 Starring: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson
Director: Leo McCarey
Year Of Release: 1957
Plot: Before heading back to New York to get married, playboy Nicky Ferrante decides to take a cruise, however on the boat he meets former nightclub singer Terry McKay (who’s also in a relationship), and they slowly begin a romance. Not wanting anyone else to know, largely because of Nicky’s fame, they sneak around, but fail to keep their love quiet. Then, as the cruise is about to end, they agree to ditch their partners, start new lives and to meet at the top of the Empire State Building in six months time to get married, but will they make it? |
It always annoys me when people say films were better in the old days. For a start a lot more movies were made in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and most of them have been completely forgotten, and so now we just remember the good ones that have stood the test of time, and so of course it looks like films were generally better in the past. And then there are movies like An Affair To Remember, which is a Sunday afternoon staple, was voted by the AFI as the fifth greatest romance of all time and inspired Sleepless In Seattle, yet it is an astonishingly stupid film. So the next time someone moans to you about how silly modern films are, I’d suggest you use An Affair To Remember as an example of how this isn’t a new phenomenon, or necessarily a bar to a film becoming a classic.
So what’s wrong with An Affair To Remember? For a start the film is pretty morally dubious. Both the leads are already in long-term relationships, yet for some reason have decided to go on a cruise by themselves, and take the first opportunity to romance one another with no thought for the people waiting for them back at home. Actually that’s not quite true, becuase they busily try to hide what they’re up to, but fail miserably. To get around this, the film even goes so far as to have Nicky and Terry kneel in front of an altar in a sort of symbolic marriage, as if that nullifies the fact that this great romance is actually about two people cheating on their partners.
Not that their partners, Kenneth and Lois, don’t deserve to be cheated on, because they must be the biggest doormats in cinema history. Even though Nicky and Terry come back from the cruise and announce that they’re leaving their respective lovers because of some hare-brained scheme to meet each other at the top of the Empire State Building, Kenneth and Lois are ridiculously understanding and just sort of hang around in the hope they might change their minds. There’s no anger or recrimination, just a stolid acceptance that their lot in life is now to stand in the background being as helpful as possible, and hope that Nicky and Terry will take them back one day.
And anyway, what the hell sort of plan is meeting at the top of the Empire State Building? Who on Earth decides they’re in love, but they need to sort their life out, and so they’re not going to speak to each other for six months, and then they’ll meet up at that point and get married, without even a phone call to check that the holiday romance vibe hasn’t rubbed off. It is oddly romantic, but it wouldn’t make any sense at all in real life, and you’d think anyone who suggested it was an idiot.
I’m also slightly at a loss as to why they need to bother with the six month thing anyway. It’s got something to do with them making money and standing on their own feet before they get together, but despite the fact Nicky is allegedly rich and famous, the only way he can think to move forward is by becoming a painter. Again, I don’t know why they’re not allowed to date during this time, or why the painting thing is strictly necessary, but apparently it wouldn’t be romantic and self-sacrificing otherwise.
And now for the spoilers. On the way to the Empire State Building, Terry gets tragically run over and paralysed. Yes, that’s very sad, but it has to be said that afterwards she’s a bit of a bitch. In a sort weird, stubborn, self-sacrificing and yet overly proud move, she decides that she couldn’t possibly tell Nicky that she’s now paralysed, and he must only ever find out if she ever learn to walk again. However at this time she’s quite happy to have her ex-boyfriend at her beck and call, while being relatively blunt with him that if she ever gets the use of her legs back, he’ll be kicked to the kerb again. I’m very sorry she’s paralysed, but what a bitch.
These are not nice people. If you met Nicky and Terry in real life they’d come across as arrogant, self-obsessed, cheating, slightly cruel and prone to making the most ridiculous decisions you’ve ever heard, yet you put it all together in a movie, and suddenly it’s a great romance. Looked at rationally, An Affair To Remember is undoubtedly a stupid film about horrible people, yet when you watch it, it all comes across as gushingly romantic.
The point I’m trying to make is that people often complain about films being stupid, as if that’s intrinsically a bad thing. Oftentimes it is, but there are many films throughout the history of Hollywood that are wonderful, while nevertheless being incredibly dumb. What An Affair To Remember taps into is that the things that resonate with audiences don’t necessarily have to make perfect sense, or involve people who would be considered ‘nice’ in real life.
Instead it’s about playing on the audience’s dreams and fantasies, in this case finding a love so strong you would throw everything away to follow it, and which no matter what obstacles are put in its way (or how daft those obstacles are), it will stand the test of time. On that score An Affair To Remember certainly works, but it’s definitely dumb as a box of rocks, and proof that in Hollywood the more things change, the more they stay the same. And if a film this silly can become an unabashed classic, maybe it’s time for people to reassess what makes a good movie.
TIM ISAAC
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