LOVE AFFAIR: Blu-ray (RKO, 1939) Criterion

 Director, Leo McCarey once claimed that his 1939 Love Affair was made by an amateur while its 1957 remake, An Affair to Remember (also directed by McCarey) was the work of a master craftsman. I’m not entirely certain I agree. For although the latter effort undoubtedly represents the apex of McCarey’s film-maker’s acumen, and, in more recent times has swamped the reputation of his original, wed to all the bells and whistles of the ‘then’ modern age in the picture making biz (Cinemascope, color by DeLuxe, stereophonic sound, a killer main title sung by Vic Damone, and a score of sheer perfection by Hugo Friedhofer), the ’39 effort delivers the goods where it counts – in the sheer romantic chemistry between its two star-crossed leads; Irene Dunne, as the ill-fated nightclub chanteuse, Terry McKay, and intercontinental lover, Charles Boyer as failed French painter and bon vivant, Michel Marnay (a.k.a. Nickie Ferranti in the ’57 reboot). Cary Grant’s silken smooth delivery in the remake has managed to eclipse Boyer’s more seriously toned lover. A shame, actually, because Boyer’s performance here is among the greatest, he ever committed to celluloid. In Boyer we have a curious sense of the immediacy of the man he is portraying; Marnay, very much aware his loveless years of carousing are fast coming to an end, and, if not for the patronage of a rich lover to keep him, he will likely fall into romantic despair and poverty. It’s a great motivator for Marnay’s pending marriage to rock and gravel heiress, Lois Clarke (Astrid Allwyn), and an even more startling revelation to find his otherwise faithless Lochivar turned to the good by the slightly sassy McKay – herself, a kept woman by rich lover, Kenneth Bradley (Lee Bowman) at the outset of our romantic tale.

While An Affair to Remember offered subtler elaborations on the lives Ferranti and McKay had prior to their shipboard romance (we actually get involved in Terry’s ‘friendship’ with Ken, played with great empathy by Richard Denning, and, Lois, as portrayed by the uber-sophisticated Neva Patterson),  Love Affair stays immediately focused on Marnay and McKay’s fatal weakness as individuals desperate to secure their futures apart with affluent partners they do not actually love, only to suddenly realize without each other, their lives will never come to any good. If An Affair to Remember is a glossier film (and, in Cinemascope and stereophonic sound, how could it not be?), then, Love Affair remains chiefly anchored in a sort of stoic, thirties’ smartness for primed melodrama, only occasionally peppered in bits of light-hearted comedy that, oddly enough, seem entirely out of place here. If anything, An Affair to Remember offers us an inversion of Love Affair’s solemnity, while strangely managing to crib from pretty much the same screenplay (originally conceived by McCarey and Mildred Cram, later rewritten by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, only subtly updated in ’57 by McCarey/Cram, still cribbing from Daves and Stewart’s original). Even more miraculous is a side-by-side comparison of the love scenes – nearly identical in dialogue, yet played with great romantic sincerity in Love Affair by an ardent Boyer and Dunne, followed through with a more joyously comedic edge by Grant and Kerr in the ’57 remake. Both versions work, and yet for entirely different reasons.

McCarey was certainly no stranger to romantic comedy. But by the time he came to make Love Affair he had decidedly tired of the screwball format. Worse, just prior to Love Affair, McCarey admitted to being severely afflicted by a bad case of writer’s block, averted when his wife suggested they both go on a cruise to Europe. The trip proved fortuitous; McCarey, immediately conjuring to mind the high concept about two passengers who fall madly in love while on a cruise, alas, presently obligated to somebody else on the mainland. Handing his notes over to Cram, McCarey basically told his collaborator the story in a few brief sentences, leaving Cram to put in the details under the working title, Memory of Love, then - Love Match. At this point, Cram handed over the final polish to Delmer Daves with Donald Ogden Stewart brought in to lighten the tone with a few minor instances of comedy. Around Hollywood, the project garnered considerable interest. Helen Hayes and Greta Garbo both lobbied for the lead. But McCarey had conceived the part for Irene Dunne, a close family friend and the star of McCarey’s hilarious screwball rom/com, The Awful Truth (1937).

Dunne, a singer by trade who seemed to take to the New York musical theater like a duck to water, found much work early in her career, if little notoriety. Her starring role as Magnolia Hawkes in the road company of Show Boat (a part she would later reprise in Universal’s 1936 film adaptation) earned her plaudits and interest from RKO Pictures. Rather problematic, Dunne was already in her thirties by the time she appeared in her first movie in 1930 – usually, the kiss of death for young ingenues aspiring to stardom. As such, Dunne evaded questions about her birth and outright lied about the date, as either 1901 or 1904 - the former, engraved on her tombstone as fact. Yet, what did it matter as Dunne’s patrician looks proved timeless. Love Affair is squarely situated at the apex of her screen popularity and marked the first of 3 pictures she would make with Charles Boyer – their palpable on-screen chemistry earning them the moniker in Variety as Hollywood’s ‘most romantic’ couple. But perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Irene Dunne was, by 1936, she had become a freelancer in Hollywood at a time when ironclad studio contracts for leading ladies were the norm. Dunne’s independence afforded her the opportunity to cherry-pick her own screen destiny. At Columbia she reluctantly committed to Theodora Goes Wild (1936), discovering a yen for screwball comedy that earned her a second Oscar-nomination as Best Actress, before appearing for McCarey in the equally as brilliant, The Awful Truth. After Love Affair, Dunne’s career took on more ballast as a ‘serious’ actress.

Concurrently, Charles Boyer, whose movie career seemed chronically derailed by world events, had also risen to prominence as the intercontinental love interest, and, a freelancer in Hollywood. Beginning as a comedy sketch artist in his native France during WWI, Boyer studied at the Sorbonne and Paris Conservatory, his first opportunity on film in 1920’s Aux jardins de Murcie. He was an immediate hit with the ladies, a following amplified with the introduction of sound that allowed his deep and sophisticated voice to shine. MGM hired Boyer to appear in the French version of The Big House (1931). But it was Boyer’s first English-speaking role in Paramount’s The Magnificent Lie that same year that earned him notices. Nevertheless, Boyer returned to France in 1932, brought back to Hollywood for Fox’s 1934 pic, Caravan. Indie producer, Walter Wanger would end Boyer’s roaming for a brief spell after casting him in Algiers (1938), the movie to immortalize Boyer’s delivery of a single line of dialogue, “Come weeth me to ze Casbah” igniting a sexual tension, sparking off the friction of his co-star, Heddy Lamarr. Boyer also possessed an uncanny knack for choosing projects that propelled his career, rejecting Columbia’s Harry Cohn's plum offer to appear in Good Girls Go to Paris to commit to Love Affair instead, later commenting, “Any picture that Leo McCarey directs is its own guarantee. He can't make a bad picture.”

To suggest the creation of Love Affair was a standard issue practice, cranked out under the machinery of the studio system is to omit that it went over its initial $800,000 budget by nearly $600,000 as McCarey daily submitted new scenes and dialogue to his stars he had thought up the night before. Dunne and Boyer waited around the set for hours, sometimes barely to shoot 15-minutes of usable film at the end of the day after having arrived at the studio in the wee hours of the morning for make-up and costume fittings. McCarey loved improvisation. But on Love Affair, this exploration of character and tone cost the studio dearly and, on occasion, tried the patience of his cast and crew. McCarey also ran afoul of Hollywood’s self-governing code of censorship, citing the adulterous nature of Terry and Michel’s shipboard romance as they were both engaged to other people.  Furthermore, the French embassy, seeking a better alliance with America, objected to the original tale of an American woman and a French diplomat having an affair. McCarey obliged by changing the character of Michel from a diplomat to a mere citizen – the epitome of the gallant French lover. As another matter of compromise, McCarey was informed by the Breen office, Terry would have to be punished for her indiscretion, resulting in the character’s fate of partial paralysis at tale’s end, while Michel would experience a subtler romantic conversion, renouncing his wayward sexual past in the name of true love.

Despite these concessions, the work progressed. And no exec at RKO could argue with the rushes, revealing a subtly nuanced, rare piece of romantic fiction gradually unfolding with sustained, if highly sanitized, desire up there on the big screen. McCarey reused a line of dialogue originally uttered by W.C. Fields in 1934’s Six of a Kind, afforded Terry in Love Affair - "According to you, everything I like to do is either illegal, immoral or fattening," which was ill-received by the critics but entirely overlooked by audiences. At McCarey’s behest, Boyer was allowed to ‘find’ his character, while Dunne was given the opportunity to choose the signature song for the picture – ‘Wishing’ – a hit parade favorite from that year.  Costar, Maria Ouspenskaya remained in awe of McCarey’s command of the cinema space and would later describe the experience of making Love Affair as ‘inspirational’ with everyone working overtime and pulling together to will the project to life.

Like its subsequent remake, the original Love affair opens with McCarey’s tongue-in-cheek reflections made by various reporters on the importance of international womanizer, Michel Marnay who is slated to be wed to an heiress back in New York – good news for all the husbands, boyfriends and lovers who have feared losing their wives, fiancées and girls next door to this international Lothario. Alas, on the luxury liner bound for America, Michel meets American singer, Terry McKay. Michel’s reputation precedes him and, at first, Terry is prejudiced toward the man who has been a topic of so much illicit publicity around the world. She is, however, unprepared to discover the man beneath the rumors as a well-intended sort, rather than the self-aggrandizing popinjay his publicity would otherwise suggest. And thus, Terry warms to Michel’s advances. These, at first, are strictly platonic, owing to Terry’s resistance towards anything more. But gradually, the pair realize each has stepped into a pre-marital trap of their own design. Michel’s engagement to Lois Clark (Astrid Allwyn) is a matter of formality while Terry’s plans to wed Kenneth Bradley (Lee Bowman) are purely mercenary, to ensure her financial security.

Confessing these truths to one another, Terry and Michel plan to dissolve their relationships once the ship reaches port, allowing for a six-month respite from one another while they establish themselves as independent and self-sustaining individuals worthy on one another’s love. As the ship pulls into Madeira, Michel takes Terry to meet his grandmother, Janou (Maria Ouspenskaya), who instantly bonds with Terry and confides her own concerns regarding her nephew, that one day life will present Michel with a terrible bill he will be unable to pay for the romantic follies of his youth.  Terry is shown a landscape painted by Michel, suggesting his future may be as an artist of some repute. Aside: in the ’57 remake, Cary Grant’s rechristened Nickie has painted a portrait of Janou’s late husband, Henri, he presents as a gift, confiding in Terry that his grandmother’s impatience is to be reunited with him in death. Departing Madeira, Terry and Michel suddenly realize there is no going back. They love one another passionately. As the ship pulls into New York harbor, Terry suggests they make plans to meet atop the Empire State Building – the nearest thing to heaven – in six-months’ time. Michel marks the date. The ship docks and Terry and Michel are reunited with their fiancées.  

All does not go smoothly as Michel’s attempts to become a legitimate painter do not materialize. Breaking off his engagement to Lois, Michel finds work designing advertising billboards around the city. Meanwhile, Terry, having instructed her maid, Annie (Phyllis Kennedy) to pack her bags for the move out of Kenneth’s penthouse, now negotiates a contract with a Philadelphian nightclub as its headliner…until June. As the date for their reunion nears, both Terry and Michel have made good on their promises to stand on their own two feet. Alas, tragedy strikes as Terry, having run into Kenneth once more, confides she will be wed to Michel before the day’s end. Stricken by love, she fails to see an oncoming car in heavy traffic and is struck down in the street. Having survived this ordeal, Terry learns from her doctor she is paralyzed from the waist down and elects, rather cruelly, to deny Michel any notification about her condition. Meanwhile Michel, having waited for hours atop the Empire State Building, retreats in dismay from its pinnacle, believing Terry has merely stood him up, having forgotten the date.

Bitterly, Michel packs his bags and returns to Madeira, only to discover his grandmother has recently died. Returning to New York, Michel continues to garner modest success as a painter, but finds it to be hollow as he has no one with whom to share his good fortune. Meanwhile, the superintendent of an orphanage overhears Terry singing in the garden of her physiotherapist and hires her as a music teacher for the children. Another six-months pass. Kenneth, who continues to carry the torch for Terry, accompanies her to the theater. Unaware of her condition still, Terry and Michel are awkwardly reunited. She is aloof and guarded and Michel believes it is because she does not wish to inform him that she has decided to remain with Kenneth instead. On Christmas Day, Terry reveals to her music pupils she is too ill to attend their concert. However, while being attended by her apartment’s landlady (Ferike Boros), Terry suddenly discovers Michel in her doorway, determined to make his inquiries about the reason for her absence nearly a half a year ago. Michel implies he never went to the Empire State Building for their rendezvous to see if Terry will lie to him about where she was on that same day. Terry falls for the trap, then pretends to minimize the importance of her promise to be there. However, when further prodded, Terry breaks down and admits the truth about her diagnosis to Michel. Recognizing the epic sacrifice she has made for his happiness, Michel vows whatever the future shall bring, he will remain at her side and love her always as before.   

It is fairly impossible to view this rather straight forward dénouement in Love Affair without first remembering the towering and tear-stained finale to An Affair to Remember. Buoyed by Hugo Friedhofer’s tender and heart-tugging celestial reprise of that movie’s main title song, ‘Our Love Affair’, the moment between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, in which Nickie suddenly comes to the realization the gallery painting he crafted, depicting Terry and his late grandmother, was later bequeathed to a woman in a wheelchair, now makes the connection between that woman and Terry as one in the same, is a moment sublime, and one only the most hard-hearted can resist. As Grant and Kerr forever seared its bittersweet sense of epic loss and rediscovery of love unending, the similarly crafted penultimate moment in Love Affair between Boyer and Dunne plays with a faint whiff of formaldehyde, to distinctly pale by comparison.  Perhaps, McCarey was right – the first movie, though given its props for being first, slightly inferior to its remake. That said, Love Affair holds together spectacularly some 83-years after it first hit movie screens, in a year overwrought with masterpieces of critical and artistic merit and achievement.

1939 – a year like no other in movie history, and not likely to ever be duplicated again; the culmination of nearly two decades of mastering the cinema language into which virtually every Hollywood studio poured its very best efforts to create movie magic of the highest order. Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dark Victory, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Of Mice and Men, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Women, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, Babes in Arms, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Roaring Twenties, The Little Princess, Intermezzo…and on and on. In any other year, Love Affair would have stood in relief as a towering monument to great picture-making. In 1939, it was merely par for the course of a rare excellence in picture-making. On a lighter note, Love Affair was responsible for escalating sales of pink champagne all around the world – the drink of choice for Terry and Michel’s romantic rendezvous. As an interesting footnote, Dunne’s Terry asks Michel, “Going my way?” as she returns to her ship’s stateroom. Director, McCarey would, of course, make the Oscar-winning Going My Way, bearing no similarity at all to Love Affair, in 1944. And Hollywood was hardly done with McCarey’s affair du coeur, remaking it yet again under the original title, Love Affair in 1994 – alas, this time as a leaden and painful excursion to costar marrieds, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, with Katharine Hepburn in the expanded and Americanized role of Ginny.

McCarey’s Love Affair was decidedly a rarified example of the romantic melodrama, a true sport in the classic sense with an absorbing originality to have remained palpable to this day. In its proper time and place it was justly praised for these tenderly sentimental qualities. The ’57 remake carries sentiment to new and exhilarating heights of theatricality, subdued only by the genuineness of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr’s performances. Nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Love Affair endures as brilliant film-making of the highest order, a film, once seen, is virtually impossible to set aside without delving into rose-colored memories from one’s own love affairs – only some of which are best meant to be remembered. For decades, Love Affair only existed in poorly contrast second and third generation prints, riddled in age-related artifacts, with grotesquely boosted contrast and a decided loss of fine details. In short, McCarey’s classy classic seemed doomed to remain deprived of its subtler visual flair, as beautifully photographed by cinematographer, Rudolph Maté. Criterion’s recent Blu-ray has managed to right most of these wrongs, thanks to a new 4K restoration undertaken by The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and Lobster Film laboratories in Paris, cribbing from a 35mm original nitrate print and a safety 35mm duplicate negative. Hyperbole abounds in marketing classic movies as full-blown restorations. But in Love Affair’s case, the hype is worth ever penny. While a few scenes still exhibit a soft-ish quality with moderately blown out contrast, the bulk of this presentation yields an image of sublime B&W loveliness unseen since the picture’s opening night. The image has been resurrected and appears genuinely film-like, if still slightly imperfect. Given the state of surviving elements, what has been achieved herein is nothing short of a miracle. Permit us to worship.

Grayscale here reflects what one might have seen in a theater, rather than the refinement of an actual hi-def re-scan from 35mm original negatives. This is the best that can be achieved. And, while not exactly stellar, it rises in leaps and bounds from the home video atrocities of yore. Criterion’s singular LPCM 1.0 mono audio has been masterfully replicated with minimal hiss heard only during the most quiescent moments. What is here is clean, crisp and lovely. Criterion has fatted out the extras with some genuine goodies; 6-mins. about the monumental restoration efforts – a very informative piece. We also get two silent shorts McCarey made starring Charlie Chase – Looking for Sally (1925) and Mighty Like a Moose (1926) – each running just under a half-hour. There are also two radio adaptations of Love Affair, one from 1940, and the other from 1942 – each, just under an hour in length. Finally, critic Farran Smith Nehme discusses the production history and longevity of Love Affair in a newly recorded reflection from 2021. It runs just under a half-hour. Add to this, an essay by critic, Megan McGurk entitled ‘The Nearest Thing to Heaven’. Bottom line: Love Affair will always remain a genuinely affecting movie. While many are far more acquainted with its ’57 remake, the 1939 original gets major props as a cinema touchstone; arguably, the romanticized American equivalent to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.   

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

3.5