Once you get past the sappy title, this is a reasonably entertaining early 70's British fantasy drama. Watching it I was reminded of a contemporary film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Roger Moore, called "The Man Who Haunted Hinself", where another well-to-do Londoner has an identity crisis and runs about town trying to put his world back in order. In fact they'd have made for a good old-fashioned double-bill but the Moore feature is darker and much the better for it.
Adapted from a short story by sci-fi writer John "Day Of The Triffids" Wyndham, the film centres on scientist Tom Bell's character who after a laboratory experiment goes wrong, finds himself in a parallel 1971 world where while apparently peopled by the same inhabitants, there are subtle differences to its personnel whether famous or everyday. For example, JFK is still alive, Everest was never climbed and crucially for the plot, heart transplants have yet to be carried out. In this alternative London, he's a boozing, philandering if successful playwright, happy to overlook the obvious charms of his wife, an alluring Joan Collins, in favour of flings with whichever pretty young actress appears in his plays.
Once he gets his own bearings and by contacting the different world's equivalent of a fellow scientist from his own, establishes what has happened to him and how he might get back to his own time and place, he has a job to convince Collins who's on the verge of divorcing him due to his constant drunkenness and infidelities. As if all that wasn't enough she has a congenital heart condition which leaves him with the twin tasks of crossing worlds and racing against time to save her (at least in a way) before the end credits.
I love the premise of parallel worlds and all that but felt that it was barely touched here and focused too much on the romantic element in bringing together Bell and Collins. Brought in at under 90 minutes by veteran British director Ralph Thomas, the pacing seems rushed throughout, especially the ending and rather wastes the interesting opportunities opened up in the early scenes. Decent performances by Bell, Collins, and British stalwarts Laurence Naismith and Denholm Elliott in support and I enjoyed the vintage settings and fashions but for a better film of this type try to find the Moore movie mentioned above, which was one of the actor's own favourites of all those he made.
Adapted from a short story by sci-fi writer John "Day Of The Triffids" Wyndham, the film centres on scientist Tom Bell's character who after a laboratory experiment goes wrong, finds himself in a parallel 1971 world where while apparently peopled by the same inhabitants, there are subtle differences to its personnel whether famous or everyday. For example, JFK is still alive, Everest was never climbed and crucially for the plot, heart transplants have yet to be carried out. In this alternative London, he's a boozing, philandering if successful playwright, happy to overlook the obvious charms of his wife, an alluring Joan Collins, in favour of flings with whichever pretty young actress appears in his plays.
Once he gets his own bearings and by contacting the different world's equivalent of a fellow scientist from his own, establishes what has happened to him and how he might get back to his own time and place, he has a job to convince Collins who's on the verge of divorcing him due to his constant drunkenness and infidelities. As if all that wasn't enough she has a congenital heart condition which leaves him with the twin tasks of crossing worlds and racing against time to save her (at least in a way) before the end credits.
I love the premise of parallel worlds and all that but felt that it was barely touched here and focused too much on the romantic element in bringing together Bell and Collins. Brought in at under 90 minutes by veteran British director Ralph Thomas, the pacing seems rushed throughout, especially the ending and rather wastes the interesting opportunities opened up in the early scenes. Decent performances by Bell, Collins, and British stalwarts Laurence Naismith and Denholm Elliott in support and I enjoyed the vintage settings and fashions but for a better film of this type try to find the Moore movie mentioned above, which was one of the actor's own favourites of all those he made.