39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pink Champagne, May 1, 2005
The depth and charm of Leo McCarey's 1939 film, Love Affair, places it far above most love stories and miles ahead of his own remake in later years. Irene Dunne would certainly have taken home the Oscar in any other year as she had many fine performances which were deserving. A fine script by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart takes us from sparkling wit to bittersweet love with ease, thanks to McCarey's fine direction and the performances of Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer.
Terry McKay (Dunne) and Michel Marnet (Boyer) are aboard the S.S. Napoli on an ocean cruise contemplating their impending marriages; she to a decent fellow who is more a friend than anything, and he to a very wealthy industrial heiress who doesn't excite him much but can afford his playboy lifestyle. They meet by chance when she reads his cablegram to a girl other than his fiance by mistake and teases him about it. They must avoid prying eyes aboard ship when a charming romance takes shape, as his engagement is in all the society papers.
Dunne is a witty hoot as the American girl from New York, Terry McKay, and Boyer gives a very charming performance as Michel Marnet, a man with talents who spends most of his time living it up rather than doing something with his life. Terry gets a glimpse of what he might be when she meets his charming elderly grandmother on a stop in Porto Santo, Madeira.
A beautiful rose covered villa with a chapel which makes Terry want to whisper is Janou's home. She and Janou make a connection when the old woman sees that she may be the good woman who could make Michel's life right. She fears a bill may be coming for all Michel's living which he can not pay. There is a beautiful scene in the chapel Michel will paint from memory when the two part.
But they promise to meet in six months on top of the Empire State building at 5:00 to see if Michel can earn a living through his painting and be worthy to ask her hand in marriage. But he waits until midnight in the pouring rain and Terry does not come. What he doesn't know is the sirens he heard below at 5:00 were for Terry, who had been struck down crossing the street and crippled, perhaps for life.
Terry doesn't want Michel to know her fate and he returns to his former life in a half-hearted attempt to drown thoughts of what might have been. Terry, who was a singer, falls into a job as music teacher for the orphanage next to the ward where she was treated and tries to make a life for herself. Michel sees her in a theatre not knowing a wheel chair outside the theatre doors is the reason she did not meet him.
When his grandmother passes on, he uses the gift she wanted Terry to have as an excuse to track her down and discover why she abandoned their chance at love. Terry keeps a shawl over her legs but a painting he had only recently decided to sell because the buyer was poor and crippled will bring things all into focus.
A love story of rare beauty, this is a neglected treasure in American cinema. Most prints of this film are decent but it would be wonderful to see it restored to the original luster it must have had when released to theatres in 1939. Dunne sings "Spring in My Heart" and the Oscar nominated "Wishing" is sung by her group of orphans. A nice score by Roy Webb enhances the mood of another RKO classic. A memorable romance with charm that is perfect for a rainy day.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad Quality DVD!, February 26, 2000
By A Customer
I have to agree that these are bad prints. I bought 5 of these Madacy DVDs and will return all of them. I am not usually very picky about quality. A good VHS tape is just wonderful to me. These DO NOT COME CLOSE TO VHS!
The sound quality is so bad, I couldn't get through the film. The hiss is not only audible, it drowns out the soundtrack. The picture has weird artifacts that I have never seen before. I could have tolerated them, but the audio hiss gave me a headache. My guess is that the publisher bought a $2.99 VHS tape of these movies and transferred the tape to DVD. No noise reduction whatsoever. Its like listening to a cheap cassette on a $5.00 walkman--I kid you not! You could do just as good a job in your basement with a VHS tape player and a DVD writer. Come on Madacy, you could have at least suppressed that hiss!
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Love Affair: Love Overcomes Adversity, August 28, 2002
LOVE AFFAIR is one of many films whose theme is that love does not adhere to imposed schedule. What distinguishes this movie from other and similar ones is what the actors do and say after they realize this. Terry McKay (Irene Dunne) and Michel Marnet (Charles Boyer) are each romantically involved with other people when they meet and fall in love on a sea voyage to New York. This sort of thing happens often enough in real life but their reaction to their new emotions reveals their basic decency and depth of feeling. They agree to meet months later on the top floor of the Empire State Building to cement their relation. Thus far, the tone is one of light, romantic comedy. However, LOVE AFFAIR takes an unexpected tragic detour as Terry is crippled in a car accident. Other movies have often dealt with issues in which one lover grows ill or crippled, but in this film, one of the lovers (Terry) makes things worse by hiding her condition by running away from Michel. For most of the second half, Terry and Michel are apart physically but connected emotionally. Each copes with the separation as best as they can. Michel's grief is probably the easier to cope with since he feels that he was unjustly jilted so what can he do about that except heal. Terry's grief is more multi-faceted since she has to live with a series of complicating factors, only one of which (her being confined to a wheelchair) is beyond her control. She must reconcile her present unhappiness with the unpleasant realization that she could have tossed away a life of bliss with a man who might not have been scared off by the prospect of a wheelchair bound wife. Miss Dunne was a deserved nominee for Best Actress as she manages to hide her misgivings about her decision to break off the relation beneath smile and song. Charles Boyer is convincing as a man who loses his love, does not know why, and then must face the consequences of factors totally beyond his control. LOVE AFFAIR is not your three hanky sobber. Rather it is an intelligent exploration of love gone astray, a condition exacerbated when one of them discovers that this love sometimes needs a healthy dose of honesty and confidence to keep it on track.
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