Composer John Barry does a lot of the heavy lifting in the fantasy romance, “Somewhere in Time” (1980).
Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour star in a film about a modern-day playwright, who becomes obsessed with a portrait of an early 20th century actress, and wills himself, through self-suggestion, back through the decades to meet her.
Richard Matheson provided the screenplay, based upon one of his own novels. Matheson is the weird fiction scribe who gave us “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” “I Am Legend,” “The Legend of Hell House,” “Duel,” “What Dreams May Come,” and some of the best “Twilight Zone” episodes.
The author felt that “Somewhere in Time”s source material, “Bid Time Return,” represented some of his best writing. But in the movie, it’s Barry that really sells it. And a good thing too, since the director is Jeannot Szwarc – he of “Jaws 2,” “Supergirl,” and “Santa Claus: The Movie” notoriety.
Barry, a five-time Academy Award winner, left his stamp on a dozen James Bond movies. He scored the project as a favor to Seymour, a personal friend. Elsewise, the film’s modest budget would have prohibited hiring the composer at his usual fee.
Barry wrote the score shortly after losing both of his parents, which he credited, in part, for its strong emotional content. He must still have been under its spell a few years later, when he came to write his Oscar-winning music for “Out of Africa.”
Oh yeah, Rachmaninoff gets a pretty good workout too, as the characters are fond of “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.”
At the time of its release, “Somewhere in Time” received lukewarm reviews, but the film has been kept alive by an ardent fanbase of hopeless romantics.
You’ll need a steamer trunk full of lace handkerchiefs, when Roy and I make time for “Somewhere in Time,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Leave your implausible timepieces in the comments section (and your pennies at home), when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!
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