
There, Richard leafs through dusty hotel registers and sees that Elise McKenna checked into Room 117 on June 12, 1912.
He moves further down the page to discover what he suspected all along--
his own signature registered into Room 416 at 9:18 a.m. the very next day. He cries out with joy.
Returning to his room with a renewed sense of confidence and predestination,
he puts back on his 1921 gear and tries once more to will himself into the past.
This time he succeeds!
His utter delight, however, turns to panic when he realizes his room in 1912 is now occupied by someone else,
Rollo (Bill O'Hagen) and Maude (Victoria Michaels). Richard hide until he can escape.
The Grand Hotel lobby is alive with sumptuously attired guests at the height of the summer season.
Richard spots a little boy (Sean Hayden) being scolded by the desk clerk (John Alvin)
and is touched by the knowledge that this child must be a five-year old version of
the septuagenarian Arthur he left behind in the present. Proceeding without further delay to Room 117,
he is informed by Marie (Maud strand), Elise's personal maid, that Miss McKenna is out.
Undaunted, Richard goes to the theater, where rehearsals are being held. Genevieve (Eddra Gayle),
a pink-coiffed actress of Wagnerian proportions, suggests he look for her walking by the lake.
He heads cautiously down to a grove of trees near the lakefront, where Elise greets him with an astonished,
"Is it you?" Staggered, he answers, "Yes."
Before they an explain themselves. W.F. Robinson calls for Elise to join him for dinner.
Richard follows them all the way to the magnificent dining room.
Elise is on the dance floor. When Richard blithely cuts in, tripping all over the light fantastic,
Robinson asks the Maître D' to remove this intruder.
To her manager's consternation, Elise announces that she will leave with Richard and return in a moment.
Robinson's eyes are glued on the couple as they exchange a few tentative sentences.
She wants to know who Richard is, since he claims to know everything about her.
He wants to know when he can see her again. Neither's response satisfies the other. Once more, they part.
Back in Elise's suite, Robinson cautions his protégé about Richard before bidding her good night.
Richard, meanwhile, has retired for the evening on a wicker sofa on the Grand porch
The next morning, he is at Elise's door asking her to breakfast.
She points out incredulously that it's 6:00 a.m. but agrees to meet him at once.
He eats alone until Robinson shows up. Richard remains unimpressed, however,
with the manager's elegant intimidation and checks in right on
schedule at 9:18 a.m.
At one o'clock, Richard and Elise drive off in a carriage to avert the omnipresent Robinson.
They row out to the lighthouse, trading confidences, delighted with the exchange.
Richard expresses an uncanny understanding of a woman's need for a career.
Elise reveals that Robinson had foretold the strange coming of a man who would change her life.
Tomorrow, she must take off with her troupe. Richard begs her to allow him a little more time, and,
contrary to Edwardian etiquette, she permits him to enter her suite without a chaperon.
There, they kiss--she protests at first, then reciprocates whole-heartedly.
Robinson interrupts their idyll and tells Richard to leave. Castigating her manager for his intrusion,
Elise tells Richard that she's left a ticket in his name for the performance tonight.
That night at the play, Elise, prompted by an awareness of Richard in the audience,
unconsciously substitutes her lines for an impromptu paen of love.
Her intended sits riveted in the second row. Robinson exits the wings in a huff.
Between acts, Elise poses for a routine photograph. When she sees Richard backstage,
her expression becomes the one of the portrait in the Hall of History.
During the second act, Richard receives a message from Robinson demanding his immediate presence outside.
Drunk with jealousy, Robinson exhorts Richard for encroaching upon Elise.
He discovered her at sixteen and groomed her into an incomparable leading lady.
He wants nothing to obstruct her progress to becoming an immortal actress.
Richard assures Robinson that he has no intention of interfering with Elise's career,
but two burly stagehands jump him and leave him bound and gagged in the hotel stable.
Missing Richard in the audience, Elise will only take one curtain call. She hurries to her dressing room,
where Robinson informs her that Richard has left the hotel and her life.
By dawn, Richard has regained consciousness. He breaks free and runs to Elise's suite,
only to learn the company has checked out.
Destroyed, he slumps onto a bench in front of the hotel.
Suddenly, he hears her call out his name.
Richard and Elise are reunited, laughing now at their fear of having lost each other.
They retire to her suite and make love. Afterward,
they indulge in a passionate picnic on the rug.
Elise proposes he marry her, and he is only too happy to oblige.
Then, she could buy him a new suit as an engagement present.
Richard feigns shock at her disapproval of his natty brown stripped number.
He models it jokingly. When he arrives at the gloriously convenient pockets, he comes across a coin.
A 1979 penny.
The past is lost to him now. The image of Elise, crying out for him hysterically, fades helplessly from view.
Richard is telescoped to the present.
He staggers out of 117 and back to his own room, where he tries in vain to project himself back to Elise.
His only contact with the past is a pilgrimage he makes to the places where they spent their day together.
He returns to his room and collapses in a chair looking out on the harbor.
Arthur finds Richard in this catatonic state and phones a doctor to revive the listless young man.
There is nothing they can do to help him.
Richard's vision of Elise returns, coming gradually back into focus. She is extending her hand to welcome him back.
He takes off his bowler hat and rejoins her for eternity.
Now the movie is released in DVD version.
