A deadly dream

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Movie
German title A deadly dream
Original title Somewhere in Time
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1980
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Jeannot Szwarc
script Richard Matheson
production Stephen Deutsch
Ray Stark
music John Barry
camera Isidore Mankofsky
cut Jeff Gourson
occupation

A Deadly Dream (alternate title: A Woman from Years Past ) is an American drama from 1980 . The literary film adaptation of the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson tells the tragic story of a young writer, played by Christopher Reeve , who falls in love with an old photo of an actress, played by Jane Seymour , and travels back in time to meet this love .

action

At Millfield College, the budding writer Richard Collier is given an old pocket watch by an old confused woman with the request that he return to her. Before Richard can be surprised, she disappears again and goes home, where she dies shortly afterwards.

Eight years later, Richard is an acclaimed best-selling author in Chicago , not only suffering from deadline but writer's block, so he takes his car and drives to the country to clear his head. On the way he discovers the Grand Hotel , completely unknown to him , where he checks in for one night. But since he cannot sit still in his room, he uses the time and strolls through the building and discovers the “Hall of History”, a small room where he discovers an old nameless painting of a woman with whom he immediately falls in love. He just can't get her out of his head and decides to find out who she is. After finding out in the library that it was the actress Elise McKenna, he visits Laura Roberts, with whom Elise lived until the end, to find out more about her. In doing so, he not only discovers that the old lady who once gave him the watch is Elise McKenna, but that a fate befell her in 1912, which turned the cheerful young woman into a sad, lonely and withdrawn lady.

Richard discovers a book about time travel by his former professor in Elise's estate. He goes to see him and asks himself how something like this could work. The professor thinks that one can make the leap in time through a perfect environment adapted to the respective time and self-hypnosis. So Richard gets up, puts on a historical suit and hairstyle, and looks for the room in the Grand Hotel . When he notices that any object that does not fit at the desired time makes hypnosis impossible, he succeeds in jumping in time to June 27, 1912 at 6 o'clock. Immediately he goes in search of Elise and is happy to discover that she has been expecting him without knowing who he is. But at first she thinks he is a pushy fan, so she leaves him and goes away with her manager, William Fawcett Robinson.

But Richard does not give up, and after a dance together, in which he is then thrown out by Robinson, he manages to spend an afternoon with Elise at the lake. Elise also falls in love with Richard and tells him that her manager claims that one day she will experience the only true love and that she will therefore save herself for this one man. Richard gives her the pocket watch that she once gave him and they both go to their room, where their subsequent kiss is interrupted by Robinson. He is horrified that his protégé is throwing himself at another man, and Elise is angry that Robinson is overstepping the limits of their purely business relationship here.

In the evening Richard visits the play in which Elise plays the leading role and is charmed by her performance. She herself has a longer text passage on stage in which she goes through the feelings and she modifies the text and speaks indirectly to Richard, saying out loud on stage that she loves him. And as excited as Richard is about it, Robinson is horrified because he sees that he is apparently losing his actress, which is why he has Richard ordered outside. Richard only gets the news shortly after seeing the photographer's desperate efforts to get the actress to smile. Elise only smiled in love when she saw Richard, and that's how the photo was taken that he fell in love with in 1980. But this love is still in the way of Robinson, who explains to him outside the hotel that he will not let his actress break. But because Richard doesn't want to know about it and Robinson assures him of his best intentions, he has him beaten up, tied up and thrown into the horse stable. Then he seizes the opportunity, tells a distraught Elise that Richard has left her forever, will never return and they will now leave.

When Richard is able to free himself from the stable, he looks for Elise and, after learning that they are leaving immediately, believes that he will never see her again. But Elise could not be stopped and returned to the hotel and is lucky to have Richard in her arms again. After spending a night of love, they have breakfast together the next morning and talk about their future together and Richard's strange suit, which has been out of style for at least 15 years. But when he wants to show her the suit and explains how much he likes it, he discovers a dollar coin with the portrait of Abraham Lincoln from 1979. Since this coin does not belong to this time, the hypnosis is no longer necessary and Richard has to be appalled find himself catapulted back in time, while at the same time leaving behind a terrified and desperate Elise in 1912. Of course, the depressed and deeply affected Richard tries to return to time again through hypnosis, but he does not make it. He gets stuck in his time and is eaten up by the pain of separation and lovesickness, so that he dies after more than a week without food and can only embrace his beloved Elise again in heaven.

criticism

"Melodrama with a tragic ending against the backdrop of a bygone era, which offers contemplative entertainment in a dignified staging, with good actors and mostly convincing construction."

- Lexicon of international film

“ Somewhere in Time is to time travel exactly what the Hindenburg was to airships . […] The script is priceless (funny) and, although both Miss Seymour and Christopher Plummer […] play believably, it is unfortunately Mr. Reeve who sets the mood of the film: Unfortunately, it is the qualities that make it one ideal Superman , namely his unclouded good looks, his granite profile, his radiant naivete and his zeal, just absurd. "

- Vincent Canby in the New York Times

“ Somewhere in Time wants us to share his sweeping romantic idealism about a love so great that it not only spans decades, but also violates the sanctity of time. [...] In his first film since Superman , Reeve is not particularly convincing. He looks a little dull and awkward. He seems so desperately serious about his love for the actress that he seems to squint every time. The whole film is so solemn and so revered on its subject that it ends up being just silly. "

- Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times

background

The “Pipers Opera House”, place of inspiration for the story
Richard Matheson fell in love with this photo of Maude Adams and then wrote the novel Bid Time Return

Creation of the novel

When the writer Richard Matheson was touring the country with his family, he discovered the photo of actress Maude Adams at Piper's Opera House in Virginia City , which he considered a "great photograph". It inspired him so much that he fell in love with the picture and the woman that he wondered, "What if this happened to some guy who could go back in time?" Then Matheson began on life Adams did some research and was surprised at their seclusion. To write the novel, he rented the Hotel del Coronado for several weeks , where he spoke his impressions on a dictation machine and empathized with the role of Richard Collier. Adams served his figure of Elise McKenna almost identically as a model. The title of the novel Bid Time Return was derived from the line from Shakespeare's drama Richard II , from the second scene of the third act: “O call back yesterday, bid time return”.

Differences between book and film

In the novel, Richard travels from 1971 to 1886, while in the film from 1980 he travels to 1912. In addition, the plot has been moved from the Hotel del Coronado to the Grand Hotel . While the time travel is not doubted in the film, Richard dies of a brain tumor in the book and the time travel is presented as a series of hallucinations . In addition, the scene with the clock does not exist in the novel and it is not Robinson who spoke of Richard's arrival, but two fortune tellers who prophesied it.

Fan club

In 1990 Bill Shepard founded the International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts (INSITE), a film fan club "to honor both the film and all those who helped create the film." Insite initiated a memorial stone for the film on Mackinac Island , near the hotel where the film was shot. In addition, the 1997 fan club paid for Reeves Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and sponsored the TV series Dr. Quinn - a passionate doctor 1999 Seymours Stern. In addition, the fan club organizes an annual weekend in the Grand Hotel, where all guests dress appropriately for the film and celebrate with the filmmakers.

Awards

production

The film was shot at the Grand Hotel, Mackinac College , Mackinac Island and Chicago.

During the shooting, the director Jeannot Szwarc had problems addressing the right Chris in scenes between Christopher Plummer and Christopher Reeve, so he addressed Plummer with Mr. Plummer and Reeve with Bigfoot .

In the film, Richard Collier speaks to a Dr. Finney about his time travel book. This is a reference to the writer Jack Finney , whose novel The Other Shore of Time was published five years before Bid Time Return and works with the same premise of time travel.

Since the use of automobiles is prohibited on Mackinac Island, with the exception of emergency vehicles, the city council had to grant special permission during the shoot. Actual traffic on the island is limited to horse, buggy or bicycle.

The then completely unknown William H. Macy , Don Franklin and George Wendt each have an extra role in the film. Richard Matheson made a cameo as a hotel guest and the guests of the hotel at the time were hired as extras.

publication

The original budget for the production of the film was estimated at $ 8 million. Universal Studios only wanted to produce the film if it cost four million. In the end, it was $ 5.1 million. Because of an actors' strike, Reeve and Seymour were banned from promoting the film. However, the film was still able to gross $ 9.7 million at the box office after it launched on October 3, 1980. In the German-speaking countries the film was not released in theaters and was only released on VHS in November 1986 in the Federal Republic . The film has been available on DVD since October 31, 2000.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vincent Canby : Somewhere in Time (1980) on nytimes.com of October 3, 1980 (English), accessed January 4, 2012
  2. ↑ Roger Ebert : Somewhere in Time on suntimes.com of October 6, 1980 (English), accessed on January 4, 2012
  3. ↑ Diaz de Chumaceiro, Cora L. "Maude Adam's Portrait as Muse for Richard Matheson." Creativity Research Journal, 2005, Vol. 17, Issue 2.3, page 297/298.
  4. ^ Latter-day Saint (Mormon) Main Character in the movie Somewhere In Time (1980) . LDSFilm.com. November 5, 2004. Retrieved January 4, 2012.
  5. ^ Shephard, The Somewhere in Time Story
  6. ↑ Somewhere in Time (1980) at boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed January 4, 2012