JohnHowardReid This should have been a really good film, but I found it lacking in several important respects. But let's discuss the good points first. The sets and the Technicolor photography are magnificent, and I like the whole idea of presenting the past NEGATIVELY! The sheer squalor alone is enough to shatter any romantic associations we might have, and when you add brutality, abuse and the negative lot of almost all women, both rich and poor, the negativity adds up to almost complete nausea. This was certainly a ground-breaking idea but it's definitely not one that is going to endear the film to 99% of its intended audience. But I congratulate Fox for making such an expensive movie purely for professional critics like myself who are tired of all the sunny, bright and happy movies made for general consumption. Mind you, I wouldn't like this transformation to become a permanent fixture, but it is nice to see the ugly and horrible side of the past in order to remind us how fortunate we are to be living in the present century. Mind you, I got the impression that Ty Power's reaction was also negative. The best that I can say about his performance is that he says his lines distinctly, even though his heart is obviously not in them. The other players make little impression. Henry Koster's direction, as usual, is at its most persuasive in the background scenes. Elsewhere, it tends to lack backbone.

thinker1691 This movie is called " I'll never forget you. " The director is Roy Ward Baker and his finish product does a remarkable job of it becoming a Masterpiece. The story however could have been selected from those strange episodes of 'The Twilight Zone'. It concerns a modern day American scientist named Peter Standish (Tyrone Power) who not only works on a project dealing with Nuclear energy, but also inherits an early English house set in the fashionable part of Londan. Once there he has a over powering feeling of deja vu and actually believes he has lived there before. Believeing he is the direct descendant of his father, he confides in his best friend Roger Forsyth (Michael Rennie) that he will travel back to the past. Dismissing the possibility, Roger invites Peter to stay with him for a vacation, when he abruptly disappears and reappears as his ancestor in 1784 A.D. During his absence Peter takes the place of his ancestor and enjoys all the sights and experiences of England which becomes more dangerous the longer he remains. The movie itself becomes a delightful dream but one which evolves into a nightmare. This is a must film for Tyrone power fans and is further enhanced with the talents of Michael Rennie. All in all a Classic film for many a collector. ****

rdfarnham I saw this as a first run film and was impressed. both by the story (unusual for a teen age boy) and by how beautiful Ann Blyth was (not so unusual). It was, and is, a great film that not many people know about. The only thing that bothered me then, and also now when I watch the DVD, is why a man as brilliant as the professor didn't realize he was getting into trouble? He had plenty of warnings yet he continued doing things that almost anyone else would have realized that people of that time would regard as witchcraft or the work of the devil. Still, even with that defect, I think it is the best time travel film I have ever seen. Maybe not as flashy as some, but it leaves a deeper impression and a nicer memory.

bkoganbing The House In The Square is a remake of the film Berkeley Square which starred Leslie Howard both on stage for 229 performances in 1930-31 and in the 1933 film for which he got an Oscar nomination. Tyrone Power steps into Howard's shoes and gives a more than satisfactory performance in the part.Power plays a nuclear scientist who has taken lodging in an old Queen Anne era house on Berkeley Square in London. Fellow scientist Michael Rennie is real concerned about him as he's moody after having found an old diary by an ancestor from 1784. Power is convinced he's to exchange places in time and space with said ancestor and when Rennie leaves him sure enough he does.But Ty just had to be a showoff in 1784, telling family secrets he learned from the diary about folks he just met and disturbing such Georgian personalities as Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Only one person does he truly connect with and that's Ann Blyth, a young lady who was not mentioned in the diaries, but who in fact is the younger sister of Beatrice Campbell who the Georgian Power is to eventually marry.The comparisons with Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court are too obvious to belabor. In fact two years earlier Paramount had done a successful musical version with Bing Crosby and Rhonda Fleming. There was a lot more comedy in that film than in The House In The Square, but the romantic angle is the same and the romance is resolved in exactly the same way.Ty and Ann make a beautiful pair of lovers in the post American Revolutionary war Great Britain. This was one of Power's most romantic parts and he made the most of it. He's a little mature for the part, but his talent covers it nicely. And Tyrone Power's legion of fans rightly adore this film.