"An Affair to Remember"
Reviewed by Heather Picker
Directed by Leo McCarey. Written by Delmar Daves and Leo McCarey. Starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, with Richard Denning and Cathleen Nesbitt. 1957, 115 min., Not Rated.
In 1939, Leo McCarey (The Bells of St. Mary's, Going My Way) directed "Love Affair," starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne. The film was a critical success, and McCarey won two Academy Awards for it (direction and writing). For some reason or another, he decided to remake the film in 1957. Although its predecessor is widely considered to be the superior film, at the time, "An Affair to Remember" won over audiences again. The film went on to be nominated for four Academy Awards.
"An Affair to Remember" opens with news segments from different parts of the world, all announcing the engagement of Nickie "The Big Dame Hunter" Ferrante (Cary Grant) to Lois Clark, a member of a family that is industrial 'royalty,' who is worth an estimated 600 million dollars. Nickie is on a cruise from Paris to New York, and along the way meets Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr), a former nightclub singer who was swept away from her former life by her businessman boyfriend, Kenneth (Richard Denning), and is now focusing on learning the kind of skills that will be necessary when she becomes his wife. Of course, Nickie and Terry fall in love.
A photographer stalks about the ship, secretly snapping photos of the pair, who are resisting, without denying, their growing attraction. Nickie is a well-known playboy, and Terry, who is reticent to acknowledge just why she distrusts him (or rather, herself around him) agrees to accompany him on shore one day, when he goes to visit his grandmother (Cathleen Nesbitt). They spend the day together and get along well, and the tension between Nickie and Terry is obvious. Grandmother Janou, when proposing a toast, instead of toasting Nick's impending marriage to Lois, looks fondly at Nick and Terry, glasses raised, and says, "May your voyage home be a pleasant one."
Returning to the ship, they finally relent, and, in one of the most famous proposals in cinematic history, decide that in six months they will meet at the top of the Empire State Building. During this time, they will get their acts together and decide what they want. If they both show up, they will be married.
The first part of the movie, carried by Grant's comedic charms and Kerr's engaging performance, sets a nice pace for the rest of the film, although the final twenty minutes or so are overwrought enough to almost undo the promising beginning. I found certain camera angles discerning, as the cinematography was commended at the time of the film's initial release. The unsteadiness of the sea and boat shots, giving the effect of the unevenness and rocking of the waves, was a nice touch the first time, but unnecessary after that.
Also, the chemistry between Grant and Kerr isn't as magnetic as that of say, Grant and Katharine Hepburn, or Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Still, it works out nicely. His blend of suavity and Kerr's graceful uncertainty lend themselves to many clever shipboard shots (i.e., when she is on the stairs and he is walking in circles around the staircase; the night at the dining hall when they are unwittingly sitting in back-to-back booths) with the kind of outcome that is rarely seen in films outside of that time in Hollywood. An element of dated, saccharine-soaked implausibility is thrown into the mix when Terry takes a position as a music teacher at a parochial school. Children sing twice when once would have more than sufficed. This is a minor flaw, and given its genre, can be taken in stride.
The first time I saw this movie, I thought it dragged on for a bit too long. Since then, I have seen it a couple more times, and I grow more fond of the film each time I watch it. For example, when Terry returns from the cruise and Kenneth arrives as she was trying to watch a television interview with Nickie and Lois. This scene was one that I didn't originally like, but it has since become one of my favorite scenes in the picture. Some of the corny lines, however, like anything that little kid who was stuck, upside down, on the stair railing of the ship, said.
Leo McCarey, who had directed Grant (opposite Irene Dunne) in the 1937 screwball comedy classic, "The Awful Truth," has some genuinely great shots in this movie. Grant and Kerr, who would re-team in Stanley Donen's 1960 comedy "The Grass is Greener," are up to their expected levels of greatness. Richard Denning is competent as erstwhile Kenneth and Cathleen Nesbitt gives an excellent supporting performance as Grandmother Janou. All of this adds up to a romantic classic.
Notes: Remade in 1994 as "Love Affair." Currently not available on DVD, but the video is priced at under $10. Not rated; kids might get bored after a while, but there is nothing objectionable in it.
The Verdict: Check out the 1939 "Love Affair" it is a remake of, but give "An Affair to Remember" a try. You may not find it to be the tearjerker many remember it as, but it is an unbeatable combination of lighthearted romantic comedy and melodrama that will strike a chord with most audiences.
mailto: Ahber16@aol.com Review courtesy of http://www.thatmoviesite.8m.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews