Fox owned this property, as it was done as Berkeley Square in 1933. In 1950, it was remade for Tyrone Power, co-starring Ann Blyth, Michael Rennie, and Dennis Price.
This film, along with Marie Antoinette, were in the top ten of all films on TCM that viewers requested be put out on DVD. It finally happened with the Tyrone Power Matinée Idol set, released in 2008.
Power plays Peter Standish, a scientist obsessed with the past. He knows from a diary that he is destined to go there and switch places with his ancestor of the same name, but he doesn't know how it will happen. During a thunder and lightning storm, he winds up outside his house, but it is now 18th century London. He has arrived from America to marry Kate Pettigrew, but instead falls for her sister Helen. Helen is the only person the Standish of the future knows nothing about. She was never mentioned in any of his research.
Not only is 18th Century London not the peaceful, gentle place he imagined, but as he predicts certain things or knows things he shouldn't, people become frightened of him. The only one not afraid of him is Helen. Peter knows he has to go back to the future, but he wants to stay with Helen.
This is a lovely fantasy about going back to the past, a subject authors have always been interested in. And, like the main character in "Paris at Midnight," the past isn't all it was cracked up to be.
The present in this film is in black and white, and the future is in god-awful color - this film is not restored. Power looks terrific in black and white, and I have seen him in color many, many times, and he always looked fantastic. However, in this film, he looks pasty - that may have been a deliberate choice because he's not really of the time, as Ann Blyth looks very beautiful. Power had to shave two or three times a day when he was filming, and for some reason, he didn't do that in the past section of the film. Since I had seen him so many times and he was always clean-shaven except when the role called for something else, I found it distracting.
Power and Blyth both give very good, sensitive performances. Rennie is completely wasted -- he must have done the film to fulfill his contract with 20th Century Fox -- but he is good also.
The last time I saw this film before now was when I was a child, and I never forgot it. It's a beautiful story that contains some important lessons: love is eternal, and we're where we're supposed to be.
This film, along with Marie Antoinette, were in the top ten of all films on TCM that viewers requested be put out on DVD. It finally happened with the Tyrone Power Matinée Idol set, released in 2008.
Power plays Peter Standish, a scientist obsessed with the past. He knows from a diary that he is destined to go there and switch places with his ancestor of the same name, but he doesn't know how it will happen. During a thunder and lightning storm, he winds up outside his house, but it is now 18th century London. He has arrived from America to marry Kate Pettigrew, but instead falls for her sister Helen. Helen is the only person the Standish of the future knows nothing about. She was never mentioned in any of his research.
Not only is 18th Century London not the peaceful, gentle place he imagined, but as he predicts certain things or knows things he shouldn't, people become frightened of him. The only one not afraid of him is Helen. Peter knows he has to go back to the future, but he wants to stay with Helen.
This is a lovely fantasy about going back to the past, a subject authors have always been interested in. And, like the main character in "Paris at Midnight," the past isn't all it was cracked up to be.
The present in this film is in black and white, and the future is in god-awful color - this film is not restored. Power looks terrific in black and white, and I have seen him in color many, many times, and he always looked fantastic. However, in this film, he looks pasty - that may have been a deliberate choice because he's not really of the time, as Ann Blyth looks very beautiful. Power had to shave two or three times a day when he was filming, and for some reason, he didn't do that in the past section of the film. Since I had seen him so many times and he was always clean-shaven except when the role called for something else, I found it distracting.
Power and Blyth both give very good, sensitive performances. Rennie is completely wasted -- he must have done the film to fulfill his contract with 20th Century Fox -- but he is good also.
The last time I saw this film before now was when I was a child, and I never forgot it. It's a beautiful story that contains some important lessons: love is eternal, and we're where we're supposed to be.