Somewhere in Time is a 1980
romanticRomance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
science fiction filmScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
directed by
Jeannot SzwarcJeannot Szwarc is a French Film/TV Director.Szwarc was born in Paris. He began working as a director in American television during the 1960s, in particular on Ironside...
. It is a
film adaptationFilm adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
of the 1975
novelA novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Bid Time ReturnBid Time Return is a 1975 science fiction novel by Richard Matheson. It concerns a man from the 1970s who travels back in time to court a 19th century stage actress whose photograph has captivated him...
by
Richard MathesonRichard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
, who also wrote the
screenplayA screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
. The film stars
Christopher ReeveChristopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...
,
Jane SeymourJane Seymour, OBE is an English actress best known for her performances in the James Bond film Live and Let Die , East of Eden , Onassis: The Richest Man in the World , and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman...
,
Christopher PlummerArthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...
,
Teresa WrightTeresa Wright was an American actress. She received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her performance in Mrs. Miniver. That same year, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her performance in Pride of the Yankees opposite Gary Cooper...
, and
Bill ErwinWilliam Lindsey "Bill" Erwin was an American film, stage and television actor with over 250 television and film credits...
.
Reeve plays Richard Collier, a
playwrightA playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
who becomes smitten by a photograph of a young woman at the
Grand HotelThe Grand Hotel is a historic hotel and coastal resort located on Mackinac Island, Michigan, a small island located at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac within Lake Huron between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. Constructed in the late 19th century, the facility advertises itself as...
. Through self-
hypnosisHypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
, he travels back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour). But her manager William Fawcett Robinson (portrayed by Plummer) fears that romance will derail her career and resolves to stop him.
The film is known for its musical
scoreA film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
composed by
John BarryJohn Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987...
. The eighteenth variation of
Sergei RachmaninoffSergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
's
Rhapsody on a Theme of PaganiniThe Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor, Op. 43 is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is written for solo piano and symphony orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto. The work was written at Villa Senar, according to the score, from July 3 to August 18, 1934...
also runs throughout the film.
Plot summary
In May 1972, college theater student Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) is celebrating the debut of a play he has written. During the celebration, he is approached by an elderly woman who places a
pocket watchA pocket watch is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popular after World War I during which a transitional design,...
in his hand and pleads "come back to me". Richard does not recognize the woman, who returns to her own residence afterward.
Eight years later, Richard is a successful playwright living in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, but has recently broken up with his girlfriend and is struggling with
writer's blockWriter's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...
. Feeling stressed from writing his play, he decides to take a break and travels out of town to the
Grand HotelThe Grand Hotel is a historic hotel and coastal resort located on Mackinac Island, Michigan, a small island located at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac within Lake Huron between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. Constructed in the late 19th century, the facility advertises itself as...
. While looking at a display in the hotel's museum, Richard becomes enthralled by a photograph of a beautiful woman. With the assistance of Arthur Biehl (
Bill ErwinWilliam Lindsey "Bill" Erwin was an American film, stage and television actor with over 250 television and film credits...
), an old
bellhopA bellhop, also bellboy or bellman, is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform , like certain other page boys or doormen...
who has been at the hotel since 1910, Richard discovers that the woman is Elise McKenna, a famous early 20th century stage actress. Upon digging deeper, Richard learns that she was the aged woman who gave him the pocket watch eight years earlier, but subsequently died later that same evening. Traveling to McKenna's home, he discovers a music box she had made, in the shape of the Grand Hotel, that plays
his favorite melodyThe Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor, Op. 43 is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is written for solo piano and symphony orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto. The work was written at Villa Senar, according to the score, from July 3 to August 18, 1934...
. He also discovers among her effects a book on
time travelTime travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
written by his old college professor, Dr. Gerard Finney (
George VoskovecJiří Voskovec was a Czech-American actor, playwright, dramatist, director, translator, and poet...
), and learns that McKenna read the book several times. Richard becomes obsessed with the idea of traveling back to 1912 and meeting Elise McKenna, with whom he has fallen in love.
Visiting Finney, Richard learns that the man believes that he himself very briefly time traveled once to 1571 through the power of self-suggestion. To accomplish this feat of self-hypnosis, Finney tells Richard, one must remove from sight all things that are related to the current time and trick the mind into believing that one is in the past. He also warns that such a process would leave one very weak, perhaps dangerously so. Richard buys an early 20th century suit and some vintage money and cuts his hair in a time-appropriate style. Dressing himself in the suit, he removes all modern objects from his hotel room and attempts to will himself into the year 1912 using
tape-recordedAn audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...
suggestions, only to fail for lack of real conviction. Later, while searching the hotel's attic, Richard finds an old guest book from 1912 with his signature in it and realizes that he will eventually succeed.
Richard again hypnotizes himself, this time with the tape recorder hidden under the bed, and allows his absolute faith in his eventual success to become the trigger for the journey back through time. He drifts off to sleep and awakens to the sound of whinnying horses on June 27, 1912. Richard looks all over the hotel for Elise, even meeting Arthur as a little boy, but he has no luck finding her. Finally, he stumbles upon Elise walking by a tree near the lake. She seems to swoon slightly at the sight of him, but then suddenly asks him if he is "the one". McKenna's manager, William Fawcett Robinson, abruptly intervenes and sends Richard away. Richard stubbornly continues to pursue Elise until she finally agrees to accompany him on a stroll through the surrounding idyllic landscape. Richard ultimately asks why Elise wondered aloud if he was "the one". She replies that Robinson somehow knows that she will meet a man one day who will change her life forever. Richard then shows Elise the same pocket watch which she will eventually give him in 1972, but he does not reveal its origin, merely saying it was a gift.
Having checked into room 416 at precisely 9:18 am, Richard accepts Elise's invitation to her play. He attends the comedic-farce and she, in an almost trance-like state, recites an impromptu monologue dedicated to him. During intermission, he finds her posing formally for a photograph. Upon spotting Richard, Elise breaks into a radiant smile. The camera captures what we realize is the same portrait that Richard will see 68 years later on a wall at the Grand Hotel. He later receives a letter from Robinson asking to meet him immediately and saying that it is a matter of life and death. Robinson tricks Richard and has him tied up and thrown into the stables. Later, Robinson tells Elise that Richard has left her and is not the one, but she replies that she does not believe him and he is wrong. Elise admits to Robinson that she loves Richard and that he will make her very happy. Dispirited, Robinson leaves her dressing room and reminds her that they leave within the hour.
Richard wakes up the next morning and escapes his constraints. He runs to Elise's room and finds that her party has left. Despondent, he goes out to the hotel's porch. Suddenly, he hears Elise calling his name and sees her running towards him. They return to his room together and make love. The next morning they agree to marry. Elise tells him that the first thing she will do for him is buy him a new suit. (The suit Richard has been wearing the entire time in 1912 is about ten to fifteen years out of style.) Richard begins to show her how practical the suit is because of its many pockets. He is alarmed when he reaches into one and finds a shiny new Lincoln penny with a mint date of 1979. Seeing an item from his real present wrenches him out of his hypnotically-induced time trip, and Richard feels himself rushing backwards with Elise screaming his name in horror as he is pulled inexorably out of 1912.
Richard then wakes up back in the present but in the room he just left in the past at the Grand Hotel. He is drenched in sweat and very weak, apparently exhausted from his trip through time and back. He scrambles desperately back to his own room and tries to hypnotize himself again, without success. Heartbroken and after wandering around the hotel property and sitting interminably at the places where he spent time with Elise, he eventually retires to his room and remains there unmoving for days until discovered by Arthur and the hotel manager; they send for a doctor and paramedics. Richard suddenly smiles and sees himself drifting above his body and (having presumably died of a
broken heartA broken heart is a common metaphor used to describe the intense emotional pain or suffering one feels after losing a loved one, whether through death, divorce, breakup, physical separation or romantic rejection....
) is drawn to a light shining through the nearby window, where he is reunited with Elise.
Differences from the novel
In the novel, Richard travels from 1971 to 1896 rather than 1980 to 1912. The setting is the
Hotel del CoronadoHotel del Coronado is a beachfront luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort...
rather than the Grand Hotel. Unlike in the film, he is dying from a
brain tumorA brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...
, and the book ultimately raises the possibility that the whole time-traveling experience is merely a series of
hallucinationA hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
s. The scene where the old woman hands Richard a pocket watch (which an older version of himself had given to her) does not appear in the book. Thus, the ontological paradox generated by this event (that the watch was never built, but simply exists eternally) is absent. In the book, it is two
psychicA psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
s, not William Fawcett Robinson, who anticipate Richard's appearance. And Richard's death at the end is brought about by his tumor, not heartbreak.
Reception
Although this movie was well received during its previews, it was widely derided by critics upon release, and it underperformed at the
box officeA box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
. In 2009, in an interview with WGN America, Jane Seymour stated "It was just a little movie...
The Blues BrothersThe Blues Brothers is a 1980 musical comedy film directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, characters developed from a musical sketch on the NBC variety series Saturday Night Live. It features musical numbers by R&B and soul singers James...
came out the same week and it was a $4 million budget, so Universal didn't really support it. There was also an actors
strikeStrike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
, so Chris [Reeve] and I weren't allowed to publicize it. And they barely put it out because I don't think anyone really believed in it."
Jane's memory on this point is incorrect, however. The Blues Brothers was released June 20, 1980; Somewhere in Time premiered September 17, and released October 3, 1980. The actual budget for Somewhere in Time had originally been set at 8 million, but the studio would only "green light" the picture by cutting the budget in half ($4 million). The final figure was 5.1 million. The actors strike prevented Reeve and Seymour from promoting the film, as making public appearances to promote a film is considered 'work'. No positive buzz could be generated, and the critics were harsh.
Awards
Somewhere in Time has received several awards, including
Saturn AwardThe Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s for
Best Costume,
Best MusicThe following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Music.-Multiple Winners:*John Williams - 7 awards*Danny Elfman - 5 awards*James Horner - 3 awards*Alan Silvestri - 3 awards*Alan Menken - 2 awards*John Ottman - 2 awards*Miklós Rózsa - 2 awards...
, and
Best Fantasy FilmThe following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Fantasy Film:...
. The film was also nominated for the
Academy Award for Costume DesignThe Academy Award for Best Costume Design is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for achievement in film costume design....
.
Production notes
The movie was filmed on location at the
Grand HotelThe Grand Hotel is a historic hotel and coastal resort located on Mackinac Island, Michigan, a small island located at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac within Lake Huron between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. Constructed in the late 19th century, the facility advertises itself as...
, and the former
Mackinac CollegeMackinac College was a private liberal arts college which opened on Mackinac Island, Michigan, in the fall of 1966 and closed several years later. The campus was later turned into a hotel, Mission Point Resort....
(during filming, Inns of Mackinac, now Mission Point Resort), located on
Mackinac IslandMackinac Island is a city in Mackinac County in the U.S. state of Michigan. In the 2010 census, the city had a permanent population of 492, although there are thousands more seasonal workers and tourists during the summer months. From 1818–1882, the city was the county seat of the former...
,
MichiganMichigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. It was also filmed in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
.
- Director Jeannot Szwarc had a slight problem directing the scenes between Christopher Plummer and Christopher Reeve in that whenever he said "Chris" both men would respond with "Yes?" Szwarc resolved this by deciding to address Christopher Plummer as "Mr. Plummer" and addressing Christopher Reeve as "Bigfoot
Bigfoot, also known as sasquatch, is an ape-like cryptid that purportedly inhabits forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid...
".
- The final scene between Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour before Reeve's character is thrown back into his own time was difficult for Reeve to shoot because he had just learned that his then girlfriend and companion, Gae Exton, was pregnant with his first son, Matthew. For much of that day his attention was understandably elsewhere. Reeve says on the bonus material of the 2000 DVD, "The day we shot the picnic scene on the floor I found out, and the world found out, that I was about to be a father for the first time."
- In the film, Reeve's character consults with a Dr. Finney (played by George Voskovec), a time travel theorist. This is a deliberate nod to author Jack Finney
Jack Finney was an American author. His best-known works are science fiction and thrillers, including The Body Snatchers and Time and Again. The former was the basis for the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its remakes.-Biography:Finney was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and given the...
, whose novel Time and AgainTime and Again is a 1970 illustrated novel by Jack Finney. The many illustrations in the book are real, though, as explained in an endnote, not all are from the 1882 period in which the actions of the book take place. It had long been rumored that Robert Redford would convert the book into a movie...
, published five years before the book on which this film is based, features an almost identical theory on the mechanics of time travel.
- The cars used in the film required special permission from the City of Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island is a city in Mackinac County in the U.S. state of Michigan. In the 2010 census, the city had a permanent population of 492, although there are thousands more seasonal workers and tourists during the summer months. From 1818–1882, the city was the county seat of the former...
to be brought onto, and driven on, the island. Motorized vehicles, other than emergency vehicles and snowmobiles in the winter, are prohibited on Mackinac Island. With very few exceptions, like motorized ambulanceAn ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...
s, transportation is limited to horse and buggy or bicycle.
- Elise McKenna was a fictional actress, but in the scene where Collier is in the library searching and looks through an old theater album there are several pictures of well-known real life stage actresses. The picture of three little girls is of Blanche Ring
Blanche Ring , was an American singer and actress in Broadway theatre productions, musicals, and Hollywood motion pictures....
and her sisters. A child holding a doll is actress Rose StahlRose Stahl was a Canadian/American stage actress, born in Montreal. Her father was Col. Ernest Charles Stahl, a newspaperman who was drama and music critic for a newspaper called the Chicago InterOcean and her mother was French-Canadian. The Col in front her father's name suggests he was a veteran...
. A picture of a woman in nun's habit, just barely made out, is Ethel BarrymoreEthel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
in a 1928 play, The Kingdom of God. (Barrymore's head is left out of the frame as she would be readily recognizable by alert fans of old films.)
- Elise McKenna's character was loosely based upon the life of theatre actress Maude Adams
Maude Ewing Kiskadden , known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American stage actress who achieved her greatest success as Peter Pan. Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more...
, who was born Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden in Salt Lake City, UtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
on November 11, 1872. She died in TannersvilleTannersville is a village in Greene County, New York, USA. The village is in the east-central part of the town of Hunter on Route 23A. The population was 539 at the 2010 census.- History :...
, New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
on July 17, 1953. Her manager, Charles FrohmanCharles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....
(whom Christopher Plummer played as William Fawcett Robinson) was very protective of her. He died on the RMS LusitaniaRMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. The ship entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 26 August 1907 and continued on the line's heavily-traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New...
on May 7, 1915 when it was torpedoed by a German submarine during World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Main cast
| Actor | Role |
| Christopher Reeve Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...
|
Richard Collier |
Jane SeymourJane Seymour, OBE is an English actress best known for her performances in the James Bond film Live and Let Die , East of Eden , Onassis: The Richest Man in the World , and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman...
|
Elise McKenna |
Christopher PlummerArthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...
|
William Fawcett Robinson |
Teresa WrightTeresa Wright was an American actress. She received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her performance in Mrs. Miniver. That same year, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her performance in Pride of the Yankees opposite Gary Cooper...
|
Laura Roberts |
| Bill Erwin William Lindsey "Bill" Erwin was an American film, stage and television actor with over 250 television and film credits...
|
Arthur Biehl |
Susan FrenchSusan French was an American stage, television and film actress.French appeared in the TV movie People Like Us . She also played the role of Mrs. Shaw in the TV movie Captain America and its sequel, Captain America II: Death Too Soon. French acted in the soap opera Bare Essence...
|
Older Elise |
| George Voskovec Jiří Voskovec was a Czech-American actor, playwright, dramatist, director, translator, and poet...
|
Dr. Gerard Finney |
| Eddra Gale Eddra Gale was an American actress and singer.Originally an opera singer, she was discovered by film director Federico Fellini who spotted her in Milan and cast her for the role of Saraghina, the "devil woman" in Fellini's 8½...
|
Genevieve |
| Tim Kazurinsky Timothy J. Kazurinsky is an American actor, comedian and writer best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for his role as Carl Sweetchuck in the Police Academy films...
|
Photographer, in 1912 |
| Bruce Jarchow Bruce Jarchow is an American film and television actor, most notable for his role as Lyle Ferguson in the film Ghost.Additional television guest appearances include recurring roles in Seinfeld, Married... With Children, Weird Science, The Norm Show, What About Joan, Desperate Housewives and...
|
Bones, in 1912 |
Richard MathesonRichard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
, who wrote the original novel and screenplay, appears in a
cameo roleA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as an astonished 1912 hotel guest. The cause of his astonishment is apparently Richard's face after cutting himself shaving with a
straight razorA straight razor is a razor with a blade that can fold into its handle. They are also called open razors and cut-throat razors.Although straight razors were once the principal method of manual shaving, they have been largely overshadowed by the safety razor, incorporating a disposable blade...
.
A then-unknown
William H. MacyWilliam Hall Macy, Jr. is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though...
has a bit role as a critic in the 1972 scene before Elise hands the watch to Richard.
George WendtGeorge Robert Wendt III is an American actor, best known for the roles of Norm Peterson and Tug Clarke on the television shows Cheers and Modern Men.-Early life:...
is credited as a student during this same scene, but his appearance was omitted from the final cut of the film. Richard Matheson's daughter Ali Matheson is similarly credited as a student.
Many of the Mackinac Island residents at the time were cast as extras.
Fan club
In 1990,
Somewhere in Time fan Bill Shepard founded the
International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts (INSITE) to "Honor the film, and those responsible for its creation, to Inform members about all aspects of it, to enhance their appreciation of it, as well as to Influence public and media perception of the film, to assure its recognition as the classic we know it to be." INSITE has placed a permanent monument, a plaque on a stone on
Mackinac IslandMackinac Island is an island and resort area covering in land area, part of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was home to a Native American settlement before European...
near the Grand Hotel to commemorate the first encounter of the film's lovers. In 1997, the fan club also paid for Reeve's star on the
Hollywood Walk of FameThe Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
. In 1999, INSITE co-sponsored Jane Seymour's Walk of Fame star, along with
Dr. Quinn, Medicine WomanDr. Quinn, Medicine Woman is an American post-Civil War western/drama series created by Beth Sullivan. Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn, played by Jane Seymour, left Boston in search of adventure. She goes to Colorado Springs, Colorado where she establishes herself as doctor/adviser.The show ran on CBS...
fans.
An annual Somewhere in Time Weekend is held at the Grand Hotel. Attendees dress in period attire to celebrate the movie, in company with celebrity guests who worked on the film—in front of and behind the camera. INSITE has published over 1,800 pages on
Somewhere in Time since its inception, making the movie one of the most documented films of all time. Members may subscribe to special email news alerts via the website. INSITE has provided news and information about the upcoming musical adaption of the story
Somewhere In Time: The Musical, produced by
Ken DavenportKen Davenport, born Kenneth A. Hasija is a New York-based Broadway and Off-Broadway theatre producer.-Shows:Davenport has produced several Broadway and Off-Broadway plays including the current Broadway revival of Godspell, Chinglish, Oleanna, Speed the Plow, You're Welcome America, Blithe Spirit,...
, and scored by
Leslie ArdenLeslie Arden is a Canadian musical theatre composer, lyricist and librettist. She has been described as "arguably Canada's most talented Musical Theatre writer". She is best known for her work The House of Martin Guerre produced by Theatre Plus , the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the Canadian...
, via its magazine and email news service. INSITE is self-sustaining, through membership dues and member contributions, and its quarterly journal is a 100% volunteer effort.
External links