Somewhere in Time opened in October 1980 during an actors’ strike, leaving Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour unable to promote it. The film disappeared quickly, and producer Stephen Deutsch later blamed the decision to release it wide instead of letting word of mouth build. Word of mouth came anyway. The movie ran for more than seven months in Hong Kong, developed an intensely loyal following on home video, and inspired INSITE, the International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts. Members still gather at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, where much of the film was shot.

Richard Collier (Reeve, Superman) is celebrating the opening of his first play in 1972 when an elderly woman approaches, presses a gold pocket watch into his hand, and whispers, “Come back to me.” Eight years later, burned out and looking for somewhere to disappear, Richard drives north to the Grand Hotel. There he discovers a 1912 photograph of stage actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour, Live and Let Die) and becomes so consumed by her that he convinces himself time itself may not be an obstacle. With the help of a professor’s theories about self-hypnosis, Richard attempts to think himself back to 1912.

Reeve’s agent reportedly dismissed the project, so Deutsch got the script directly to the actor, who made it his first film after Superman. Reeve plays Richard’s obsession without a trace of irony, which is absolutely necessary because the entire movie collapses if you spend too much time asking whether any reasonable person would do this. He is said to have avoided seeing Elise’s portrait before filming Richard’s discovery of it, allowing Szwarc to capture his real first reaction. Seymour meets that sincerity with a guarded warmth that gradually opens as Elise allows herself to trust this impossible stranger. Creating beautiful chemistry, Reeve and Seymour say more with a glance than most screen couples manage in a monologue.

Christopher Plummer (Knives Out) gives the love story something to push against as Elise’s possessive manager, William Fawcett Robinson. He resists turning Robinson into an obvious villain, which makes his suspicion of Richard more interesting. Teresa Wright brings her own old-Hollywood glow as Laura Roberts, Elise’s longtime companion. It’s another small touch that makes the movie feel connected to the romantic dramas it is trying to evoke.

Richard Matheson (Duel) adapted his own novel Bid Time Return, while Universal reportedly cut the proposed budget roughly in half. Szwarc, coming off Jaws 2, therefore has no glowing portal, elaborate machine, or swirling special effect to sell the journey through time. He has a hotel room, a tape recorder, Reeve’s face, and John Barry.

And Barry does a lot of the traveling for him. His score, paired with Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” is so openly romantic that anyone resistant to this movie’s sincerity may start itching before Richard ever reaches 1912. For everyone else, that lack of embarrassment is exactly why Somewhere in Time works. It wants desperately to believe that love can cross decades, that a photograph can change a life, and that longing hard enough might somehow bend the rules. It also knows that every great romance needs the possibility of heartbreak.