Quest for Love (1971 film)

Quest for Love
Directed by	Ralph Thomas
Produced by	Peter Eton executive Peter Rogers
Written by	Terence Feely
Based on	Random Quest by John Wyndham
Starring	Joan Collins Tom Bell Denholm Elliott Laurence Naismith
Music by	Eric Rogers
Cinematography	Ernest Steward
Edited by	Roy Watts
Production company	Peter Rogers Productions
Distributed by	J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors (United Kingdom)
Release date	9 September 1971 (London) (UK)
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Quest for Love is a 1971 British romantic science fiction drama film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Joan Collins, Tom Bell and Denholm Elliott. It is based on the 1954 short story Random Quest by John Wyndham.

Physicist Colin Trafford stages a demonstration with a particle accelerator to a number of people, including Sir Henry Larnstein and Trafford's long-time friend Tom Lewis.

The demonstration goes wrong and Trafford, with his same memories, finds himself in a parallel universe with significant differences from our own: John F. Kennedy is Secretary General of a still-existent League of Nations and Leslie Howard did not die in World War II because it and the Vietnam War never happened.

Trafford also discovers he is a famous author, an alcoholic, and a womaniser with a beautiful wife, Ottilie. Trafford instantly falls in love with Ottilie, whereas his parallel self was constantly unfaithful to her and she is on the brink of divorcing him.

Eventually, with the help of Sir Henry and the physical evidence of an absent childhood scar, Ottilie accepts that Trafford is a doppelganger for the man she had originally fallen in love with and married.

The couple fall in love once again, but Trafford then discovers that Ottilie has a terminal heart condition which is incurable in that world, and very soon she dies in Trafford's arms.

At that instant, he regains consciousness in a hospital bed in his original reality, where he has been for three weeks since the accident. He determines to track down Ottilie's alter ego, and finds her just in time to get her to hospital for treatment of her ailment. As she recovers, Trafford goes to visit her with a bunch of her favourite flowers and introduces himself.