Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Christopher Reeve

Somewhere in Time Secrets Revealed

We lost all track of time last night, as we discussed “Somewhere in Time” (1980). I suppose it’s only appropriate, given the subject matter. Still, the show ran to three hours! Then we stopped the stream on the assumption that everyone had had enough, and we wound up talking for another hour, until 11:00 pm!

Thank you, Jo Addie, for sharing your recollections of working on the film. Jo is president of INSITE, the International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts. In that capacity, she has done great things for the film’s legacy – getting it restored and reissued on home video, getting it back into theaters for a limited run, producing documentaries, keeping up with the cast and crew, overseeing the newsletter, and hosting annual “Somewhere in Time” weekends on Mackinac Island.

You can learn all about it and her amazing journey, and marvel at how spontaneity and serendipity can literally change the course of one’s life, by listening to her story here:

Then definitely do check out the INSITE website, where you’ll find lots more great anecdotes and information:

https://www.somewhereintime.tv/

Ironically, in three hours, there was very little time to actually discuss the content of the movie itself, so maybe we’ll have to go back in time and address it again at some point.

For the immediate future, Roy’s got another special guest lined up for tomorrow: actress and dancer Tanya Lemani. Fans of the original “Star Trek” television series will remember Lemani from the episode “Wolf in the Fold” (1967).

Wolf down your dinner and make the trek to the comments section for an out-of-this-world conversation. You’ll be howling for more, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, when they livestream on Facebook, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

PHOTO: Jo Addie with Christopher Reeve on the set of “Somewhere in Time”

https://www.somewhereintime.tv/

April 9, 2022
Somewhere in Time: Jo Addie Interview

BREAKING! Jo Addie will be joining us tonight on “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” to share her reminiscences of “Somewhere in Time” (1980). A series of happenstances led Addie to appear through most of the film as an extra. During her three weeks on the intimate shoot on Mackinac Island, she got to know everyone pretty well, and she’s full of anecdotes about cast and crew, including actors Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, and Teresa Wright, writer Richard Matheson, and director Jeannot Szwarc.

Addie is also longtime president of INSITE (International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts, founded by Bill Shepard in 1990). In this capacity, she hosts “Somewhere in Time” weekends at Mackinac’s Grand Hotel, conducts interviews, produces documentaries, and oversees the publication of the society’s fan magazine.

Furthermore, I love the fact that her husband, Jim, worked for many years as an audio engineer at Chicago’s classical music station, WFMT!

Join us on a sentimental journey to 1912, by way of 1980, when we meet up “Somewhere in Time,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana, when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

PHOTO: Jo Addie (left) with Jane Seymour, on a visit to the plaque that now marks the location where the film’s time-defying lovers first meet.

More insight into INSITE here:

https://www.somewhereintime.tv/intro1.htm

April 8, 2022
Somewhere in Time John Barry’s Magic Touch

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!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

April 7, 2022
Superman The Movie Soars A New Year’s Day Live Stream

There’s nowhere to go but up!

Have a happy New Year; then join Roy and me for a program of super feats and a gravity-defying discussion of “Superman: The Movie” (1978).

Richard Donner’s dark horse blockbuster succeeded in spite of itself, with abundant behind-the-scenes drama and near-miss bad decisions by producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind, rescued from disaster by a dazzling, big red cape of an epic comic book adventure – really the first of its kind. So much questionable judgment could have derailed it faster than a California earthquake. Instead, “Superman” soared.

Needless to say, the film sports a definitive, star-making performance by Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, groundbreaking special effects by a team of Academy Award winning technicians, stunning cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth, and the quintessential super-score by John Williams. The opening credits alone are worth the price of admission!

Get 2021 started right, with a special New Year’s Day edition of Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Hang on to your Kryptonite, but leave your comments as we live-stream on Facebook. It’s up, up, and away, this Friday evening at 7:00 EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner/

December 31, 2020

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