An Affair To Remember ***** (1957, Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning) – Classic Movie Review 812

Ideal stars Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are cast in the second of their three movies together as handsome playboy Nickie Ferrante and beautiful nightclub singer Terry McKay who enjoy a romance while on a ocean liner cruise from Europe to New York in director Leo McCarey’s 1957 remake of his own 1939 movie Love Affair. It’s one of the half dozen greatest film romances of all time.

Despite both being engaged to other people, Nickie and Terry decide to prove their love by a half-year separation and make a conditional promise to reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months if they still love each other. This happens exactly the half way through the film. Then, however, an accident stops Terry from meeting up at the appointed spot at the arranged time, and Nicky fears that she has married or does not love him.

An Affair To Remember is much more warmly remembered than the fine 1939 original with Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, which is unfairly virtually forgotten, along with its stars. Based on McCarey’s original story, the material proved definitely worth a 50s remake, especially with this perfectly matched actor pairing, with both players in their prime and on peerless form, smoothly improvising many of their lines and scenes.

With the story, dialogue, stars and character actors safely in place, McCarey brings the confident, polished handling requires to spark up a screenplay full of crisp wit and warm feelings. Cathleen Nesbitt (as grandmother), Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Robert Q Lewis, Charles Watts and Fortunio Bonanova are the main support players.

And so it indeed proves quite an affair to remember.

Vic Damone croons the Oscar-nominated title song (music by Harry Warren), one of four Oscar nominations, along with Milton R. Krasner’s colour cinematography, Hugo Friedhofer’s score and Charles Le Maire’s costume design. It’s a very plush occasion, this movie. Kerr’s singing is dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed her in The King and I.

Blacklisted writer and actor Donald Ogden Stewart, one of the original writers of Love Affair, was not originally credited here. He was blacklisted for Communism in 1950 and emigrated to England in 1951 to avoid consequences of the blacklist. He lived in the UK until his death in London in 1980, aged 85. Considered a threat to US security, he was trapped in the UK when US State Dept refused to renew his regular passport. He was also known for The Philadelphia Story (1940), Holiday (1938) and Life with Father (1947).

An Affair To Remember is the inspiration for 1993’s Sleepless in Seattle. Nora Ephron’s film sparked new interest in An Affair To Remember, leading to an incredible 2,000,000 additional sales on VHS in the 90s.

The film’s shipboard premiere was aboard the S.S. Constitution, the location for filming.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 812

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