Love Affair (1939)
A French painter and an American singer, each already engaged to someone else, meet aboard a transatlantic liner and fall in love. They agree to part, settle their affairs, and reunite atop the Empire State Building in six months. On her way to the meeting she is struck by a car and, unwilling to come to him crippled, keeps the injury secret.
Love Affair was successful enough that Leo McCarey remade it almost shot for shot, and in wider screen and color, as An Affair to Remember in 1957. RKO’s failure to renew the copyright put the original in the public domain in 1967.
Background
Love Affair was directed by Leo McCarey and stars Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer as two people who are each already engaged to someone else when they meet aboard a transatlantic liner. The film earned several Academy Award nominations, including one for Maria Ouspenskaya in a supporting role. McCarey later remade the story as An Affair to Remember (1957), with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, shot in wider screen and color. The original remains a well-regarded example of the sophisticated romantic drama of its period.
What to watch for
The first half of the film follows the couple’s romance aboard ship and their agreement to part, settle their affairs and meet atop the Empire State Building six months later. Watch for the scenes of their earlier lives, which give their decision weight, and for the way McCarey balances comedy and melodrama in the middle section. The final act, in which one of them keeps a secret injury from the other, drives the emotional climax. Dunne and Boyer’s chemistry carries the film, which moves easily between light social comedy and serious feeling.
