Quest for Love

Joan Collins - Ottilie/Tracy Fletcher
Tom Bell - Colin Trafford
Denholm Elliott - Tom Lewis
Laurence Naismith - Sir Henry Larnstein
Lyn Ashley - Jennifer
Juliet Harmer - Geraldine Lambert
Neil McCallum - Jimmy
Geraldine Gardner - Sylvia
Jeremy Child - Dougie Raynes
Ray McAnally - Jack Kahn
Dudley Foster - Grimshaw
Geraldine Moffat - Stella
Simon Ward - Jeremy
Sam Kydd - Taximan

This moving and unusual science-fiction romance was loosely based on the short story “Random Quest” by John Wyndham. The intelligently scripted story is undeniably convoluted and implausible but Tom Bell’s earnest performance makes it both engaging and convincing. Co-star Joan Collins produces a suitably appropriate understated display; Denholm Elliott is his usual dependable self whilst there’s an charming cameo from Laurence Naismith. The film was directed and produced by the ‘Carry On’ team of Gerald Thomas and Peter Rogers.

Young physicist Collin Trafford (Tom Bell) enters the Imperial Psychical Institute building in London to conduct an experiment into time travel in front of a gallery of prominent government officials and fellow scientists, including the eminent Sir Henry Larnstein (Laurence Naismith). No sooner has the experiment commenced than the particle accelerator begins to malfunction and Trafford finds himself transported to a parallel world in which President Kennedy is not shot, Vietnam never happened, Mount Everest is unconquered, he is a novelist and playwright, and most unexpectedly – the unattached Trafford is now married.

Collin’s wife in the parallel world is Ottilie (Joan Collins), and whilst he falls in love at first sight, she despises the arrogant husband that is an alcoholic serial womanizer. Collin attempts to convince her he has been transported from an alternative timeline and is not the husband she has grew to loathe and wishes to divorce. Eventually, with the help of Sir Henry and the physical evidence of an absent scar, Ottilie accepts that her husband is a doppelganger. The couple fall in love once again but Collin discovers Ottilie has a terminal heart condition incurable in this dimension and as his wife dies by his side, Collin is returned to his own world. Back in his own time, Colin realizes there must be an alter ego of Ottilie in his time and that she too must be on the verge of dying. Immediately he seeks out his true love and determines to get her to a hospital before she suffers the same fate.