Berkeley Square (1933)

One of the earliest time travel films, it concerns two men named Peter Standish, both of whom are played by Leslie Howard. One lives in 1784 and the other, his distant relative, lives in 1933. The elder Peter longs to see the technological advances which will come after his death while the younger Peter seeks to escape the hustle and bustle of 1933 and experience the joys of a supposedly simpler time. The two men switch places and, while in 1784, the younger Peter falls in law with Helen Pettigrew, played by Heather Angel, who is destined to be the elder Peter's sister-in-law. Having had access to the elder Peter's diary in 1933, the younger Peter knows many little details of the Pettigrews' lives that the elder Peter did not yet know in 1784 and, on several occasions, makes the mistake of the mentioning them. He does the same when it comes to revealing his knowledge of more general events that have not happened yet and uses expressions like "cockeyed" and "see you later" that did not exist in the 18th Century. This leads people to fear him and the elder Peter's would-be wife Kate to break off the engagement as he believes that he has been possessed by a demon.Based on a 1929 Broadway play of the same name, Howard reprised his roles as the two Peters and gave a wonderful performance as a temporal fish out of water whose experiences of the 18th Century lead him to view it as a "filthy little pigsty of a world" rather than romanticise it as he had done before his sojourn into the past. The elder Peter's experiences of the 20th Century are left unseen but the descriptions would seem to indicate that they were equally unpleasant, not least because he was considered insane for claiming to be from 1784. Howard, whom I had never seen in a film before, and Heather Angel have wonderful chemistry and the younger Peter and Helen's gentle romance is certainly the highlight of the film. It has a very good cast overall, including Valerie Taylor as Kate (who likewise appeared in the Broadway play), Irene Browne as her mother Lady Ann Pettigrew, Colin Keith-Johnston as her layabout brother Tom, Ferdinand Gottschalk as Helen's far older suitor Mr. Throstle and Betty Lawford (Peter's cousin) as the younger Peter's fiancée Marjorie Frant. The film is very well directed by Frank Lloyd, probably best known for directing the 1935 version of "The Mutiny on the Bounty".As the younger Peter scuppered his ancestor's chances of marrying Kate in 1784, it may be the first film in which time travel is used to alter the past - it was never stated outright that the younger Peter was a direct descendant of the elder one - but this is not made clear. The film was believed lost for many years until it was rediscovered in the 1970s, which I am very happy about as I would obviously not have been able to see it otherwise. Incidentally, I recently watched the excellent 1971 film "Quest for Love" which concerns a man who falls in love with a woman whom he meets in a parallel universe. One of the differences in that universe is that Leslie Howard is still alive and still acting. It may be only a coincidence but, given the subject matter, it could very well have been an oblique reference to this film.Overall, this is a hugely enjoyable romantic fantasy film which reminds me of my tenth favourite film of all time "Somewhere in Time" due to its similar premise and bittersweet ending.

BERKELEY SQUARE was a success d'estime of the late Twenties and early Thirties. Based on a short story - THE SENSE OF THE PAST - by Henry James, it tells the story of how Peter Standish (Leslie Howard) travels back in time from the contemporary world into the late eighteenth century, and discovers to his cost that life isn't quite as idyllic as the history books might suggest. John L. Balderston's script isn't without its sentimental moments, but generally takes a hard-nosed look at the ways in which individuals remain as self-centered in the past as they might have been over a century ago. Leslie Howard, who created the past of Standish on the Broadway stage, here recreates his part; he doesn't have to do much other than to look bewildered, which he achieves very competently. Valerie Taylor makes an ideal romantic interest. Director Frank Lloyd was one of Twentieth Century-Fox's most competent contract directors; his version of Noel Coward's CAVALCADE (1933), based on another theatrical hit, is particularly memorable. In BERKELEY SQUARE he creates a brisk narrative, containing a memorable series of transitions between past and present. Definitely worth a look if a copy of the film can be found.

For me, Heather Angel's name conjures up the image of delicate, wistful loveliness as the girl beloved by Leslie Howard, when he travels back to Regency times in "Berkeley Square". She seemed to come along at the right time to be a successor to Janet Gaynor but Fox didn't bother much about her after a role in a forgotten Charlie Chan movie, "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case" (1933). She did have some interesting moments in "Springtime for Henry" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" but after that her career just ambled along until she found a place as Phyllis Clavering in the Bulldog Drummond series.Peter Standish (Leslie Howard) is a wealthy American traveler who, unbeknownst to him, is about to be "hooked" into matrimony by an impoverished Regency family, the Pettigrews, whose son has spent the family fortune on wine, women and cards. Just as he arrives a fearful storm breaks out and .......................Marjorie Frant (Betty Lawford, who looked a lot older than 23!) is very concerned about her fiancé, Peter Standish - he keeps to his room and is obsessed by his ancestor Peter Standish. He has inherited the house in Berkeley Square that the original Peter Standish owned and spends his time pouring over a diary that tells him all the little details about the family and London life in the 1780s - especially Helen, who seems to have a "secret sorrow" and never marries. Walking back to his house during a storm and arriving at exactly 5.30 he is suddenly whisked back in time to 1785 and the intrigue that is going on at the Pettigrews!! He is so determined to do the right thing, to let events take their course without changing the course of history but he bumbles from the start. Almost proposing to Kate on their first meeting (he knows from the diary that Peter marries Kate) to revealing Helen's birthday gift, a beautiful shawl before the box is opened!!!Peter feels like a stranger in a strange land but also senses a kindred spirit in Helen who seems to understand he is not in his own time. I thought it was a touching, romantic fantasy with many scenes that bought tears to my eyes. When Helen looks into Peter's eyes and sees the future of the world, she is instantly repelled and cannot be coaxed by him to return to the future with him. She convinces him to go back and wait until they can both be reunited in the hereafter. Her speech is very eloquent. The original play by John L. Balderstone, who also wrote the screen play, was much more grittier - Standish was very disillusioned with the past, he was appalled by the squalor and poverty, by the horror of public hangings. In the movie John astounds everyone by insisting on a daily bath!!! So Helen's "seeing the future through John's eyes", which couldn't have worked on the stage, was a way to give the movie an added dimension.Alan Mowbray had a small role as Peter's friend and Beryl Mercer played what she played best, sweet little cockneys.I just loved this movie but can only give it 9 out of 10 because the soundtrack was very scratchy and the picture quality was very grainy. The play "Berkeley Square" opened on Broadway in 1929 and ran for a respectable 229 performances. The plot was suggested by a Henry James short story "The Sense of the Past".Highly, Highly Recommended.

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'.