Reel Classics: An Affair to Remember

Our Reel Classic today is a heart-warm­ing romance involv­ing what would ini­tial­ly seem an unlike­ly cou­ple.  The film, An Affair to Remember (1957), begins on a trans-Atlantic ocean lin­er.  We are intro­duced to a frol­ick­ing play­boy, Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant), who has been in mul­ti­ple rela­tion­ships to date.  He has also been in mul­ti­ple news­pa­per and mag­a­zine arti­cles for his var­i­ous affairs.  He is cur­rent­ly engaged to a very rich heiress who is await­ing his return back in the United States. 

On the ocean voy­age he meets an attrac­tive woman who is return­ing to the United States to meet up with her boyfriend.  Her name is Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr), and, as fate would have it, they con­tin­ue to “bump” into each oth­er on the voy­age.  Again, as fate would have it, their meet­ings lead to a friend­ship which even­tu­al­ly morphs into an attrac­tion to each other. 

The ship tem­porar­i­ly docks on the Mediterranean coast at Villefranche-sur-Mer, and it so hap­pens that Nickie’s grand­moth­er lives there.  Terry agrees to accom­pa­ny him to vis­it his grand­moth­er Janou (Cathleen Nesbitt) while the ship is docked.  In talk­ing with Janou, Terry begins to see a dif­fer­ent Nickie than the one por­trayed in the papers and mag­a­zines.  She learns of his tal­ent as a painter and the high expec­ta­tions he has placed on his artis­tic efforts.  She also sees the com­pas­sion for fam­i­ly and his love for his grand­moth­er.  She finds her feel­ings for him grow­ing and sees that she is falling in love with him.  Nickie finds that he too is falling in love. 

As they con­tin­ue their voy­age across the ocean these feel­ings grow deep­er and more appar­ent to each of them.  However, things are com­pli­cat­ed by their exist­ing rela­tion­ships.  Before land­ing in New York, they agree to give them­selves six months.  They will deal with their cur­rent rela­tion­ships and Nickie has decid­ed he will make the effort to actu­al­ly earn an income through his paint­ing.  They agree to meet at the Empire State Building in six months to con­tin­ue their future togeth­er.  They part from each oth­er at the pier when land­ing in New York, gaz­ing at each oth­er as they leave with their respec­tive partners. 

Nickie does begin to work at his paint­ing and begins to pro­duce efforts that sell in an art deal­er’s shop.  Both deal with their rela­tion­ships with the under­stand­ing that they love anoth­er.  On the day of the pro­posed meet­ing at the Empire State Building, Terry is trag­i­cal­ly struck by a vehi­cle while rac­ing across a street.  Needless to say, she is unable to keep the agreed upon meeting. 

The rest of the sto­ry I will not share as I do not want to pro­vide spoil­ers.  However I will say that, though there are mis­un­der­stand­ings of what hap­pened, fate once again plays a role in their relationship.

An Affair to Remember was direct­ed by Leo McCarey, who was well known for his come­dies (espe­cial­ly Laurel & Hardy) and well-known dra­mas, includ­ing Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945).

Leo McCarey’s career dat­ed back to the era of silent films where he both wrote and direct­ed films.  This film was his last great suc­cess as a direc­tor.  It was actu­al­ly a remake of an ear­li­er film he had direct­ed in 1939, Love Affair, star­ring Charles Boyer as a French play­boy, and Irene Dunne as Terry McKay.  Reportedly the same script was used for the remake.  The orig­i­nal screen­play was co-writ­ten by McCarey, Delmer Daves, and Donald Ogden Stewart.  In the cred­its for An Affair to Remember Donald Ogden Stewart’s name was omit­ted because he had been black­list­ed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as an alleged Communist. 

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr appeared togeth­er in two oth­er films, Dream Wife (1953) and The Grass is Greener (1960).  Cary Grant had report­ed­ly con­sid­ered retir­ing after To Catch a Thief in 1955.  However, he had roles in three films in 1957 includ­ing The Pride and the Passion and Kiss Them for Me.  Those two films were not very suc­cess­ful at the box office, but the suc­cess of An Affair to Remember kept him going until he final­ly retired in 1966.  Interestingly, Ingrid Bergman had been the first choice for the role of Terry McKay and Doris Day was also con­sid­ered.  However, the part even­tu­al­ly went to Deborah Kerr. 

An Affair to Remember was nom­i­nat­ed for four Academy Awards.  The cat­e­gories were Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Scoring and Best Song (“An Affair to Remember” sung by Vic Damone.)

Critics were divid­ed on the film.  The New York Times crit­ic said the first part of the film (on board the ship) was filled with “plen­ty of humor­ous con­ver­sa­tion that is han­dled crisply” but that the “mar­riage pact seems ridicu­lous­ly child­ish for a cou­ple of adult peo­ple to make.” The crit­ic with The Washington Post agreed, stat­ing the film “boasts ear­ly amus­ing reels that ulti­mate­ly become unbe­liev­ably fool­ish in the quest for audi­ence tears.” 

However, many of crit­ics were very pleased with the film.  Variety described it as “nev­er maudlin” and “whol­ly believ­able.” Harrison’s Reports described it as “more enchant­i­ng and delight­ful than the orig­i­nal” and “so pow­er­ful in the clos­ing scenes that one is unable to fight back the tears.” 

The review in The Monthly Film Bulletin described it as “a lush slice of Hollywood roman­ti­cism, unashamed­ly fol­low­ing most of the famil­iar con­ven­tions of glossy mag­a­zine fic­tion . . . [t]he rela­tion­ship between Ferrante and Terry McKay is briskly devel­oped, with an attrac­tive, often touch­ing humor.” Turner Classic Movies (TCM) describes An Affair to Remember as “one of the most pop­u­lar love sto­ries ever made in Hollywood.  Many fans would hail it as the most roman­tic movie ever made.”

The film was includ­ed in the American Film Institute’s 1998 list of nom­i­na­tions for the Top 100 Greatest American Movies and in their 2002 list of Top 100 America’s Greatest Love Story Movies.  The American Film Institute vot­ed it the #5 great­est romance of all time.

As men­tioned above, An Affair to Remember was a remake of the 1939 ver­sion Love Affair.  Another remake was made in 1994 enti­tled Love Affair, star­ring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.  The role of the grand­moth­er was played by Katherine Hepburn.  That was her last big screen appear­ance before her death in 2003.  (Hepburn also appeared that year in a TV movie called One Christmas). 

Interestingly, though we hear Terry McKay singing in the film, it is not actu­al­ly Deborah Kerr we are hear­ing.  Her vocals were dubbed by singer/actress Marni Nixon.  Nixon also dubbed the vocals for Kerr in the musi­cal clas­sic The King and I (1956) as well as the vocals for Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). 

Another inter­est­ing note is that direc­tor Leo McCarey  had long been open to actors in his film impro­vis­ing lines dur­ing the film.  Some of the inter­change between Cary Grant and Deborah was impro­vised and remained in the final cut. 

An Affair to Remember was ref­er­enced in the very pop­u­lar 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle star­ring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.  It report­ed­ly was inspired by the film as well.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates An Affair to Remember at 7.4 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a crit­ic’s score of 67% and an audi­ence score of 87%.  In search­ing via my ROKU for free stream­ing sites I found none.  However, the Clark County Public Library does have a copy of the DVD on the shelf. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic but let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.” I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page.