Scottish-born
Frank Lloyd stylishly directs this
fantasy romance with a time travel theme, starring Leslie Howard reprising his stage role in the play of the same name.
The screenplay was adapted from John
Balderston’s play which was itself based on Henry James’ unfinished novel The
Sense of the Past. It was later remade as I’ll Never Forget You (1951) using the same screenplay.
Peter Standish (Leslie Howard) is a wealthy American modern-day architect, who resides in New York in 1933 and who inherits his 18th century cousin’s London house at Berkeley Square. Traveling to London, Peter occupies the house, in the process becoming engaged to Marjorie Trant (Betty Lawford). After finding hidden diaries and correspondence of his American-born namesake Captain Peter Standish, Peter becomes obsessed with living in 18th century London, which Marjorie finds very troubling. During a severe thunderstorm Peter finds himself transported back in time 149 years to 1784, occupying the physical body of his cousin while retaining his own mind and memories. Although Peter is betrothed to titled but impoverished distant cousin Kate Pettigrew (Valerie Taylor) at the urgings of her mother Lady Ann (Irene Browne) and older brother Tom (Colin Keith-Johnston), both of whom expect him to pay off the family debts, he falls deeply in love with Kate’s younger sister Helen (Heather Angel) who is as fascinated with the future as Peter is with the past. Through the family’s connections, Peter meets such celebrities as portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds (Olaf Hytten), but he also frightens his other relatives by the way he can predict the future and by the strange idiomatic expressions he uses. Ultimately Peter recognizes the disadvantages of living in the 18th century and elects to return to his own time, although it means leaving Helen.
While reasonably well-executed for its time, Berkeley Square pales in comparison to more recent films that explore the concept of two people inhabiting the same physical space in two different times, and becoming romantically involved, for example (chronologically): Somewhere in Time (1980), The Love Letter (1998), Kate & Leopold (2001), The Lake House (2006), Midnight in Paris (2011) and The Edge of the Garden (2011). One of the problems with Berkeley Square is that the method, or technology, Peter uses to travel through time is not well explained, which forces the viewer to suspend disbelief. The thing that the film does do well is to debunk nostalgia for the past, termed golden-age-thinking in Midnight in Paris.
Labels: drama, fantasy, romance, space-time
IMDb 65/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=67)
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