DISASTER IN TIME

(vt Grand Tour: Disaster in Time, vt Timescape)

   Made-for-tv movie (1991). Channel Communications presents a Wild Street Pictures Production. Dir David N.Twohy; prod John A. O'Connor; screenplay by Twohy, based on "Vintage Season" (1946 ASF) by Lawrence O'Donnell (probably C.L. MOORE writing solo); starring Jeff Daniels,Ariana Richards, Emilia Crow, George Murdock. 99 mins (cut to 90). Colour.

   This is a classy little movie, quite without pretension, based on the famous story of time-travelling tourists from a future suffering from ennui, who stimulate themselves by attending great disasters in the past. Daniels plays an innkeeper (he has lost his wife in tragic circumstances) in a small New England town who is baffled by his unusual guests; disaster (a meteor) strikes the nearby town, his daughter Hilary (Ariana Richards) is subsequently killed,but his access to the tourists' time-travelling device enables a replay of history during which there are two innkeepers in the same time frame, and after which things end well, maybe more than once. Adroit and intelligent, with a pleasant sting in the tail.

   PN