Coming up next we have 1980's "Somewhere In Time", a film about a man who travels through time to find a woman he becomes obsessed with.
The film's cast includes Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright, Bill Erwin, George Voskovec, William H. Macy, and Susan French.
The year is 1972. At Millfield College in Chicago, playwright Richard Collier is celebrating the opening night of his play. At the afterparty, an old woman whom he does not know approaches him. She places a pocket watch in his hands and says, "Come back to me." She leaves the room as a perplexed Richard watches her. After her departure, the party goes back to normal.
The old woman returns to her residence, the Grand Hotel. There she caresses the program of the play and listens to her favorite piece of music. We find out that she dies that night.
Eight years later, Richard is suffering from writer's block. Wanting to clear his head, he drives out of Chicago and is drawn to the Grand Hotel.
While poking around in the hotel's Hall of History, Richard becomes enamored with a photograph on the wall. There is no nameplate, and he is fascinated by who she is.
Richard finds out from hotel staff member Arthur that the woman is Elise McKenna, a famous actress who starred in a play at the hotel theater in 1912.
He becomes obsessed with the photograph. All of his thoughts, both day and night, turn to it, and it haunts his dreams.
While doing research on her at the local library, Richard comes to realize that the old woman who gave him the watch eight years previously was Elise.
He goes to visit Elise's friend and biographer. At her house, she shoes him some of Elise's belongings, including a book about time travel (with which Elise was obsessed) and a music box she had made. Richard marvels at the music played by the box, which is his favorite.
Richard then goes to see the author of the time travel book, who advises Richard on what he possibly might do if he was looking to time travel.
He buys time period clothes, gets a new haircut, and records specific dates and facts to play back to himself in an attempt to hypnotize his mind. His initial tries fail, and it is only after discovering his signature in a 1912 hotel guestbook that Richard becomes convinced that he can make it.
He eventually does make it to 1912, and he's both delighted and shocked to be there.
His first order of business is finding Elise McKenna, which he does. She is walking down by the lake at evening time. When she sees Richard, Elise asks, "Is it you?" He replies, "Yes."
Their meeting is interrupted by Elise's manager, William Fawcett Robinson, who escorts her back to the hotel.
Richard begins to pursue Elise. A little unsure at first, she becomes more and more fond of Richard.
Against the wishes of Robinson, Elise spends all of the next day with Richard, and the two fall in love. While rowing out on the lake, Richard hums his favorite piece of music for her, which she also falls in love with.
Elise leaves a ticket for Richard at the theater door. He watches her on the stage completely mesmerized. All of the play's cast is shocked when Elise nearly rewrites the entire first act mid-performance. Nobody is more upset than her manager, who realizes that she is in love with Richard.
While visiting her backstage, Richard walks in on Elise having her picture taken. As she sits for the portrait, he realizes that it is the photograph he saw on the hotel wall. In reality, she was smiling at him when it was taken.
Robinson vows to break them apart, and he even engineers a "kidnapping" of Richard so that Elise will think he's left. She's not fooled, however. She breaks off her association with Robinson and leaves the acting company, intent on staying until she finds Richard.
Richard and Elise eventually do find each other and embrace, telling each other they will never leave one another.
They're idyllic romance is shattered, however, when Richard finds an object from "the future". He is pulled back into 1980 as Elise screams his name. He leaves behind the pocket watch which she gave to him as an old lady.
Back in the present, Richard tries desperately to return to Elise, but all of his attempts fail. He slowly loses the will to live, and he ends up dying in his hotel suite.
When he does die, he is reunited with Elise as she welcomes him to the afterlife with an outstretched arm.
Cast rundown:
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
William H. Macy..................................Critic
Susan French.....................................Older Elise
And that's it for Somewhere In Time. This film was adapted from the novel "Bid Time Return". In that book, the setting is the Hotel del Coronado in California and not the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. In the book, Richard is suffering from a brain tumor, and it is thought that the whole idea of his time travel was brought on by hallucinations from his tumor.
I leave you with a video montage of the some still photographs of the film accompanied by the movie's iconic theme song.
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