John Alvin

In 1972, college theater student Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) celebrates the success of his first play. During the celebration, he is approached by an elderly woman who places an antique pocket watch into his hand and pleads "Come back to me." Richard does not recognize the woman, who returns to her own residence afterward. Eight years later, Richard is a successful playwright living in Chicago, but has recently broken up with his girlfriend and is struggling with writer's block. Feeling stressed from writing his play, he decides to take a break and travels out of town to the Grand Hotel. While looking at a display in the hotel's museum, Richard becomes entranced by a strangely captivating photograph of a mysterious, beautiful young woman. With the help of Arthur Biehl (Bill Irwin), an old man who has been at the hotel since 1910, Richard discovers that she is Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), a famous early 20th-century stage actress. Upon digging deeper, he learns that she was the aged woman who gave him the pocket watch eight years earlier, but died afterward later that same evening. Richard visits Laura Roberts (Teresa Wright), Elise's former housekeeper and companion. While there, he discovers a music box that plays the 18th variation on Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff, his favorite musical piece. Among Elise's personal effects is a book on time travel written by an old college professor, Dr. Gerard Finney (George Voskovec). Richard becomes obsessed with traveling back to 1912 and meeting Elise, who he has fallen in love. He seeks out Professor Finney, who believes that he briefly traveled through time through the power of self-hypnosis. To accomplish this process, one must remove all things from sight that are related to the current time. Finney warns Richard that such a process would leave one very weak physically, possibly dangerously so. Back in his hotel room, Richard dresses himself in an early 20th-century suit, and attempts to will himself into 1912 using tape-recorded suggestions. The attempt fails because he lacks real conviction, but after finding an old guest book from 1912 containing his signature, Richard realizes that he will eventually succeed. Richard again hypnotizes himself (without the benefit of a modern tape recorder) and allows his absolute faith in his eventual success to become the tipping point or trigger for the journey back through time. He slowly falls asleep and awakens to the sound of whinnying horses in the year 1912. Richard looks all over the hotel for Elise, even meeting Arthur Biehl as a little boy, but has no luck finding Elise. Finally, he stumbles upon Elise walking by a tree near the lake. She seems to swoon slightly when seeing him, but then suddenly asks upon meeting him "Is it you?" McKenna's overbearing manager, William Fawcett Robinson (Christopher Plummer), abruptly intervenes and sends Richard away. Richard stubbornly continues to pursue Elise until she agrees to accompany him on a stroll through the surrounding idyllic landscape. Richard ultimately asks why Elise wondered aloud "Is it you?" and she replies that Robinson somehow knows that she will meet a man who will change her life forever, and that she should be afraid. Richard then shows Elise the same pocket watch which she will eventually give him 60 years in the future. Upon returning to the hotel, Elisa invites Richard to her play. He attends the comical-farce and she, in an almost trance-like state, recites an impromptu monologue dedicated to him. During intermission, he finds her posing formally for a photograph. Upon spotting Richard, Elise breaks into a radiant smile and veritably glows with soft affection. Just then, the camera's flash goes off and forever captures that wonderous moment in time. We now know that this picture is the same one that Richard will see 68 years later on a wall near the lobby at the Grand Hotel. He later receives a letter from Robinson asking to meet him immediately and saying that it is a matter of life and death. Robinson wants Richard to leave Elise, saying it is for her own good. Richard thinks Robinson is in love with Elise, but Robinson states that he is obsessed with her being a star and has no romantic interest in her. When Richard professes his love for her, Robinson has him bound and locked inside the stables. Robinson then informs Elise that Richard has left her and isn't the one, though she doesn't believe him and professes her love for Richard. Richard wakes up the next morning and escapes his constraints. He discovers that the acting troupe has already left for Denver, though Elise has returned to the hotel to find him. Richard then goes out to the hotel's capricious deck and begins giving into despair, but presently perceives Elise calling his name and running towards him. They return to his room together and it is there that Elise becomes truly intimate with a man for the very first time in her life. Later that evening, she asks Richard to marry him and he readily accepts. She then informs him that the first thing she will do for him is to buy him a new suit (the suit Richard has been wearing the entire time in 1912 is about 10 to 15 years out of style). Richard begins to show his true love how wonderful the suit is on account of its many pockets. He is alarmed when he reaches into one and finds a shiny modern Lincoln penny with the mint date of 1979. This modern item breaks his hypnotic suggestion, and Richard feels himself rushing backwards from 1912 as though through a tunnel, and Elise screams his name in horror as he is pulled inexorably back to the present. Richard wakes up in the same room he just left, although now it is 68 years later. He is very weak and physically and emotionally exhausted from his trip through time and from the devastating unexpected return. He scrambles desperately back to his own suite and attempts to hypnotize himself again, without success. After wandering around the hotel property and sitting interminably at the places where he spent time with Elise, Richard eventually retires to his room and remains there unmoving for days until discovered by Arthur and the hotel manager; they send for a doctor and paramedics. Richard suddenly smiles and sees himself drifting above his body and is drawn to a light shining through the nearby window, where he is reunited forever with Elise.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in this noir thriller set in San Francisco about a man wrongly convicted of his wife's murder who escapes from prison to find the real killer.

In the small town of Waterloo, Iowa, Thomas and Alleta Sullivan spend the early years of their married life happily attending the christenings of the latest additions to their large Irish-American, Catholic family: George Thomas in 1914, Francis "Frank" Henry in 1916, Joseph Eugene in 1918, Madison "Matt" Abel in 1919 and Albert Leo in 1922. As the five boys grow up, they are doted upon by their mother and sister Genevieve, 'Gen' for short, and given stern but loving guidance by their father, who is a railroad freight conductor. The day before Al's first communion, the youngster persuades Alleta to let him wear his new suit to attend confession. The suit is ruined, however, when the boys, who do everything together, brawl with some neighborhood kids over their new dog, Chiefie. Alleta is dismayed by their conduct, but Father Francis allows Al to take communion after the boys assure him that they bear no grudge against their rivals. Later, the boys get into more mischief when they find a broken-down boat and caulk its holes with mud. The vessel stays afloat until it reaches the middle of a lake, then begins to sink. Chiefie aids in rescuing Al, thereby assuring his place in the family. Upset by Al's near-drowning, Alleta makes her sons promise that they will not set foot in a boat again until they are adults. Another time later, the youngsters are complaining about fetching wood for Alleta's stove when Tom makes an offhand remark about building a wood box in the kitchen wall. Wanting to help Alleta and save themselves some work, the boys obtain lumber on credit and begin building the wood box. George becomes irritated by Frank's imperious manner, however, and leaves the project. The boys then break a water pipe and the kitchen is flooded. George rushes to help, and when Tom arrives and surveys the damage, he assumes that George, as the eldest, is responsible. Before George can explain their good intentions, Tom slaps him, and the boy runs off. Frank confesses all to Tom, and as the evening wears on, each family member invents an excuse to search for the runaway. George reappears the next morning, and after reconciling with his son, Tom declares that this should teach the Sullivans to stick together. Skipping forward several years later in 1939, the boys are grown up and only Al is still in high school. On the day that George wins a motorcycle race, Al meets Katherine Mary, an only child who lives with her father. Despite their youth, Al and Katherine Mary fall in love, and soon Al shows Gen the engagement ring that he has purchased. Believing that Al is too young for marriage, his brothers tease Katherine Mary when she comes for dinner and convince her that Al has many girlfriends. After Katherine Mary leaves in tears and Al sinks into despair, the brothers realize the damage they have done, and with Gen, Tom and Alleta in tow, they apologize to Katherine Mary. Soon after, Katherine Mary and Al are married, and ten months later, are expecting a baby. Al is fired for taking the afternoon off to escort his wife to the doctor, but his brothers vow to help them out. Later, months after little Jimmy has been welcomed into the family, the family is lolling about on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when they hear a radio report about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The boys realize that one of their friends was on the Arizona and resolve to join the Navy to avenge him. Al decides that he cannot go with his brothers, due to his family responsibilities, but when Katherine Mary sees his despondent face, she tells him to accompany the others to the recruiting station. The brothers tell Commander Robinson that they want to serve on the same ship, but Robinson states that the Navy can make no such guarantees. The brothers leave, but later, after George receives his draft notice, he writes to the Navy Department and obtains official permission for the boys to serve together. Later, Tom, Alleta and Katherine Mary eagerly await letters from their loved ones, who are serving aboard the USS Juneau in the Pacific. The fighting in the Pacific grows more intense as war rages off the Solomon Islands, and one night during a fierce nighttime battle on November 13, 1942, the Juneau is hit by Japanese gunfire. Four of the brothers find each other, then realize that George is below in sick bay. They rush down to get him, and when George insists they leave him behind, Al replies, "We can't go swimming without you." Suddenly the entire ship explodes and sinks after being hit again leaving no survivors. Soon after, Robinson visits the Sullivan home and tells Katherine Mary, Tom, Alleta and Gen that all five of the brothers were killed in action. Stunned, Tom goes to work and salutes the water tower on which his sons used to stand and wave to him. Sometime later, Tom, Katherine Mary and Gen, who has joined the WAVES, watch with pride while Alleta christens a new destroyer, the U.S.S. The Sullivans. As Tom and Alleta watch the ship sail away, Alleta declares, "Tom, our boys are afloat again."