I understand this film doesn't have widespread appeal, but there are those who love it; including me. Those of you who hate this film are welcome to your opinions. The film didn't speak to you. And that's fine. But it speaks volumes to me, and I've seen it multiple times.
The film strikes just the write note at the start with shipmates David Herdeg and Jim Parker at a dance with Jim's pregnant wife Pamela.
The principal characters are established right here, and we get our first glimpse of James Longstreet, the mysterious scientist behind the experiment to make ships invisible to radar.
The abrupt segue from Jim and Pamela having their last dance as a haunting melody plays to the sailors being trucked to their ship and the opening credits is both moving and suggestive of bad things to come. This is especially apparent when Pamela, who has one last wave to Jim and David on the street, gets into her car. The look on her face speaks volumes as the aforementioned haunting melody rises again.
The experiment is conducted, and the USS Eldridge becomes literally invisible. But things are going haywire on the ship. David and Jim leap over the side only to land in a deserted small town in Utah.
Here we enter the film's brilliant fish-out-of-water phase. David and Jim have just jumped from 1943 to 1984. The modern world is bewildering to them, and the film shows this to good effect.
The sailors meet Allison Hayes at a godforsaken Utah truck stop, and the lovely Nancy Allen enters the picture. They didn't dress her the least bit sexy, but she still manages to come across as a lovely, compassionate young woman. It was the perfect pitch for the character.
The laconic Paré and Allen play well together, particularly in a scene where she has just learned that he really is from the past, and he that his now late father was a successful auto racer. ("Good for you, pop. Good for you.")
Another dramatic transitions occurs after Longstreet and company fire a missile into a vortex in the sky that appeared when they tried to make a Utah town disappear and are stunned to see the town and the Eldridge in there. From that dramatic reveal we are suddenly flying over a California avocado grove with the sounds of Manfred Mann's "The Runner" playing in the background. It was the perfect tune for the scene.
Once David and Alison enter the nerve center of the experiment, the time-shifted sailor upbraids the now elderly Longstreet (Eric Christmas) with a simple "What the hell have you done, Longstreet?"
The chastened scientist tells David that the generators aboard the Eldridge were never shut down, and so a vortex was created across time when the experiment with the town was initiated.
The solution is for David to be shot into the vortex where he boards the Eldridge and dramatically shuts down the generator by smashing the equipment with an ax, has a few kind words for Jimmy and leaps over the side just before the ship reappears in 1943.
Alison borrows a jeep, drives into the just-reappeared town and finds David there. "I've got it all figured out," he tells her. "The navy owes me 40 years back pay."
It was the perfect end to a near perfect movie. The best thing Michael Paré ever did.
The film strikes just the write note at the start with shipmates David Herdeg and Jim Parker at a dance with Jim's pregnant wife Pamela.
The principal characters are established right here, and we get our first glimpse of James Longstreet, the mysterious scientist behind the experiment to make ships invisible to radar.
The abrupt segue from Jim and Pamela having their last dance as a haunting melody plays to the sailors being trucked to their ship and the opening credits is both moving and suggestive of bad things to come. This is especially apparent when Pamela, who has one last wave to Jim and David on the street, gets into her car. The look on her face speaks volumes as the aforementioned haunting melody rises again.
The experiment is conducted, and the USS Eldridge becomes literally invisible. But things are going haywire on the ship. David and Jim leap over the side only to land in a deserted small town in Utah.
Here we enter the film's brilliant fish-out-of-water phase. David and Jim have just jumped from 1943 to 1984. The modern world is bewildering to them, and the film shows this to good effect.
The sailors meet Allison Hayes at a godforsaken Utah truck stop, and the lovely Nancy Allen enters the picture. They didn't dress her the least bit sexy, but she still manages to come across as a lovely, compassionate young woman. It was the perfect pitch for the character.
The laconic Paré and Allen play well together, particularly in a scene where she has just learned that he really is from the past, and he that his now late father was a successful auto racer. ("Good for you, pop. Good for you.")
Another dramatic transitions occurs after Longstreet and company fire a missile into a vortex in the sky that appeared when they tried to make a Utah town disappear and are stunned to see the town and the Eldridge in there. From that dramatic reveal we are suddenly flying over a California avocado grove with the sounds of Manfred Mann's "The Runner" playing in the background. It was the perfect tune for the scene.
Once David and Alison enter the nerve center of the experiment, the time-shifted sailor upbraids the now elderly Longstreet (Eric Christmas) with a simple "What the hell have you done, Longstreet?"
The chastened scientist tells David that the generators aboard the Eldridge were never shut down, and so a vortex was created across time when the experiment with the town was initiated.
The solution is for David to be shot into the vortex where he boards the Eldridge and dramatically shuts down the generator by smashing the equipment with an ax, has a few kind words for Jimmy and leaps over the side just before the ship reappears in 1943.
Alison borrows a jeep, drives into the just-reappeared town and finds David there. "I've got it all figured out," he tells her. "The navy owes me 40 years back pay."
It was the perfect end to a near perfect movie. The best thing Michael Paré ever did.
Tell Your Friends