Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Somewhere in Time Blu-ray Movie Review

A Penny for Your Thoughts

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 17, 2014

Somewhere in Time was greenlit by Universal only because the head of production owed director Jeannot Szwarc a favor. Then it was savaged by critics upon release (at a time when print reviews had far more influence than today) and twice given a lackluster treatment on DVD. Nevertheless, the film has sustained its popularity for 34 years on the strength of Richard Matheson's romantic screenplay (based on his novel Bid Time Return), the heartfelt lead performances by Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve, Szwarc's restrained, intelligent direction and the haunting score by John Barry, the theme of which was heard most recently during the "In Memoriam" segment at the Academy Awards.

Matheson, who passed away in 2013, is best known as a writer of science fiction and horror. His novel I Am Legend has been adapted for the screen multiple times and has also been cited as an inspiration for George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead . His story "Button, Button" inspired Richard Kelly's The Box; David Koepp wrote and directed a feature film based on the novel Stir of Echoes; and Matheson himself wrote the screenplay for the 1973 cult classic, The Legend of Hell House, based on his novel Hell House. He also wrote many episodes for Rod Serling's original The Twilight Zone .

Somewhere in Time shows a different side of Matheson. It, too, has a sci-fi element in the form of time travel, but in this particular story time represents something other than a technological challenge. Somewhere in Time is a love story, and like all great love stories, it concerns lovers separated by obstacles that seem insurmountable. There can be no greater obstacle than the fact that the lovers exist in different eras. In Matheson's story, traveling through time becomes their solution. It is also their curse.

Richard Collier (Reeve) is a successful playwright who has been on a roll since he graduated college in 1972. After eight years, however, he has hit a wall creatively and personally. On an impulse he drives north from his Chicago home and checks into the Grand Hotel, a sumptuous Victorian-era resort near his old college. It is there he finds himself enthralled by the black-and-white portrait of Elise McKenna (Seymour), a famous and reclusive stage actress from the early 20th Century who once performed at the hotel's theater and stayed there in later life.

With assistance from an elderly hotel clerk named Arthur (Bill Erwin), who has worked at the Grand Hotel his entire life, and also from Laura Roberts (Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver), Elise McKenna's biographer and companion in her final years, Richard learns everything he can about the mysterious actress whose image has seized his imagination. Incredible as it seems, Richard's research ultimately convinces him that he and Elise McKenna have already met and that he is somehow destined to travel back in time to be with her. A visit with a former professor, Dr. Gerald Finney (George Voskovec), whose book on time travel was among the actress' personal effects, provides Richard with a possible method for achieving this feat through self-hypnosis. After many attempts that end in failure and frustration, Richard Collier awakens one day in a room in the Grand Hotel to the sound of horses clip-clopping along the paths outside. He has transported himself back to 1912, and Elise McKenna is staying at the hotel.

Despite extensive preparation, Richard is entirely out of his element in this era. His clothing is wrong, he has no verifiable identity and he barely has enough money to pay for a room (having acquired only a few old coins for the journey). He cuts himself to ribbons with a straight razor, and his impatience to find the woman he is seeking marks him as an eccentric to everyone he meets. But something magical happens when Richard and Elise lock eyes for the first time. "Are you the one?" she asks him. "Yes", he replies. Her question doesn't mean exactly what Richard thinks, but ultimately it doesn't matter.

The lovers are not alone. Richard has to contend with Elise McKenna's iron-willed manager, W.F. Robinson (Christopher Plummer), who has nurtured and guided her career since she was a teenager, fending off all romantic distractions that might interfere with the actress' concentration. To Robinson, Richard is just another adventurer, perhaps a little bolder and more persistent than the rest. And Robinson genuinely has feelings for his protégé, though not of a romantic nature. Richard's journey into the past becomes a kind of triangle, with Robinson and Richard locked in combat over Elise's future and Robinson willing to use any means to win, including violence. Eventually, though, it is Elise who must decide. Even then, there remains the question of how a man who has literally willed himself backwards in time can ever find a place in an era where he doesn't belong.

Seymour and Reeve have extraordinary chemistry, in part because they share the same combination of exceptional looks with a haunted quality that makes them seem detached from any particular time and place. As a couple, Elise and Richard appear to exist in their own world, as all lovers feel that they do. The intensity of their longing for each other is enhanced by the lyrical beauty of their surroundings—the Grand Hotel is a real place on Mackinac Island in Michigan—and by John Barry's remarkable score, which would certainly have been nominated for an Oscar if the film had been more successful on its initial release. The music has since been recognized as among Barry's finest work. Rarely has such gentle instrumentation captured overwhelming emotion to so great effect.

Somewhere in Time Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As described in the documentary, "Back to Somewhere in Time", cinematographer Isidore Mankofsky shot the film with different stocks for scenes set in 1912 and those in the present. The Fuji stock used for scenes in 1912 produced lighter colors and a softer image, which Mankofsky further softened with diffusion filters. Universal's two DVD releases of the film disappointed fans with a weak transfer and a lack of 16:9 enhancement. The presentation on this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is a huge improvement, though not without the usual issues found on Blu-rays from Universal's catalog.

The strongest element is the palette. The present-day scenes have saturated colors, realistic and, where appropriate, deeply rich. A good example is the Grand Hotel's historical gallery where Elise McKenna's portrait hangs. The 1912 scenes lean toward the delicate pastel shades of the Impressionist paintings that Mankofsky and director Szwarc studied as a guide to staging some of the key scenes, especially those on the beach where Richard and Elise stroll as a couple.

Detail is generally quite good, although, as noted, the image for the 1912 scenes has been deliberately softened and diffused. Nevertheless, the fine points of the period costumes are readily discernible, and so are facial details. Detail only falls off as the image moves away from the camera's focal point. Black levels, when there is black to be seen, are generally solid, with a slight shading toward grey in the 1912 scenes. Here again, the diffusion is probably the cause.

As usual, Universal has followed their video-not-film approach, but in this case the very nature of the material seems to have constrained them. Imagery from 1912 shouldn't look like video, and by and large it doesn't, probably because Mankofsky's diffused images simply resist such transformation. Still, the effort has been made, primarily through digital sharpening, which isn't so severe as to cause edge haloes or, in most frames, noticeably "pop" figures out of the background beyond the intent of the original photography. But the electronic "enhancement" does coarsen the film's natural grain. Most of the time, the effect isn't intrusive, but it does make some shots noisier than they needed to be, without conferring any real additional sharpness. The effect is more pronounced in the contemporary scenes than the 1912 sequences, but it can be observed in both. I suspect, though, that many viewers probably won't notice.

At an average bitrate of 31.99 Mbps, the disc has more than enough bandwidth to handle the demands of Somewhere in Time without artifacts.

Somewhere in Time Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original mono mix is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's a wonderful mix, with simple sounds like horse hooves or a radio broadcast used sparingly and to great effect. As much as one would like to have John Barry's score in stereo, it sounds quite good in mono, with decent fidelity and good dynamic range, and so does the selection from Rachmaninoff that Barry selected for a key plot point in the story. The dialogue has been carefully mixed for intelligibility, and it had to be done carefully, because, as Szwarc notes, Barry was a composer who was willing to risk placing underscoring beneath important dialogue.

Somewhere in Time Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Universal first released Somewhere in Time on DVD in 1998 with only production notes and a trailer. In 2000, it released a "Collector's Edition" with an array of extras that have been ported over to the Blu-ray, with the omission only of the production notes and the cast and crew listings.

• Back to Somewhere in Time Documentary (480i; 1.33:1; 1:03:42): Produced and directed by Laurent Bouzereau, this comprehensive 2000 documentary traces the development, production and release of Somewhere in Time in exhaustive detail. Extensive interviews are included with Szwarc, Matherson, Seymour, Reeve and Plummer, as well as producer Stephen Deutsch, cinematographer Mankofsky, Teresa Wright, Bill Erwin and John Barry. Numerous photographs of the cast and crew at work on location are also included.



• The Somewhere in Time Fan Club (480i; 1.33:1; 3:23): Bill Shepard, founder of INSITE (International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts), describes the origins of the fan club and its activities.



• Production Photographs (1080p; various): Approximately 48 photographs of varying sizes. Despite the 1080p resolution, most of the photos are so small that they lack detail when blown up to viewable size.



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1.85:1, non-enhanced; 2:07): As Szwarc justly complains in his commentary, the trailer gives away too much.



• Commentary with Director Jeannot Szwarc: Much of Szwarc's commentary repeats what he says in the documentary, but he amplifies and expands on the stories and adds insight from his general experience as a director. Of particular note is his discussion of filming the script out of sequence (he would have preferred to let the actors play the story straight through) and of making editorial changes during post-production when he did not have final cut.

Somewhere in Time Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Somewhere in Time was rescued by fans, but its durability over the years has elevated it beyond the status of cult classic. It belongs on anyone's list of great cinematic love stories. (I would offer a more detailed argument, except that it can't be done without revealing much more of the plot.) Universal's Blu-ray isn't perfect, but it's such a major advance over any version released to date that its shortcomings should be overlooked, especially since a new version is unlikely. Highly recommended.