Strictly average movie

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Richard wills himself back in time, and spends time with Elise, falling in love with her. He later gets pulled away from her and returns to his future. Even later, they meet in Eternity - - together forever. Peter suddenly arrives back in time, and spends time with Helen, falling in love with her. He goes back to his future. He visits her moldering grave from times past. He wants to be with her in Eternity -- together forever. Richard had the penny to bring him back to the future, and Peter had the Ankh as a similar instrument. Richard had the pocket watch as the time loop instrument, also, that eerily appeared in his future and in his past. When Peter saw his future Ankh in the hands of his 18th Century girlfriend, I thought, "Peter is now going to creepily be pulled back to the future like Richard did in Somewhere In Time." Peter went back, and looked despondent just like Richard did in Somewhere in Time. Early in the Berkeley Square film, I began seeing scenes that totally creeped me out, because I instantly thought of Somewhere in Time and that its author Richard Matheson must have copied a lot from 1933's Berkeley Square. Just add into Somewhere in Time the real-life actress Maude Adams fictionalized as Elise McKenna, and you have a (maybe plagiarized) film and novel (Bid Time Return) that Matheson supposedly dreamed up after he accidentally saw an old photograph of Maude Adams in Piper's Theatre from the Old American West. (Matheson was a quite prolific writer, including Twilight Zone.). Somewhere in Time was not really the true story of Maude Adams, and it seemed to have quite a few of the elements from Berkeley Square. Both Elise and Helen figured that their boyfriends were from the future. Elise in the novel thought so, and even in that film she was interested in time travel. Helen saw the future through Peter's eyes, and a frightening future that it was. I thought that the Berkeley Square future montage of wars, fighting and killing, airplanes, trains, flappers, gangsters, etc., was quite clever, scary and had fantastic special effects. I enjoyed seeing Irene Browne (The Red Shoes) and Beryl Mercer (The Little Minister and The Little Princess) in Berkeley Square. My wish is that Berkeley Square could have been in color. In that comparison, Somewhere in Time wins by a landslide. Other connections and observations: Now, about that other time travel film, The Time Machine. H.G. Wells finds Weena in another dimension, and of course she cannot go back with him, either. In The Blue Bird, Shirley Temple visits her long-deceased grandparents. Finally, not time travel, but the film, The Little Princess (again played by Shirley), has wonderful Beryl Mercer portraying Queen Victoria during the Boer War. 10/10

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.

The greatest of all time travel romance dramas, this is a sweet tale of two lovers destined not to be together in life but vowing to be together in eternity. Leslie Howard is a rather mystical young man consumed with the past for some reason beyond his knowledge, and when he returns to his Berkeley Square home one night, finds him living 150 years before, in period clothing, and engaged to a distant cousin. The family senses something odd about him from the get-go, and the romance between him and his fiancée is obviously non-existent, he falling head over heels in love with the more innocent cousin (Diana Wynard) who is intrigued by his ability to see into the future. In a key moment of the film, he gives her the ability to see the future, and she is horrified by what she sees. (And this was only events up to 1933!) Howard's character is considered by his distant family to be some sort of evil omen, having taken over the spirit of the actual cousin coming from America. When his shipmate Alan Mowbray arrives for a visit, he senses immediately that something other worldly has taken over him as the senses of who he was have totally vanished. Everybody around him from the family elders to a local painter are disturbed by his ability to read into their secrets, the painter truly spooked by Howard's mentioning a painting nobody knew about that he was in the process of completing.This is a story that no review can really describe. Like its Tyrone Power remake ("I'll Never Forget You") and one of my favorite modern classics (the underrated "Somewhere in Time"), this is the story of romance that time and human frailties cannot wither. In modern times, Howard must face the truth that he's never going to find his true love in his own era and lives with the memory of somebody long dead. Howard's performance shows the despair but acceptance that this causes him, and in this lies the tragic element of the story.Strikingly filmed, acted and directed, "Berkeley Square" is one of those sleepers beloved by classic film connoisseurs but obscure for everybody else. It is one definitely worth re-discovery.

Leslie Howard stars in "Berkeley Square," also starring Heather Angel.Howard plays Peter Standish, who is fascinated by all the material he finds in his house from his 18th century ancestors, 146 years earlier. He believes that if he wants to, he can go back to that time. This film is the predecessor to many time travel films, including Somewhere in Time.His ancestor, also Peter Standish, visited his house from America on a particular date. Peter changes places with him on that date in the present.At first, all is well; then he starts slipping and speaking of things in the future to the extent that people begin to believe he is possessed b the devil. The only person who senses the real Peter is Helen Pettigrew (Heather Angel) a Standish cousin. He and Helen fall in love, and she is able to see the future through his eyes -- war, weapons of destruction, neon lights, cars - it all terrifies her. This is the best sequence in the film.Helen cannot go into the future with him -- and doesn't want to, given what she's seen -- and he's a pariah, and will make her one, if he stays.This is a charming film badly in need of restoration. Leslie Howard is perfect as Peter -- handsome, ethereal, and well-suited to the period aspects. Heather Angel, whom I've just gotten to know in the Bulldog Drummond series, is delightful, petite and pretty with a soothing voice and a fragility that lends itself well to the role.Berkeley Square was remade in 1951 as "I'll Never Forget You," starring Tyrone Power, which has a less sober ending - before it was released on DVD, it was in the TCM website's top ten of most requested films to be released as a DVD. There's something appealing about time travel - otherwise, there wouldn't be so many films about it. But there's also something appealing and modern about the premise of Berkeley Square - that all time runs parallel and is all happening at once. Quantum physics would agree that this is so.