Movie Report: Love Affair (1939)

One of the all-time classic movie romances, Love Affair has inspired a slew of other films. So the film student in me had to watch the original.

It's got some good points -- the acting is superb. The characters are very believable and seem "real," at least through the first half of the movie. There's no clear "bad guy" -- even the guy Irene Dunne is trying to leave isn't a jerk.

So here the premise: French playboy and ex-lounge singer, both on their way to get married, meet on a cruise ship and fall in love. A port sequence where the playboy takes his new sweetie up into a enchanted cottage to meet his charming (fairy) grandmother (Maria Ouspenskaya, in the movie's strongest performance) is the best thing about the movie. She's serene, sad and otherworldly -- it's worth watching for these scenes alone.

So the lovers return to New York, and vow to meet again in six months -- when they've proven that they can be together as equals. Dunne dumps her rich boyfriend, moves away and starts supporting herself again. The playboy (Charles Boyer) breaks up with his meal-ticket fiancee and gets a job. All is going well until ...

Irene Dunne, and the whole damn movie, get hit by a car.

OK, so she's paralyzed. I get that. She's emo. I get that too. But she'd rather have the man she loves forever think that she stood him up practically at the altar as opposed to saying "sorry I couldn't make it honey -- I GOT HIT BY A CAR!"

I think he'd probably give her a pass for tardiness. SHE GOT HIT BY A CAR.

So we get a long, ridiculous sequence of Dunne being emo and in a wheelchair, and Boyer being emo and dumped. Add in some 1930s too-good-to-be-true Hollywood orphans and this movie has moved 90 degrees away from good.

It's supposed to be a fairy tale, but it all could have been cleared up with a phone call. Why, in movies and in real life, are people who are supposed to be in love so adamantly opposed to speaking to one another?

Starts strong, ends silly. Oh, and Turner Classic Movies' print of this is lousy. I wonder if there's a remastered version out there without all the scratches, skips and sound problems.