In London, 1945, BBC radio correspondent
Mark Trevor broadcasts to his listeners the details surrounding the
disarmament of an unexploded German V-2 rocket. He is soon
joined in the field by Sara Scott, a foreign correspondent for
The New York Standard. The two journalists have been
lovers for three weeks, and although Sara declares her undying love
for him, Mark is hesitant to state his true affections for her.
Later, in her hotel room, Mark tells
Sara how he grew up in the small English village of St. Giles and
joined the BBC prior to the outbreak of World War II, but Sara
points out that eleven years are missing from his life story.
After Mark finally professes his love, Sara confesses that she is
engaged to her boss, American newspaper publisher Carter Reynolds.
Before she can break her engagement, however, Mark admits that he is
married.
Carter then arrives in London on his way
to Paris, and quickly recognizes the sudden alienation of Sara's
affections. He offers to take her with him to Paris or back to
New York, but the heartbroken Sara insists on staying in London
until she can settle her personal life. Following the German
army's surrender in Italy, Mark is transferred to Paris, but before
he leaves, he and Sara have one final meeting at which they proclaim
their eternal love to each other.
The next morning, Carter rushes to be
with Sara before the BBC announces Mark's death, as he was just
killed in an airplane crash. Sara then suffers a nervous
breakdown and is institutionalized in a nursing home for six weeks.
With the war now over, Carter offers to
send Sara home on an ocean cruise following her convalescence, but
she decides takes a train to St. Giles before setting sail for
America. Arriving in the seaside town, Sara is unable to find
any accommodations, as the post-war surge in tourism has filled all
the local inns, but she meets Mark's young son Brian by chance and
is soon invited to dinner by her dead lover's unsuspecting widow
Kay. Though Kay offers her lodgings for the night, the
grief-stricken Sara cannot stand being surrounded by Mark's things
and bolts from the home.
The next morning, Sara is found on the
docks unconscious and is carried back to Kay's house, where she is
ordered to rest by the local physician. Kay then convinces
Sara to stay on in St. Giles and write a book about Mark, still
unaware that Sara was her husband's mistress.
Later, Sara is shocked to see Alan
Thompson, Mark's childhood friend and co-worker, who somehow
survived the plane crash that took her lover's life. Though he
promises to keep her secret, Alan asks Sara to leave St. Giles
before Kay learns the truth about her relationship with Mark.
Meanwhile, back in New York, Carter is
informed by Dr. Aldridge, Sara's physician at the nursing home, of
her current whereabouts, and he rushes to St. Giles in hopes of
bringing Sara home. Upon their first meeting, Carter and Alan
quickly realize that they are in similar positions, as they both
love women who are in love with the same dead man. Following
an evening at the cinema, Kay questions Alan about her husband's
final weeks, and she soon surmises that Mark was having an affair.
Learning this, Sara confesses all to Kay, but tells the widow that
Mark had ended their affair and was planning to return to his wife
and child.
The next morning, Kay, relieved, rushes
to the train station to say goodbye to a thankful Sara, who then
promises to send Brian a photograph from the top of the Empire State
building.
Notes
Based on the novel "Weep No More" by Lenore Coffee (London,
1955).
The title of Lenore Coffee's novel "Weep
No More" was changed to Another Time, Another Place, when
it was published in the United States (New York, 1956).
Although the film's opening credits imply that the picture marked
actor
Sean Connery's debut, he had portrayed roles in several earlier
films, including his first, the 1954 British release Lilacs in
Spring (released in the U.S. as Let's Make Up.)
Another Time, Another Place did mark, however, Connery's first
featured role in an American film. Paramount press materials
claim that producer Joseph Kaufman and star
Lana Turner selected Connery for the role of "Mark Trevor" after
auditioning over 300 English actors in London.
Another Time, Another Place was
the initial production of Lanturn Productions, a film company owned
by Turner. According to MPD , portions of the film were shot
on location in London and the Cornwall region of England.
Paramount press materials state that scenes set in "St. Giles" were
shot in the Cornwall fishing village of Looe.
According to HR news items, Another
Time, Another Place originally was set to be released in
September 1958, but Paramount chose to rush the recently completed
film into theaters in May 1958 in an attempt to capitalize on the
publicity surrounding the death of Turner's lover, gangster Johnny
Stompanato. On Good Friday, April 4, 1958, Stompanato was
found dead in Turner's Beverly Hills mansion, stabbed to death with
a butcher knife. Turner's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cheryl
Crane, was charged with the murder, and following one of the most
highly publicized trials in U.S. history, the death was ruled a
justifiable homicide. According to modern sources, gangster
Mickey Cohen, angered at being forced to pay Stompanato's burial
costs, gave twelve love letters written by Turner to Stompanato
during the filming of Another Time, Another Place to an
editor of LAHE, and their publication during the trial made
front-page news across the country.
Though it was rumored in Hollywood for
years that Turner had killed Stompanato herself, the actress's
career suffered no ill effects from the scandal and her first
picture following the murder, the 1959 Universal release
Imitation of Life, was one of the most critically and
financially successful films of her career. In her
autobiography and all later interviews, Cheryl Crane denied any
involvement by her mother in the death, stating that she, herself,
had accidentally stabbed Stompanato after hearing him threaten her
mother during an argument, precisely as she had testified during her
trial thirty years earlier.
The film Includes the song "Another
Time, Another Place," music and lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray
Evans.