Trivia: During filming, director Jeannot Szwarc had communication problems with both Christopher Reeve and Christopher Plummer. Every time he would say Chris, both Reeves and Plummer would respond. To put an end to it, he started addressing Christopher Plummer as "Mr. Plummer" and Christopher Reeve as "Bigfoot."
Trivia: When Richard Collier leaves the men's room, bloodied from his first encounter with a straight razor, the bearded man who stares at him in the hall and declares, "Astonishing!" is screenwriter Richard Matheson in a cameo role. His screen credit at the end reads "Astonished Man." (01:01:55)
Trivia: Richard Matheson wrote this film's script based upon his novel, "Bid Time Return." The book was set in 1896 at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego CA. But because the "Del" couldn't close to accommodate filming, the movie was updated to 1912 and shot at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel, which is regularly closed to guests for a few months every year.
Answer: Because they had met before. When Richard went back in time to 1912, Arthur was a five-year-old boy. Old Arthur remembers, or at least recognizes, Richard from that time.
raywest ★
Except that Richard hadn't travelled into the past yet.
Like all time-travel fiction, if he will, then he already did. The portrait he saw in the gallery of Jane Seymour is another example: He brought the smile to her face and IIRC, she changed her pose upon seeing him.
kayelbe
Exactly right. Time-travel films rarely make sense plot-wise. They employ a "suspension of disbelief" where the audience just accepts the premise so the story can be told, regardless of whether or not everything makes sense. As I recall, Jane Seymour's "old character" told Richard to "come back to her," meaning she wanted him to go back in time to when she was young.
raywest ★
Time Travel movies and shows do this sort of thing often. This movie actually keeps to the premise of time travel pretty well.