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I saw this film many years ago on a rainy Saturday afternoon. JOAN COLLINS is wonderful if you liked the "CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER" episode of the original STAR TREK and don't need special effects to enjoy a great story you will like this film. Unfortunately I have not been able to find it on T.V. since. It is not available on video. If anyone out there has a copy they made from broadcast on T.V. or knows when it will be on again please e-mail me. I am also interested in any similar time travel/fantasy type movies and have a small collection I am willing to share. Thank you.

'Quest For Love' is an interesting oddity - a romance set in a parallel world. I haven't read the Wyndham story it's based on so I don't know how faithful it is, but it's an entertaining little movie with some nice performances. Tom Bell plays a physicist who suddenly finds himself in an alternate England after a scientific experiment. He learns that WW2 never happened, man never landed on the moon,etc. but the differences in this other England are never explored and mean little to plot. The focus is on Bell's relationship with Joan Collins. In his own world Bell is single and a scientist, in this other world he is a successful writer and married to Collins who despises him. Bell immediately falls in love with his "wife" and tries to convince her that he isn't who she thinks he is. Both Bell and Collins give good performances, and Collins looks absolutely lovely. Denholm Elliott appears in both worlds, one as his friend, in the other he loathes him. I assume the budget of this movie was modest. There are no special effects and it's almost like an episode of TV fantasy anthology. Even so I enjoyed it for what it was. If you want to watch a slightly earlier British movie with a similar premise try and see 'Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun' a.k.a. 'Doppelganger'. It however isn't a romance and is much bleaker. It's the stronger of the two movies but 'Quest For Love' is still worth watching, especially if you're a romantic.

The genre of SF romances is pretty slim, and well done ones even slimmer still. The only two that leap immediately to mind are "Quest For Love" and "Late For Dinner". They both rank among my favorite films. For the romantically inclined, both are also worth at least two hankies (one reason I never watch either with anyone other than my wife).

Joan Collins looks superb (as usual) and gives an excellent, understated performance (hardly usual!) Rather than her typical shrew or strumpet (I'm trying hard to avoid adjectives that would violate the guidelines), she is a genuinely warm and sympathetic character. Aside from the voodoo that transports the protagonist into a parallel universe, the SF aspects are well constructed and don't overwhelm what is, at its core, a touching love story. The parallel universe plot is a much more effective metaphor in this case than the typical time travel gimmick common to most "what if" films such as this.

The pacing could be better and the script could have benefitted from one more revision, but it's still quite satisfying overall.

P.S. Apparently, like "Late For Dinner", "Quest For Love" is currently out of print on home video. I therefore feel fortunate to have both (QFL on Beta and LFD on VHS), so there are real official copies in existence which a diligent search might turn up.

I first saw this over twenty years ago and it stayed in my mind ever since; they never seemed to play this film on TV in my area and a VHS tape was difficult to find. I finally got one on E-Bay a year ago. I've always been a science fiction fan and my favorite sub-genre was parallel worlds. The original writer (Wyndham) and screenwriters got all the basics correct - certain events in the past transpired differently on this parallel Earth, resulting in a very similar, yet strikingly different world. But what caught me off guard was the romance attached to the story; I don't know, maybe the British storytellers just know how to do this sort of stuff better, but the tale taps into the soul of anyone with just a bit of the romantic in them. I never got that sense of romance, in such a strong dose, in any other film; the similar "Somewhere in Time" with Chris Reeve comes to mind, but it's not even a contest. When Joan Collins first walks into the room, I don't think you even need to be a heterosexual male - you are just swept away on the spot. Tom Bell is also very good as the hero; he sort of stumbles along on this fantastic journey he's been flung into and he soon embraces the entire cosmic appeal of what fate has given to him - a rare gift, as it turns out.

Intriguing sci-fi love story about a physicist (Tom Bell) who ends up in a parallel universe after a scientific experiment goes awry. At first, the film is a wonderful fish-out-of-water tale as Bell slowly realizes his predicament and reluctantly assumes the identity of his parallel counterpart Colin Trafford (an arrogant, much-maligned playwright). However, the tale gets even more complicated when Bell falls in love with Trafford's flamboyantly unhappy wife Ottile (Joan Collins in a surprisingly subtle performance).

Although the film's narrative often seems like a discarded plot from the daytime soap Dark Shadows, this is an inventive, well-written and (more importantly) splendidly acted drama. It's definitely worth a look if you happen to come across it.