Berkeley Square

I found Oscar-nominated Leslie Howard just a little too earnest in this tale of an American scientist "Peter Standish" who inherits a London house from a distance cousin. Upon arrival, he starts to feel a curious bond with the place and as he discovers more about the house, his ancestry and a diary detailing much of the 1780s London society in which it's writer lived, he becomes - somewhat inexplicably - convinced that he is going to travel back through time. Low and behold on the exact date and time expected, he walks into an 18th century home where he meets his soon to be fiancée "Kate" (Valerie Taylor) and her beautiful younger sister "Helen" (Heather Angel). He is an instant hit in society circles but struggles to contain his knowledge of the future and after a particularly uncomfortable conversation with the Duchess of Devonshire (Juliette Compton) finds himself in immediate need to get back to his own timeline. He confides his predicament to his new love "Helen" and his dilemmas begin to mount up... It's an intriguing concept, and there is plenty of subliminal social comment too. "Standish" is abhorred by the depravity, poverty and cruelty he sees when first in London - but it has also got quite a bit of a rather ungainly American superiority complex about it, too - the "Land of the Free" stuff as though 1780s Britain was some sort of demagogue's paradise. Howard was in t…

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