Somewhere in Time is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it was from the beginning when it first came out in 1980. It’s a time travel movie.

Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) is a playwright in Chicago in the 1970ies. He gets a mystery visit from an old woman who puts a watch into his hand and says “Come back to me!” On chance he stays at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan, where he notices a historic display featuring the actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour). He feels drawn to her. As he researches her life and the history of the hotel, I figures out that he himself was there in 1912. He researches time travel and eventually uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time to the hotel where he meets the actress. They fall in love almost instantly and both their lives are changed forever.

Somewhere in Time is a love story, a bit corny at time, but hey, it was made in 1980. Yes, the romance is overly sentimental and unrealistic. Yes, the time travel mechanics are questionable. Yes, there are flaws, but the musical score by John Barry is otherworldly, the story is deeply romantic, and the overall movie is an emotional experience that I can watch over and over again.

When I first watched it in 1980 I bought the record featuring Rachmaninoff — Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Variation 18, which is the central melody of the film and one of the most beautiful and recognizable melodies in classical music.

Take a listen here if you like:

 

And now you need to watch Somewhere in Time and then I’ll ask you:

Where did the watch come from?