The folks at the Australian boutique label Imprint bring us The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan, a fondly remembered made-for-TV movie that no one would have expected to see the light of day in such a exquisite release.
Jennie (The Bionic Woman herself, Lindsay Wagner) and her husband Michael (Alan Feinstein) buy a massive old house to start afresh following Michael’s infidelity. It’s a beautiful period dwelling with plenty of character and history. While exploring the attic, Jennie finds a vintage white dress that she decides to keep and fix up. However, when she wears the garment she is transported back decades and meets the troubled artist (a pre-Beastmaster Marc Singer) who previously lived in the house. Discovering what happened to him, she is determined to change the course of his history, but finds herself falling in love.
The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan comes from that era of great TV movies that could have easily been cinema movies. Think Duel or Gargoyles and you get the idea. Directed and adapted for TV by Frank De Felitta (who wrote the novel upon which The Entity was based and also directed possibly one of the best TV movies ever, Dark Night of the Scarecrow), it’s a story that could have been bogged down by its schmaltziness but manages to remain both charming and intriguing. Somewhere in Time might have done the romantic time travel concept better, but Jennie Logan is an impressive runner-up for that subgenre. Wagner excels as the housewife trying to deal with her philandering husband and the emotions raised from her own dalliance with the long-dead artist.
Imprint’s Blu-ray looks stunning. The 1.33.1 image is pristine, and it’s hard to imagine how we enjoyed these films on a cathode tube back in the day. The only extra feature of note is a very informative commentary by Kevin Lyons from eofftv.com, who gives a relaxed insight to the film’s production and the people involved (he even points out Hollywood legend Gloria Stuart in her blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance). This is one for the romantics out there with its blending of soap-style drama with whimsical fantasy.
