Love Affair (1939 film)

Love Affair
original film poster
Directed by Leo McCarey
Produced by Leo McCarey
Screenplay by Delmer Daves
Donald Ogden Stewart
S.N. Behrman
Story by Leo McCarey
Mildred Cram
Starring Irene Dunne
Charles Boyer
Maria Ouspenskaya
Music by Roy Webb
Cinematography Rudolph Maté
Edited by Edward Dmytryk
George Hively
Production
company
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Release date
  • April 7, 1939 (1939-04-07)
Running time
 87 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $860,000[1]
Box office $1.8 million[1]

Love Affair is a 1939 American romantic film starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya. It was directed by Leo McCarey and written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, based on a story by McCarey and Mildred Cram.[2]

Plot

French painter Michel Marnet (Charles Boyer) meets American singer Terry McKay (Irene Dunne) aboard a liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean. They are both already engaged, he to heiress Lois Clarke (Astrid Allwyn), she to Kenneth Bradley (Lee Bowman). They begin to flirt and to dine together on the ship, but his notoriety and popularity on the ship make them conscious that others are watching. Eventually, they decide that they should dine separately and not associate with each other. At a stop at Madeira, they visit Michel's grandmother Janou (Maria Ouspenskaya), who approves of Terry and wants Michel to settle down.

As the ship is ready to disembark at New York City, the two make an appointment to meet six months later on top of the Empire State Building. Michel chooses six months because that is the amount of time he needs to decide whether he can start making enough money to support a relationship with Terry. When the rendezvous date arrives, they both head to the Empire State Building. However, Terry is struck by a car right as she arrives, and is told that she may not be able to walk, though that will not be known for certain for six months. Not wanting to be a burden to Michel, she does not contact him, preferring to let him think the worst. Meanwhile, Terry recovers at an orphanage teaching the children how to sing.

Six months go by, and during Terry's first outing since the accident, the two couples meet by accident at the theater, though Terry manages to conceal her condition. Michel then visits her at her apartment and finally learns the truth. He assures her that they will be together no matter what the diagnosis will be.

Cast

Adaptations

Love Affair film was remade by McCarey in 1957 as An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the lead roles, using a very similar screenplay, and by Glenn Gordon Caron in 1994 as Love Affair, starring Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and, in her last feature film appearance, Katharine Hepburn.[3] A 1999 Bollywood movie, Mann, was made based on the same storyline.

Accolades

Academy Awards

Nominations[4]

Availability

In 1967, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the claimants did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.[5] Because of this, the film is widely available on home video and online. The film can be downloaded legally for free on the Internet Archive.

References

  1. 1 2 Richard Jewel, 'RKO Film Grosses: 1931-1951', Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1, 1994 p. 56
  2. ↑ "Love Affair 1939". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Love Affair 1994". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Oscars.org -- Love Affair" Archived 2015-06-10 at the Wayback Machine.. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved November 18, 2013.
  5. ↑ Pierce, David (June 2007). "Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain". Film History: An International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 25165419. OCLC 15122313.

Streaming audio

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