Blue Moon - #Timetravel #movie

This obscure little movie, directed and co-written by John Gallagher, is becoming hard to purchase and even harder to find a synopsis online. Here is what IMBD and Amazon say about it:

“A magical story about an older couple (Ben Gazzara and Rita Moreno) who try to rekindle their love one night in the Catskills.”

This does not tell anything about what makes this movie so charming. Yes, Frank and Maggie Cavallo (Gazzara and Moreno) go to the Catskills to rekindle their love, but there is so much more. Frank is struggling with his retirement and the couple’s marriage is beginning to fail. They find themselves fighting constantly.
We learn that the mountain cabin is a place they used to go to for romantic rendezvous. But this particular night Maggie, more or less, forces Frank to go. 

The scenes cut to another couple who are just starting out in their relationship. This young couple is Mac and Peggy, played by Brian Vincent Kelly and Alanna Ubach (Meet the Fockers, Legally Blonde). When Mac tells her they are going to the mountains, she assumes he means the Alps to fulfill her dream of one day going to Paris. But instead, they too are renting a cabin in the Catskills. 

Brian Vincent Kelly and Alanna Ubach as Mac and Peggy

​Meanwhile Frank and Maggie remember a long ago rhyme about making a wish during a blue moon. Maggie makes a wish that she and Frank could remember what it was like to be young and what brought them together in the first place.

In Mac and Peggy’s cabin, Peggy wishes she could see how her future husband, Mac, turns out in the future.
 
Not being happy with Mac in the moment, she undresses and goes to hop into bed. She screams because she finds Frank and Maggie asleep there. This causes Frank to point a gun at the young couple, wondering why they are trespassing. 

Brian Vincent Kelly (Mac)

Alanna Ubach (Peggy)

SPOILER ALERT...

... but no surprise, Mac and Peggy are Frank and Maggie from the past. As the night goes on, they learn all about each other. For instance, the young couple learns that Frank never took Peggy (Maggie) to Paris and Frank talks about how he was abused as a child. But the older couple now remembers what made them fall in love to begin with, while the younger couple sees a long fulfilled life together.

Ben Gazzara and Rita Moreno (Frank and Maggie Cavallo)

This movie is well done for a low budget film. It is presented and acted like a stage play, which gives it a different feel, and as I said, it has a very romantic charm. It has become rare enough for Amazon to charge big bucks for the DVD, but there are used ones for sale.