Quest For Love (1971 UK)

Here is a quaint little Sci-Fi picture from Britain which combines the intriguing concept of parallel worlds with a nice love story. It's based on a short story by John Wyndham (also responsible for The Day of the Triffids and The Village of the Damned) and gets all the basics of such a proposition correctly - at least, in theory; as of this date, it's all just theory and the existence of 'other Earths' has yet to be proven. The main character, played by Bell, is a physicist who gets transported to another Earth during an experiment very quickly in the story (this wastes no time in getting started; within 10 minutes, he's on the other world).
On this other Earth, history diverged sometime after World War I - just before World War 2 began on our Earth, in fact. There was no 2nd World War on this parallel Earth, with the result that this alternate Earth has less scientific advances (men have not yet walked on the moon) but endured less man-made cataclysms (no Vietnam War). All these snippets of alternate Earth info are tantalizing to fans of such speculative science fiction, but the story throws in a very romantic subplot into the mix. I may just prefer the British manner in presenting romance but I think this tale manages to impress anyone with just a bit of the romantic in him/her. The fantasy sci-fi picture Somewhere in Time (1980) with Chris Reeve & Jane Seymour comes to mind as a comparison but, to me, it's not even a contest: when Joan Collins first walks into the room, I was swept away on the spot.
I also like Bell's performance as the hero: he sort of stumbles along into this fantastic journey which he's been flung into and eventually embraces the cosmic appeal of what fate has given him - an incredible gift, it turns out. He's quite intelligent, being a physicist, but his counterpart on this parallel Earth, whose place he has taken, was an unscrupulous playwright. Bell has to adapt to his new role after some awkward moments, including playing the part of a husband (Bell's character was not married on his own Earth). There are no lengthy action scenes which we've become accustomed to in later films, instead more of interesting discussions and intriguing questions, though Bell does a whole lot of running during the last 10 minutes of the film. BoG's Score: 9 out of 10

This sub-genre of science fiction, parallel worlds, has not been tackled very often in film. In fact, probably the most famous later example of such was on TV: the Sliders series, which ran on a couple of different channels throughout the 2nd half of the nineties. There was also the film The One (2001), which functioned more as an action vehicle for Jet Li, the little known film The Duplicate (2002), a couple of versions of The Lathe of Heaven, which involved more the restructuring of reality rather than visiting other realities, the TV movie Fatherland (1994)...
There have been parallel earth stories on a few episodes of other Sci-Fi TV series, such as "The Parallel" and "Mirror Image" of the old Twilight Zone show, as well as the famous Mirror,Mirror episode of the original Star Trek. A REMAKE of Quest For Love was on British TV a few years ago, titled "Random Quest" - the original title of the story.

Finally, Marvel Comics has gone crazy in the past decade with the creation of alternate versions of its famed characters in alternate worlds/universes, which make up a 'multiverse' rather than a standard universe. This theory of a multiverse is gaining prominence in real-life theoretical science.

A new sci-fi series on the Sci-Fi Channel tackled this parallel world concept: Charlie Jade, a British TV series which aired across the pond in 2005.

HERE'S THE OPENING THEME TO THE FILM Direct Embed, during the credits: