Customer Reviews

Personal Affair [VHS]

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This is one of Gene Tierney's most overlooked films. Being a fan of Gene's I love almost anything she is in, and this film is no exception. A very interesting story about the obsession of a young girl for her teacher. Gene plays the wife of the teacher and Leo Genn is the man being sought after by Glynis Johns (who was actually 30 years old but played a much younger person.)
The action in the film takes a surprising turn when the girl vanishes and the teacher is now the #1 suspect-
Great movie for a rainy afternoon!

PERSONAL AFFAIR starts out as a conventional British soaper but quickly morphs into a bitter expose of the nastiness of rumor. Leo Genn is Professor Barlow, an erudite and well-spoken teacher of Latin at an exclusive school in England. His wife is Kay (Gene Tierney) and both seem to have it all. They call each other "darling" incessantly as she complains that his teaching takes him away from her. This call to duty soon takes a corrosive bent in her mind as she learns that one of her husband's students Barbara (Glynis Johns) has a massive crush on him and follows him about unseen as he takes walks. He may not see her as she tails him but the nosy neighbors certainly do. As he takes time to coach her for an exam, the town's tongues begin to wag. Things take a morbid turn when she disappears for three days and now Barlow is not only rumored to have an affair with her but also has killed her to end it. No one in the town, not even Kay, is immune to the lurid possibilities. PERSONAL AFFAIR is a ruthless expose of how supposedly "good" people can let their imagination run riot. Genn is convincing as a dedicated teacher who analyzes the complexities of poetic love in his classroom but is clueless when the real thing appears right under his nose. PERSONAL AFFAIR is a sobering wake up call that to see love only as an intellectual excuse for poetic moralizing may lead to tragic consequences.