Love Affair (1939)
Directed by Leo McCarey

Film Review

By the late 1930s, the French born actor Charles Boyer was an even bigger star in America than he was in his native France.  His success in Algiers (1938), the hugely popular American re-make of the French classic Pépé-le-Moko (1937), had made him one of Hollywood's most bankable leading men, so it is hardly surprising that he should end up being cast opposite some of the most prominent actresses of the time.  In Love Affair, the charismatic Boyer shares the limelight with Irene Dunne in what is easily one of the most successful screen partnerships of his career.  To what is on paper a fairly humdrum melodrama (it's the classic scenario of love found then tragically lost) both actors bring considerable charm and finesse, and Boyer has rarely given a more sensitive and poignant performance than he does here.

Leo McCarey directs the film with his customary flair and sensitivity, the changing mood of the piece subtly underscored by Rudolph Maté's atmospheric lighting and Roy Webb's eloquent music.  As in McCarey's subsequent sentimental comedy-dramas Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), song plays an important part in the narrative, most notably in the memorable sequence in which Irene Dunne croons Plaisir d'amour to an admiring Boyer.  The aching sense of loss we feel when the scene is later replayed, with Dunne tragically absent, is almost unbearable.  Love Affair was both a significant critical and commercial success, receiving no fewer than six Oscar nominations in 1940 (in categories that included Best Picture, Best Writing and Best Actress).  It was subsequently remade by McCarey as An Affair to Remember (1957), with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the lead roles.  In 1994, Glenn Gordon Caron directed a further remake (keeping the original title), starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.  Needless to say, neither of these can hold a candle to Leo McCarey's original film.

Film Synopsis

Michel Marnet, France's most eligible playboy bachelor, is on his way to America by liner so that he can marry the fabulously wealthy heiress Lois Clarke.  During the voyage, he strikes up an acquaintance with another young woman, Terry McKay, who is also engaged to be married.  Within no time, Michel and Terry realise they are in love with each other, an impression that is reinforced when they stop off briefly at Madeira to visit Michel's elderly grandmother.  Once they have reached New York, Michel and Terry agree to meet up at the Empire State Building in six months' time; if either one of them fails to honour the rendezvous, the other must accept that their affair was no more than a passing infatuation.  As Michel embarks on a career as a painter, Terry finds work as a cabaret singer.  Six months later, Terry hastens to the Empire State Building, certain that Michel will be there to greet her.  Just when the couple are set for a happy future, disaster strikes...