Berkeley Square

Leslie Howard stars in "Berkeley Square," also starring Heather Angel.

Howard plays Peter Standish, who is fascinated by all the material he finds in his house from his 18th century ancestors, 146 years earlier. He believes that if he wants to, he can go back to that time. This film is the predecessor to many time travel films, including Somewhere in Time.

His ancestor, also Peter Standish, visited his house from America on a particular date. Peter changes places with him on that date in the present.

At first, all is well; then he starts slipping and speaking of things in the future to the extent that people begin to believe he is possessed b the devil. The only person who senses the real Peter is Helen Pettigrew (Heather Angel) a Standish cousin. He and Helen fall in love, and she is able to see the future through his eyes -- war, weapons of destruction, neon lights, cars - it all terrifies her. This is the best sequence in the film.

Helen cannot go into the future with him -- and doesn't want to, given what she's seen -- and he's a pariah, and will make her one, if he stays.

This is a charming film badly in need of restoration. Leslie Howard is perfect as Peter -- handsome, ethereal, and well-suited to the period aspects. Heather Angel, whom I've just gotten to know in the Bulldog Drummond series, is delightful, petite and pretty with a soothing voice and a fragility that lends itself well to the role.

Berkeley Square was remade in 1951 as "I'll Never Forget You," starring Tyrone Power, which has a less sober ending - before it was released on DVD, it was in the TCM website's top ten of most requested films to be released as a DVD. There's something appealing about time travel - otherwise, there wouldn't be so many films about it. But there's also something appealing and modern about the premise of Berkeley Square - that all time runs parallel and is all happening at once. Quantum physics would agree that this is so.

How many of us have wished that we might escape from the dull reality of the present into the glamor and romance of yesterday? But if we could journey back into the mystery of the past, should we find contentment - or unhappiness?"

On a stormy night in 1784, new American noble Leslie Howard (as Peter Standish) arrives in London's "Berkeley Square" to seek a distant cousin's hand in marriage. After exiting his coach, Mr. Howard seems to vanish. Meanwhile, in the present (1933), his direct descendant and namesake "Peter Standish" (Howard, in a dual role) has inherited the same house. The modern Howard troubles his fiancée and friends due to his preoccupation with the past, especially the September 1784 day when his namesake arrived. Transported to the past, Howard invites suspicion when his "modern" manners and knowledge surface. Howard talks too much. More significantly, he becomes attracted to the wrong woman, beautiful but melancholy Heather Angel (as Helen Pettigrew)...

This intriguing "time travel" film was unavailable for decades, but the story was revived often on stage and screen. It was based on an unfinished Henry James novel and inspired memorable imitations from horror mythos-makers H. P. Lovecraft ("The Shadow out of Time") and Dan Curtis ("Dark Shadows"). Howard recreates his performance from the stage well, but director Frank Lloyd and Fox don't take full advantage of cinema potential. Early examples are Howard's trip to the past. He could have appeared outside the door, wet, as both arrivals occurred in the rain. Howard also immediately knows how to sit in his 1784 costume, betraying a familiar comfort. Later, the film would have benefited from Howard visiting the actual grave mentioned in a letter...

Solid impressions are made by lustful Colin Keith-Johnston (as Thomas "Tom" Pettigrew) and sensible sister Valerie Taylor (as Kate). Matriarchal Irene Browne (as Ann) played her role again in the 1941 re-make starring Tyrone Power.

******* Berkeley Square (9/15/33) Frank Lloyd ~ Leslie Howard, Heather Angel, Colin Keith-Johnston, Valerie Taylor

In adapting his own stage play 'Berkeley Square' for the screen, playwright John L Balderston made numerous changes. One change is significant in hindsight: during Act One of the stage play, the dialogue makes several references to a war hero named Bill Clinton! (A hero on the side fighting AGAINST the United States.) In the film, this British officer is merely identified as Major Clinton, and there are no mentions of his heroics.

Leslie Howard, everyone's definitive Englishman, was actually English only by a fluke: his parents were Hungarian Jews who moved to London shortly before his birth. In the film version of 'Berkeley Square', Howard portrays two Americans -- one from the 18th century, one from the present -- but his accent and demeanour in both roles are quintessentially English. Howard had previously starred on Broadway in this story, but in the stage play he portrayed only the modern-day Peter Standish who journeys into the past; his namesake ancestor (swapping places with him in the present) remained offstage.

Here we have the fantasy about a modern American who contrives to switch places in time with his 18th-century ancestor: both men are named Peter Standish, and are physically identical. (This is unlikely: the medical, dental and nutritional standards in 1784 would have kept that century's Standish looking very different from his descendant.) Apart from failing to convince me that he's American, Howard gives an excellent performance in both roles. Soon enough, Peter Standish acquires a touch of Peter Ibbetson as he falls in love with a woman who will die in 1787, more than a century before his own birth.

The ever-reliable Samuel S. Hinds (wearing a bizarre moustache here) plays straight man to Howard in one fascinating scene, in which Standish explains the difference between linear time and non-linear time: in the latter, all the events in the universe are occurring simultaneously.

Also quite excellent is Betty Lawford in an unsympathetic role. She wears some very chic gloves but also sports a bizarre fur collar that seems to be intended for a female impersonator. A transvestite linebacker could hide his shoulders inside there!

As the doomed young lady of 18th-century England, Heather Angel has one memorable scene opposite the 18th-century Standish's body possessed by his modern descendant. Staring into Standish's eyes, she glimpses an amazing stock-footage montage of the chaos and mayhem of modern times. Her reaction is memorable.

A story like this will have intentional anachronisms, but I looked for unintentional errors. Here's one: a string ensemble in 1784 perform Gossec's 'Gavotte' two years before he wrote it. Have another: in the opening scene, set in September 1784, Lionel Belmore reports that a French aeronaut has just flown from Dover to Calais (Belmore mispronounces this name) in a balloon. Actually, that didn't happen until January 1785: the flight was in the opposite direction, and there were two men (one of them Anglo-American) in the balloon. In a later scene, some English gentlemen give the word 'bathed' the wrong pronunciation (yes, I'm quite certain). The art direction is generally excellent, except for a dodgy thunderstorm. And it's weird to encounter the term 'crux ansata' applied to what modern viewers know better as the Egyptian ankh.

This film gets very much right a detail that many other period stories get wrong: 'Berkeley Square' acknowledges that the past is a dirtier, not cleaner, place than the present.

The single worst thing about 'Berkeley Square' is the overscored soundtrack: practically every scene assaults the ears with loud background music, when so much of this gentle fantasy would have worked better with no music at all. I was delighted that the character actress Beryl Mercer is much less annoying than usual here, probably because (for once) she's been given no maudlin material. My rating for this gentle, stately fantasy is 7 out of 10. For a much more romantic treatment of this premise with a different set of time-travel paradoxes, I recommend a better movie: 'Somewhere in Time'.

Leslie Howard received his first Oscar nomination in this lovely film adaptation of the play he starred in in London and on Broadway. He plays a current-day (1933) American man who yearns for the peace and quiet and beauty of the 18th century after he discovers some old papers and diaries in his ancestral house. He wishes so hard he is actually transported to 1784.

Right off the bat, he gets into trouble fitting into the rhythm and manners of 18th Century London ... and into the lives of his ancestors. The mother (Irene Browne) is trying to marry off two daughters (Heather Angel, Valerie Taylor) to men with money, one of whom is Howard's ancestor whose body he is now inhabiting.

Knowing that he must not change history, he walks a tightrope. He is not attracted to the woman his ancestor marries, but he is attracted to her sister. But history dictates he must not marry her. He also keeps dropping words and phrases that make no sense in 1784, and he scares people by when he blurts out bits of information about things that have not yet happened.

As he digs himself into a bigger hole every day, he realizes that the woman he really loves (Angel) seems to shares his discontent for the age in which she is trapped. She longs for the future! Yet in one horrific moment, she sees the future world in his eyes and it scares her. For his part, he finally has to admit that the 18th Century is utterly horrible and that it actually stinks! People don't bathe; the streets are full of horse manure.

Leslie Howard is superb as the man torn between the past and his own time. He and Heather Angel make for a terrifically doomed couple, and the scene when he returns (in 1933) from her grave and read the epitaph carved into her headstone is quite moving.

Co-stars include Juliette Compton as an arch and wily duchess, Alan Mowbray as Clinton, Ferdinand Gottschalk as the aged suitor, Betty Lawford as the current-day girlfriend, Beryl Mercer as the housekeeper, and Samuel S. Hinds as Adams.

This is a very amusing love story with a good dash of humor. Much of the humor centers around the culture clash between Standish and the 18th century family. Standish uses modern terms and slips when he reveals things that happen in the future. The culture clash is a cautionary tale for would be travelers. This film appealed to many women because Leslie Howard was a heart throb for many of them. My mother loved this film and could watch it over and over. She was so disappointed when late in her life it disappeared from the old movies shown on TV.

It is currently not commercially available, but a number of vendors have poor quality CDs or tapes for sale. All of these were probably made from a VHS tape from a TV showing. The tape was deteriorated and possibly copied several times so there is a lot of instability and wiggling of the image. The original broadcast used extreme compression of the video and sound. As a result the noise level rises to become very loud until dialog causes the gain to be cut. As a result the dialog is sometimes very indistinct. The music which was originally soft also rises to match the level of the dialog. Once this is restored by hand, the film is fairly listenable. The complaint of another reviewer about the music being too loud may stem from watching a copy with similarly compressed sound. In addition the broadcast severely cropped the film and did not stabilize the jitter.

This is a film that deserves restoration from the existing prints, but when and if this happens is unknown. Until then buying one of the existing CDs may be the only way to view this fine film.