QUEST FOR LOVE (1971)
Article #1043 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-22-2004
Posting Date: 6-20-2004
Directed by Ralph Thomas
Featuring Joan Collins, Tom Bell, Denholm Elliott

A physicist finds himself thrust in an alternate universe when an experiment goes haywire. There he meets and falls in love with the wife of his doppelganger.

The opening third of this movie is fairly intriguing, in that we find ourselves watching a man trying to come to terms with a world that is not only different in subtle ways from his own, but must also deal with wending his way through the life of his alter ego. Then it turns into a love story with all the trimmings; an initially hostile companion to be won over, a world of bliss, a mysterious disease, and a second chance to succeed against the odds are all here. It’s at this point that I realized that the science fiction angle is merely there to serve the purpose of the love story, and if any one moment in the movie convinces me of this, it’s when our hero locates the one person who he can convince of the truth of his story of being from a parallel world, and ends up getting advice on his love life from him. Though I could hardly say this turn in the story took me by surprise (the title of the movie leaves little doubt of what you’re getting into here), I still must admit that I’m not really into romantic movies of this ilk; they always seems so baldly manipulative and fake. Nonetheless, there is a lot of intelligence here, and you do get caught up in our hero’s attempts to deal with his situations. Incidentally, the movie is based on a story by John Wyndham, author of “The Day of the Triffids” and “The Midwich Cuckoos”.