One film that started as a box-office disappointment and is now a certified cult classic with a large following among cable and TV viewers is Somewhere in Time. It owes its genesis in a science fiction novel, Bid Time Return, by one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Richard Matheson who also wrote Stir of Echoes, What Dreams May Come, and I am Legend which were also filmed. The novel was inspired by an incident in Matheson's life. He was attracted by a portrait of American actress Maude Adams (not Maud Adams, James Bond's Octopussy) in an opera house in Nevada. He asked himself: What if some guy falls in love with a woman in a portrait and goes back in time to meet her? Thus the germ for the novel. Published in 1975, Bid Time Returns was given the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1976.
Five years after its publication, the novel was filmed as Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour in the lead. It was an ideal date movie and is now shown on cable and TV during Valentine's Day. It also influenced local teleseryes in ABS-CBN and GMA-7.
What made the film memorable to me was the original soundtrack composed by John Barry. Two musical pieces became my personal favorites: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff and the movie theme.
In the mid-80s, to my delight, Pat Castillo recorded the Theme from Somewhere in Time. The lyrics echo the film's sentiments (sentimentality?). The same song was also recorded by a favorite singer, Nonoy Zuniga whom I personally met while he was a resident doctor at Cardinal Santos Medical Center.
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