Customer Reviews

Love With the Proper Stranger [VHS]

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Natalie Wood is Angie Rossini, the Macy's salesgirl who gets pregnant by hapless trumpet player Rocky Pampasano, played by Steve McQueen. When she looks him up to tell him about her problem, he doesn't even remember her but does find a doctor to perform an abortion. Seeing her in that seedy, back alley situation does something to this basically-nice guy and he rescues her before she has the abortion. Seeing these two characters bond is a romantic adventure. From their desperate struggle to raise the money for the abortion to their dinner date where he tries once again to seduce her, I fell in love with watching them fall in love. Add a hefty heaping of comedy Italian-style to this. Tom Bosley is classic in his first film as the man hand-picked by Angie's brothers to win her heart. Her mother has an Oscar-deserving scene when she takes to her bed on hearing of her daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy and rants in Italian as she tries to keep this news from the priest. The priest, too, is classic as the confused man who can't believe Rocky is willing to marry her but the pregnant Angie is refusing. How could this be? Because she wants to feel love, to hear bells and banjoes she explains. And in one of the best scenes in any movie, there is Rocky on the corner by Macy's strumming his banjo, ringing his bells and trying to win Angie's heart. The course of true love is never smooth, and from their unfortunate beginning to their romantic ending, you'll love watching a most unusual relationship grow. Watch also for Edie Adams (Rocky's girlfriend) and Herschel Bernardi (Angie's brother) in great supporting roles.

Both Wood and Mcqueen are at their absolute best in this love story that translates into any era. Why do we have to wait for movies of this calibre to appear on DVD, when the studies release so much rubbish that nobody wants.

Mike Lewis-Hart. Australia

McQueen and Wood are outstanding as a foot loose musician and a Macy sales clerk respectively in New York City. Even in a city of millions you still get involved with the lives of two families. While McQueen and Wood are standouts, the supporting cast help make this a solid and memorable film.

The movie begins with an empty hall and quickly it turns in to a musicians hiring hall. Here is where we first meet McQueen and Wood. Wood is coming to see McQueen about the after effects of a one night stand a few months earlier. Naturally, the woman remembers the man, but the man doesn't have a clue. What makes it tougher for McQueen is that he already has a girl friend when he meets Wood again. Eddie Adams is great here as McQueen's suffering girlfriend. When McQueen asks about maybe getting her help for a friend who needs a doctor for his pregnant girlfriend, the result is predictable but Adams is superb as she makes her opinion known.

The families of these two people are a great contrast. The family of Wood, all brothers and a mother are suffocating her with their concerns about her. Her brother picks her up from work in the family truck. Her mother is of the old world. McQueen's on the other hand have accepted that he is out on his own and seem to be used to his occassional appearences.

The scenes dealing with the solution to Wood's "problem" are chilling. Waiting on a windblown street for a contact. Both trying to be inconspicuous and worry that they have enough money for the "doctor". When the contact shows, he tells them that they have enough for the "doctor" but not for his fee. They are given a deadline and then they set off to dig up the money. McQueen knows his folks will give him some money so he heads with Wood, to see them at a local playground. Here it turns into a race as Wood's brothers show up looking for her and they are also racing the clock to see the "doctor".

The actual back alley setting is sobering and a real shock of reality as it was in the years leading up to Rowe v. Wade. This is a good reminder about what an abortion involved. No sterile technique, more a process to keep the people from getting too blood stained.

This is not a lived happily ever after story. You don't know what happens to them other than that they both have a change of heart about each other.

This is a must see movie for any family with teenagers. It is a good look at the world and is timeless in it's locale. The black and white photography is excellent and adds a great deal to the visual impact. New York, as always, provides it's own unique component to this excellent film.

Add it to your library.

This is my favorite movie of all time. Why can't people get it in DVD? I've been waiting years!
The last reviewer suggests it's due to conservatives like me. I doubt it. "Love with the Proper Stanger" is a love story -- which I very much like. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only conservative out there that feels the same way.
I don't care what your politics are -- a good story is a good story. Let's get this one out there!

This film is truly a gem! Without giving anything away for those who haven't seen it yet: the pivotal scene in the squalid apartment is worth the price of the VHS! In this scene,Natalie Wood will take your breath away! The silent terror in her eyes is unforgettable! She is magnificent in a role that should have won her the Oscar! I've read so many reviews of older films including this one that criticizes the stories as being dated. This is nonsense! We must always remember the year it was filmed and judge it on it's merits. Saying this, I must add, Where is the DVD?

This is a wonderful, tender film that contains the beautiful Natalie Wood's greatest performance. Steve McQueen also is very winning. It is a romance, that starts off pretty realistically. Then midway,it switches to romantic comedy. But the performances are the thing in this film and the lead carry it off, ably supported by Hershal Bernardi, Edie Adams and Tom Bosley. I really wish that Paramount will soon release this on DVD. It's the kind of film you can watch over many times and come out feeling good about life.

I LOVE this film! When you watch it you must remember that it was made in the 1960s and it was quite a groundbreaking film. Natalie Wood is BRILLIANT (her finest performance) as Angie, a girl who becomes pregnant and suddenly forced to take control of her own life. Steve McQueen is fabulous as the man who impregnated her. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

i saw this movie when i was a senior in high school. i went to the drive in with an italian young man, who laughed at all the language ( in italian, of course) that both families used and i had no clue what was being said. but in spite of that, i thought it was a very good story: it was sad, funny, and heartfelt, all in one and one half hour. i loved the part when steve comes to natalie's for dinner and tries to get her to go to bed with him, and she says that she knows him better now so she can't do that, and he is totally clueless about her feelings. also, the ending just makes me cry when i think about it, it is soooooooooo romantic. a very good movie, even today, which was just on last week on our local cable channel. i had not seen it since the 60's, but it is still one of my favorites. there will be only one natalie wood and steve mcqueen.

Sweet but cynical, this Robert Mulligan film seems strangely modern despite its slightly dated plot (illegal, back-alley abortions, thank goodness that's something we no longer have to worry about). Natalie Wood, scoring her third and final Oscar nomination, and Steve McQueen, in their only on-screen pairing, shine in their realistic, touching portrayals as two working class Italian-Americans who find themselves in a dilemma after a one-night stand. Angie (Wood) is pregnant, and Rocky (McQueen), attempts to help her to pay for termination of the unwanted pregnancy. Things don't go as planned, and he finds himself in the middle of a conflict between Angie and her protective brother, Dominick (Hershal Bernardi), when Angie refuses to marry him. Although the viewer knows that they are right for each other, the pair maintain a defiance against the attraction, refusing to give into romanticism which could have turned the film into a forgettable, sappy love story. Their naturalistic and cynical views on love and marriage give this movie the bite and redeeming qualities that keeps it afloat. Strikingly photographed in black and white, against the gritty New York backdrop, with wonderful, elegant but simple costumes by Edith Head, Wood and McQueen both give perhaps the best performances of their careers. Bernardi, as Angie's overprotective brother, is a lovable annoyance, while Tom Bosley, as Angie's would-be suitor, Columbo, brings an endearing comic relief (clumsy!), and his sisters and that mother of his - classic Italian mama! The same can be said for Angie's occasionally hysterical, traditional, guilt-inducing mother - "Go and be a mother in America! Day and night you watch her, day and night! You take her here, you meet her there, you wait all day, afraid that some lunatic might grab her in the street!" Or, my personal favorite, "Yes, in my grave, I'm going to rest!" Edie Adams, billed third but in a rather small (but showy) role, is fantastic as the showgirl Barb, in her classic early 60s apartment and her little doggies - great reaction expression when she finds Angie using her shower!

Gently scored by Elmer Bernstein, the little radio rendition we briefly hear in the warehouse sequence "I could fall in love with the proper stranger, if I heard the bells and banjos ring . . . . . . .", which gives the plot another boost, letting the leads subtly spark off one another as they discuss the clich' of love. "Oh, how they build things up - in the books and all the movies - 'how the world comes to an end the moment your lips touch mine' - how they brainwash you." Natalie's large, luminous eyes draw the viewer in, as does Steve's tough-guy vulnerability, which Angie exposes, with her charming line, "You know, if you didn't try so hard to play against it, you could be a pretty decent kind of a person."

Love does win out, in a rather unconventional but fabulous climax - it's utterly right and I'm amazed that this film is becoming difficult to find and has never really gotten the recognition it deserves. A DVD print needs to be commercially available - VHS copies seem to be disappearing.

And remember - better wed than dead!

This is and has been a terrific movie and it is shocking that it has not been made into a DVD. Realizing that Steven McQueen's other movies are more action-packed, let everyone see what his other side was. He deserves that recognition as does the beautiful and talented Natalie Wood.
Little Guppy