Based on a play by John Balderston, which in turn is based on an unfinished story by Henry James, Berkeley Square tells the tale of a contemporary man enamored of the past, who manages by the strength of his feelings to merge with that past. Leslie Howard is the ethereal young American who finds himself plunged into an eighteenth-century England exquisitely depicted. The theme of traveling through time by a force created when dream and reality merge makes Berkeley Square an evident source for surrealist artists; an anecdote cited in another context by William K. Everson proves interesting in this light:
“(T)he cameraman of the film, Ernest Palmer (not nearly as well known as his superb photography entitles him to be)...(h)aving worked on early sound musicals, science-fiction films, and under such demanding masters as F.W. Murnau,...still feels that this film presented him with the greatest photographic problem he had ever faced. The script called for this specific image: ‘A closed door which looks as though it is about to open.'” (JB)