SOMEWHERE IN TIME (1980): A Love Story For The Ages

Introduction

Mostly panned by critics and performing poorly at the box office, the Jeannot Szwarc-directed Somewhere in Time (1980) was the little movie that could. And it did. Richard Matheson’s moving and tragic book and subsequent screenplay have stood the test of time in the ensuing four decades as the film has developed a cult-like following. So much so that there are fan clubs and fanzines all over the world celebrating this now iconic love story.

To this day, legions of fans from all over the world converge on Mackinac Island, Michigan to visit the sprawling and palatial Grand Hotel, where this tale of love and tragedy takes place. From on-set romances to annual Comic-con-like conventions, the story of the making (and subsequent history) of Somewhere In Time is a fantastical tale. This is the journey of one of the most captivating love stories ever filmed.

Beginnings

Legendary science-fiction writer Richard Matheson was inspired to pen the source novel “Bid Time Return” after seeing a portrait of actress Maude Adams, hanging inside an Opera House in Nevada. The young Matheson became mesmerized by the portrait and began to research the actress, finding numerous interesting details on the reclusive actress’s life. The genesis for Matheson’s novel was born.

The author dived into his newest project, ‘becoming’ the main character of Richard Collier. In the early 1970s, Matheson stayed at the Hotel del Coronado in California (where the story takes place) for weeks, dictating his thoughts into a tape recorder. In fact, Matheson would base much of the background information of his leading lady, Elise McKenna, directly on Maude Adams. Released in 1975, the novel went on to win the 1976 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. It also caught the attention of Universal Pictures producer Steven Deutsch.

Richard Matheson, Stephen Deutsch, and director Jeannot Szwarc (Enigma, The Murders in the Rue Morgue) joined forces to fix the screenplay so that it would get the green light from Universal Pictures. Universal also ‘owed Szwarc a favor’ as he was the director of Jaws II (1978), which was a monster hit for Universal that year. Szwarc did what he could but the studio would only agree to put up the money if they cut the budget in half. They agreed.

Casting

With a budget of under $5 million, how did the trio of Szwarc, Deutsch, and Matheson nab both Superman and a Bond girl to star in their film? Carefully and with a bit of luck. As per Deutsch, Reeve’s agent balked when told the salary his client would be making. Reeve was a global star after his now iconic portrayal of Superman (1978). The agent refused to allow Reeve to even get near the script. That didn’t stop Deutsch who secretly slipped it to Reeve in the actor’s hotel room. Reeve loved it and agreed to do it. 

Reeve had turned down more money and starring roles in Urban Cowboy (1980), American Gigolo (1980), and Body Heat (1981) to star in the low-budget period-piece romantic drama. The late and much-beloved actor spoke to the New York Times in 1980 on why his follow-up to Superman was such a dramatic and tonal shift:

“I like the character…A man who’s incomplete. He has all the material things he needs, all the comforts, but he’s missing a passionate commitment to something other than himself and goes in search of it. It’s an absolutely honest attempt to create an old-fashioned romance. It’s based on love rather than on sex or X-rated bedroom scenes.” 

After first appearing in film back in 1969, Jane Seymour hit the big time when she nabbed the role of Bond Girl ‘Solitaire’ in the Roger Moore film Live and Let Die (1973). She followed this up by appearing as Princess Farah in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977). She also appeared in both the TV and film versions of Battlestar Galactica in the late 1970s. Much like with her co-star, when Seymour first read the script for Somewhere in Time, she was intrigued. After appearing in such standard fare as Oh Heavenly Dog (1980), the actress was ready for a change. Seymour came to her audition wearing a 1912-era gown and hairdo. She got the part.

Synopsis (w- Spoilers)

In 1972, Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) is celebrating the premiere of his newest play. An older woman comes up to Richard, handing him a pocket watch. She begs him, “Come back to me.” After the woman returns home, she passes away in her sleep. Eight years later, Richard is in Chicago and riddled with writer’s block. A successful playwright, Richard decides he needs a change of scenery. He drives to a resort called The Grand Hotel. While looking at all of the portraits on the hotel walls, he becomes transfixed on a vintage photo of Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), a stunning and successful stage actress from the early twentieth century and the same person who handed Richard the pocket watch.

Richard soon seeks out the former housekeeper of Elise, Laura (Teresa Wright). It is after meeting Laura that Richard begins to feel a deep connection to the now-deceased Elise. He opens a music box that plays Richards’s favorite piece of music by Rachmaninoff. He also discovers a book on time travel among Elise’s possessions. With Richard now falling in love (and obsession) with Elise, he researches how to travel back in time. It is during this research that Richard meets Dr. Gerrad Finney (George Voskovec), who states that he has been able to briefly travel back in time via self-suggestion. Richard realizes that he must try. 

The Journey Back

Dressed in period attire, Richard removes all modern accouterments from his body and hotel room. Using self-hypnosis, he fails to accomplish his goal of traveling back in time. Later, after looking through very old sign-in books from the hotel, Richard, indeed, sees his own signature. This gives him the needed willpower to try again. This time, he succeeds, awakening in 1912. He quickly tracks Elise down who upon first glance asks Richard “Is it you?” Her manager and keeper William Robinson (Christopher Plummer) breaks up the party and whisks Elise away, sensing potential trouble. Richard continues to pursue Elise who eventually agrees to go on a stroll, and then a boat ride with him. The two quickly begin to fall in love.

Elise tells Richard that her manager had predicted that she would meet someone who would change her life forever and that she should be fearful. Richard then shows Elise the pocket watch that she will eventually give him in 1972. Richard attends a play that Elise is starring in. During the play’s intermission, Elise poses for a formal photograph. As the shot is about to be taken, Elise sees Richard and smiles. This is the same image that Richard sees almost seventy years later.

Afterward, Richard is confronted by Robinson who sternly asks Richard to leave. Richard refuses, claiming that Robison is jealous of their love for each other. However, Robinson is merely obsessed with Elise becoming and staying a star and has no romantic interest in her. Richard refuses to back down and Robinson has Richard beaten, gagged, and locked in the horse stables. Robinson tells Elise that Richard never loved her and has left the grounds of the hotel. Of course, Elise doesn’t believe this and states to Robinson that she loves Richard, and always has.

Tragedy

The next morning Richard awakens in the stables and frees himself. While Elise’s acting company has left for Denver, she has remained to try and find Richard. They reunite and make love in her room for the first time. Richard and Elise agree to never leave each other and to get married as soon as possible. Elise also tells him that his suit is ten years out of style and promises to buy him a new one. Inside one of the pockets of his suit, Richard pulls out a shiny new 1979 penny. This breaks the hypnotic suggestion. Thus, pulling Richard into the present as Elise screams in horror.

Richard, who is now back in 1980, is physically drained from the time travel. In a panic, Richard attempts to return to 1912. However, these attempts prove fruitless and Richard is now stuck in the present day. After wandering the hotel grounds for weeks, without food, depressed and despondent, Richard collapses. Arthur (Bill Erwin), Richard’s friend and the hotel groundskeeper calls the paramedics but it’s too late. Richard dies of a broken heart. In the film’s closing moments, we see Richard joining Elise in the afterlife, reunited for eternity.

Filming

While it was the intention to film at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, that proved difficult. This was due to the modern utility lines, street traffic, and huge buildings surrounding the hotel. Soon after, the production team looked through the book “Great American Hotels” and discovered the Grand Hotel, located on Mackinac Island, Michigan. The island and hotel had appeared to be untouched by time. It was a stunning location to spend a Summer in. The team, of course, went to visit it in the middle of Winter. Still, even with Lake Huron covered in ice and snow, Szwarc and Deutsch knew this was the location for their love story.

Filming began on Somewhere in Time in the last week of May 1979, in Chicago for five days. Cast and crew then headed for Mackinac Island in early June for six weeks. The entire production immersed themselves in the hotel’s vibrant and historic aesthetic. A time when the horse and buggy were the predominant means of transportation. In fact, cars are not allowed on Mackinac Island. The use of cars for the ‘modern’ scenes required special permission from the town. Cars were allowed for filming, but the cast and crew could not drive on the island outside of filming. Many of the Mackinac Island residents were cast as extras in the film.

Cinematographer Isidore Mankofsky filmed the modern scenes with longer lenses and used more contrast-full Eastman film stock. Scenes that were set in the 1920s, however, were filmed using wide-angle lenses with Fuji film stock. Thus creating a different color palette and visual effect for the film. Mankofsky spoke with American Cinematographer in 1980 about the decision to create two distinct visual styles for the film:

“…We had to make sure that, in terms of visual presentation, these two periods would not look the same. The objective was to carry the audience back in time subtly but with a definite difference in the ‘look’ from one era to the other…We used Eastman color negative for the contemporary sequences because it tends to be a little harder in the shadows and to have a crisper, more solid look to it…We decided to go with Fuji color negative for the period sequences because it seems to be a bit more pastel. It doesn’t appear to have quite the resolving power of the Kodak stock…”

Music and Costumes

When it came to scoring Somewhere in Time, Actress Jane Seymour recommended legendary composer John Barry to director Jeannot Szwarc. Szwarc liked the idea but didn’t think that they could even afford to ask the multi-Oscar-winning composer. Seymour stated that Barry was a close friend of hers and that she would ask him to do it for scale. Barry loved the story and agreed to do it. It wound up becoming Barry’s all-time best-selling score, outselling all his other soundtracks combined. Barry had also wisely agreed to create the music in return for a small percentage of the soundtrack sales.

The film’s enchanting and soul-crushing theme music, which was selected by Barry, was the eighteenth variation of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”. With Barry’s now iconic original score along with the use of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody, the soundtrack became a huge surprise for Universal Records. Thus, making both Barry and Universal a lot of money for many decades to come. Music shops were inundated with requests for the film’s soundtrack. So much so that fifty-thousand more albums had to be ordered to satisfy the initial request.

Somewhere In Time garnered one Academy Award Nomination, for Best Costume Design, and deservedly so. The film wound up losing to Tess (1979), but the legacy of the costumes in Somewhere in Time lives on. Legendary costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorleac created all of the designs for the principal actors. Dorleac has stated that Seymour’s costume from the play cost $30,000 and was stolen before principal photography was completed. Jean-Pierre Dorleac spoke with Costume Design Archive in 2021 about getting inspiration to work on the film:

“…I watched Death in Venice, Mr. Skeffington, and Mrs. Parkington, in addition to the 1953 Fox film Titanic…To make certain all the accessories were factual I was granted access to the remaining books and the periodical library at MGM, where from bound volumes of period magazines I made notes about the customs, styles and colors of the days relating to the months in the story. Although I knew the era backward and forward from the many plays I had designed, I was searching to find a unique and character-defining style for the character of Elise McKenna, an actress with au courant haute couture taste…”

Falling in Love

Maybe it was the right place at the right time in the right setting that brought Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour together in real life. But Seymour has confirmed that this is what indeed happened during the production of Somewhere in Time. Seymour, now seventy-two, revealed what happened between her and Reeve at the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival:

“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…When you see this film, you will see the real thing. But we didn’t let anyone know…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”

In the case of the production of Somewhere in Time, art truly was imitating life, as Reeve and Seymour just were not meant to be. While they both were single and falling for each other during filming, towards the end of the shoot, Reeve’s ex-girlfriend Gae Exton let the actor know that she was pregnant with his child and was going public. This brought a crushing end to the relationship between Reeve and Seymour. The pair, however, remained close friends right up until the actor’s death in 2004. Seymour spoke to the audience at the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival:

“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…We remained really, really close friends, literally until the day he died. I have to believe that I will one day see him somewhere in time”

Release and Reception

A cast and crew screening in April 1980 gave everyone hope that Somewhere in Time would be a big hit. In fact, the opposite happened. The film was released on October 3, 1980, in the middle of an actors’ strike. This meant that the film’s actors couldn’t make appearances on TV or radio shows to promote it, thus generating no interest from the viewing public. Universal was also more focused on spending their dollars on trying to recoup their investment in the big-budgeted comedy The Blues Brothers (1980). The end result was Somewhere in Time came and went, underperforming at the box office.

Despite mixed to poor reviews domestically and an actor’s strike, the film was well-received overseas. Especially in Hong Kong where it became a cult hit. Somewhere in Time screened at the Palace Theater in British Hong Kong for a record-breaking 223 straight days. A record at the time, it sold the theater out for three straight months. The film went on to gross almost $10 million in Hong Kong, making it the highest-grossing international film of the year. It also had something else going for it – cable television.

Channel Z was the first ‘paid’ movie channel in Los Angeles. Its programmer, Jerry Harvey, loved Somewhere in Time. He ran the film all the time – sometimes twice a day. It began to catch on and the struggling and relatively new HBO wanted in. Since they couldn’t afford to pay for the more ‘expensive’ films, they began to run the film all the time as well. Combine this with growing VHS and soundtrack sales, and Somewhere in Time became a cult hit. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design (Jean-Pierre Dorleac) and won the Saturn Award for Best Costume, Best Music, and Best Fantasy Film. 

Legacy

Somewhere in Time found its footing in the early 1980s via cable TV and the foreign (Orient) market. As a result, the film began to be reassessed by fans and critics alike. This culminated in 1990 when superfan Bill Shepard founded INSITE (International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts). What followed over the subsequent three-plus decades was meticulous and fact-filled quarterly newsletters that, to date, have totaled over 2500 pages dedicated to what many were now calling the most romantic movie of all time.

Most importantly, however, is that Shepard, INSITE, and the film’s legions of fans helped create the ‘Somewhere in Time Weekend.’ This was an annual pilgrimage to The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island where everybody would dress up in period costumes, attend a grand ball, dance, and revel in the majesty. It was also an opportunity for the filmmakers and actors to revisit those six weeks in June 1979 and give thanks to the fans who had turned a box-office flop into an enduring classic.

Director Jeannot Szwarc, Richard Matheson, and Costume Designer Jean-Pierre Dorleac, all came to the initial gathering at the Grand Hotel in 1991. The Somewhere in Time weekends have been going strong for over three decades now. Fans from all over the world have made the Grand Hotel and Mackinac Island a ‘bucket list’ item. They are rewarded with nostalgia and memorabilia from the film spread all over the island in loving tribute to this magical film. Reeve himself came to the event in 1994 and was asked about where the film ranks for him. He stated:

“This holds the prime place by the fireside in my heart. This is the one that I have the greatest gratitude for. It’s very hard to perform and do your work, where you put your emotions forward for the camera, for people to see…and then have it greeted officially by the sound of one hand clapping. And that people found this move and said, ‘Wait a minute! It didn’t deserve the fate that it got. It didn’t deserve to be treated that way.’ It moves me more than you can know”

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