An Affair to Remember (1957)

hyped garbage

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

best movie i've ever seen.

As Good As It Gets

There was this thing, even more so than later on or today, from the 20s through at least the mid 50s, where almost everyone in film was hilariously wealthy. No real people went to clubs every day, or owned multiple tuxedos, but somehow we were to care deeply about the trials and tribulations of their lives. A few of these worked - Nick and Nora - because they were entirely charming and didn't much care for class so would talk to anyone. Or they were putting on airs - To Catch A Thief, for a Cary Grant vehicle comes to mind. Or there was some clashing of cultures - in Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart happens to have done well, but by the measure of a photog, and he lives in a very middle class neighborhood, but has a high class girlfriend. But this? What do I care of this situation, or know of these people? I don't even get why it's worth out loud chuckles that Cary Grant is having dinner with (gasp, I guess) not his fiancée, while on an unaccompanied ocean cruise? Do. Not. Care. But at least Grant is as flat and un-charming as he's been, and there's stuff like annoying musical interludes, plus it is filmed like an episode of Marcus Wellby, MD. Boring as hell. Do not care.

RELEASE DETAILS: New York opening at the Roxy: 19 July 1957. U.S. release: July 1957. U.K. release: 22 September 1957. Australian release: 17 October 1957. Sydney opening at the Regent. 10,312 feet. 115 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A shipboard romance seems doomed when the girl is crippled in a street accident.NOTES: Fox's 80th CinemaScope feature was nominated for the following Academy Awards: Photography (won by Jack Hildyard for The Bridge on the River Kwai); Music Scoring, Hugo Friedhofer (won by Malcolm Arnold for The Bridge on the River Kwai); Song, "An Affair To Remember" (won by "All the Way" from The Joker Is Wild); Costumes, Charles Le Maire (won by Orry-Kelly for Les Girls).Best Film of 1957 — Photoplay Gold Medal Award. Deborah Kerr, Best Actress of 1957 — Photoplay Gold Medal Award. Fox's top-grossing domestic release of 1956-57. A re-make of McCarey's own 1939 RKO picture Love Affair which starred Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne in a screenplay by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart from the story by Mildred Cram and Leo McCarey. The Oscar-nominated McCarey produced as well as directed. COMMENT: This re-make of "Love Affair" is strictly a distaff offering. Femmes will enjoy weeping into their lace-edged handkerchiefs at love's labors lost and found — all against nice plush backgrounds and a heavy syrupy score. Cary Grant seems a trifle bored with the proceedings — and who will blame him? but Deborah Kerr seems right at home, jerking tears with a winsome smile. The color photography is as lush as the sets, and the direction is as dull as the script. Admittedly, it does not open too badly with some pleasant though mediocre shipboard banter between Kerr and Cary; but wait till you strike an extremely long and screamingly dull visit to Cary's aged grandmother, hammily acted by Cathleen Nesbitt! If you can sit through that scene and through two songs murdered by a typically freakish Hollywood group of school- children, the rest of the film is not too bad: Some very attractive color sets, some very pleasant color photography, an engaging theme tune, and directorial craftsmanship that would measure up to a third-rate Frank Borzage.

An Affair to Remember (1957)*** (out of 4)Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) and Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) are both about to be married to very successful people but the two meet on a cruise and soon realize that they have fallen in love. To be sure, they decide to give their romance a six month break after which time they will meet on top of the Empire State Building but things take a wrong turn.AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER has, for some reason, become one of the most loved romance movies ever made. I'm sure some of it is because of the attention it received thanks to SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE but even before that film this one had a nice following. I'm not saying this is a bad movie because it certainly isn't but at the same time I've always felt that the 1939 version, LOVE AFFAIR, was much better.With that said,t his one here still has plenty of things going for it that makes it worth watching. There are also some flaws that keep it from being much better. In my opinion the two long-winded singing sessions by the children towards the end of the movie could have been edited out without any harm done. I'd also argue that there's really nothing original with the story and that even by today's standards it's a tad bit dated. In my opinion, the film also runs a tad bit too long but I've always felt that the movie is so loved because of the final moments in the film. Obviously I'm not going to spoil anything but there's no question that director Leo McCarey does a marvelous job at building up the tension, the romance and the eventual outcome that happens. This final sequence is beautifully shot, perfectly director and so wonderfully acted that you leave the theater on such a great note that you can overlook what flaws the film had.Kerr is certainly very good and quite charming in the film but for my money the success of the movie is due to Grant. The poor actor never really got the credit he deserves even in some of his greatest pictures and performances. As much as I think this film is overrated, at the same time I think Grant's performance is very much underrated as he just brings a certain charm and a certain comic timing that perfectly adds to the entertainment level. Going back to the final sequence, the way he cautiously plays it is so marvelously done that you really can't argue about the talent he had.

I had to watch this twice on account of I fell asleep the first time. So I went and looked at the reviews and it's good, they said, so I gave it another go. I wish, I really wish I hadn't bothered. First of all those ghastly kids. I hate kids in movies, whether they are the Dead- End variety in Angels with Dirty Faces, or (as here) when they are all wiped clean, polished and given songs to sing. In fact I hate that kind the most. Truly emetic.And then there's the improbable plot, the oh so nice grannie, and the pretense that Cary Grant's paintings are any good (they looked like the sort of cheap prints you buy in Woolworth's to me).No, just sentimental rubbish. Don't waste your time.