Love Affair
Encyclopedia
Love Affair is a 1939 American romantic film starring Irene Dunne
and Charles Boyer
and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya
. It was directed by Leo McCarey
and written by Delmer Daves
and Donald Ogden Stewart
, based on a story by McCarey and Mildred Cram
.
Love Affair was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture
, Best Actress
, Best Supporting Actress
, Best Writing, Original Story
(Mildred Cram, Leo McCarey), Best Original Song
(Buddy G. DeSylva, For the song "Wishing"), and Best Art Direction
(Van Nest Polglase
, Alfred Herman
).
The film was remade
in 1957 as An Affair to Remember
with Cary Grant
and Deborah Kerr
in the lead roles, using a very similar screenplay, and in 1994 as Love Affair
, starring Warren Beatty
, Annette Bening
, and, in her last feature film appearance, Katharine Hepburn
.
The film is currently in the public domain, and can be found at the Internet Archive
. Warner Bros.
/Turner Entertainment
currently has the rights to release a DVD from the original film elements in the Americas and Australia, while British rights are owned by Universal Studios
. So far, neither company has decided to make a release.
) meets American singer Terry McKay (Irene Dunne
) aboard a liner
crossing the Atlantic Ocean
. They are both already engaged, he to heiress Lois Clarke (Astrid Allwyn
), she to Kenneth Bradley (Lee Bowman
). Nonetheless, they fall in love. At a stop at Madeira
, they visit Michel's grandmother Janou (Maria Ouspenskaya
), who approves of Terry.
The couple make an appointment to meet six months later on top of the Empire State Building
. However, tragedy strikes; Terry is struck by a car on her way to the rendezvous and is told that she may be crippled, though that will not be known for certain for several months. Not wanting to be a burden to Michel, she does not contact him, preferring to let him think the worst.
They meet by accident at the theater, though Terry manages to conceal her condition. Michel then visits her at her apartment and finally learns the truth. He assures her that they will be together no matter what the diagnosis will be.
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
and Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.-Life and career:...
. It was directed by Leo McCarey
Leo McCarey
Thomas Leo McCarey was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. During his lifetime he was involved in nearly 200 movies, especially comedies...
and written by Delmer Daves
Delmer Daves
Delmer Daves was an American screenwriter, director, and producer.-Life and career:Born in San Francisco, Delmer Daves first pursued a career as a lawyer...
and Donald Ogden Stewart
Donald Ogden Stewart
Donald Ogden Stewart was an American author and screenwriter.-Life:His hometown was Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University, where he became a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , in 1916 and was in the Naval Reserves in World War I.After the war he started to write and found...
, based on a story by McCarey and Mildred Cram
Mildred Cram
Mildred Cram was a popular American writer.Her short story "Stranger Things" was included in the O. Henry Award story collection for 1921. A number of her stories and novels were made into films...
.
Love Affair was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
, Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
, Best Writing, Original Story
Academy Award for Best Story
The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1957, when it was eliminated in favor of the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, which had been introduced in 1940.-1920s:...
(Mildred Cram, Leo McCarey), Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
(Buddy G. DeSylva, For the song "Wishing"), and Best Art Direction
Academy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
(Van Nest Polglase
Van Nest Polglase
Van Nest Polglase was an American art director. He was nominated for six Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction. Best remembered as head of the design department at RKO Pictures, he worked on 333 films between 1925 and 1957.He was born in Brooklyn, New York and died in Los Angeles,...
, Alfred Herman
Alfred Herman
Alfred Herman was an American art director. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Love Affair....
).
The film was remade
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
in 1957 as An Affair to Remember
An Affair to Remember
An Affair to Remember is a 1957 film starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, and directed by Leo McCarey. It was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation....
with Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
and Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
in the lead roles, using a very similar screenplay, and in 1994 as Love Affair
Love Affair (1994)
Love Affair is a 1994 romantic drama film made by Mulholland Productions and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was directed by Glenn Gordon Caron and produced by Warren Beatty from a screenplay by Robert Towne and Beatty, based on the 1939 screenplay by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden...
, starring Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
, Annette Bening
Annette Bening
Annette Carol Bening is an American actress. Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films...
, and, in her last feature film appearance, Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
.
The film is currently in the public domain, and can be found at the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
. Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
/Turner Entertainment
Turner Entertainment
Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. (commonly known as Turner Entertainment Co.) is an American...
currently has the rights to release a DVD from the original film elements in the Americas and Australia, while British rights are owned by Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
. So far, neither company has decided to make a release.
Plot
French painter Michel Marnet (Charles BoyerCharles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
) meets American singer Terry McKay (Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
) aboard a liner
Liner
Liner or LINER may refer to:In line drawing:* Eye liner, a type of makeup* Liner, a sable brush used by coach paintersIn linings:...
crossing the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. They are both already engaged, he to heiress Lois Clarke (Astrid Allwyn
Astrid Allwyn
Astrid Allwyn was an American stage and film actress.She studied dancing and dramatics in New York and later joined a stock company. Allwyn made her Broadway debut in 1929 in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. On the strength of her performance in Once in a Lifetime, she was given film work...
), she to Kenneth Bradley (Lee Bowman
Lee Bowman
Lee Bowman was an American film and television actor.Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bowman graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1936 and began his film career playing a bit part in Swing High, Swing Low .His many film appearances include A Man to Remember , Love Affair , Third...
). Nonetheless, they fall in love. At a stop at Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
, they visit Michel's grandmother Janou (Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.-Life and career:...
), who approves of Terry.
The couple make an appointment to meet six months later on top of the Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
. However, tragedy strikes; Terry is struck by a car on her way to the rendezvous and is told that she may be crippled, though that will not be known for certain for several months. Not wanting to be a burden to Michel, she does not contact him, preferring to let him think the worst.
They meet by accident at the theater, though Terry manages to conceal her condition. Michel then visits her at her apartment and finally learns the truth. He assures her that they will be together no matter what the diagnosis will be.
Cast
- Irene DunneIrene DunneIrene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
as Terry McKay - Charles BoyerCharles BoyerCharles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
as Michel Marnet - Maria OuspenskayaMaria OuspenskayaMaria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.-Life and career:...
as Grandmother Janou - Lee BowmanLee BowmanLee Bowman was an American film and television actor.Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bowman graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1936 and began his film career playing a bit part in Swing High, Swing Low .His many film appearances include A Man to Remember , Love Affair , Third...
as Kenneth Bradley - Astrid AllwynAstrid AllwynAstrid Allwyn was an American stage and film actress.She studied dancing and dramatics in New York and later joined a stock company. Allwyn made her Broadway debut in 1929 in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. On the strength of her performance in Once in a Lifetime, she was given film work...
as Lois Clarke - Maurice Moscovitch as Maurice Cobert, art dealer
Production crew
- Art Direction by Van Nest Polglase
- Set Decoration by Darrell Silvera
- Costume Design by Howard Greer / Edward Stevenson
- Assistant direction by James H. Anderson
- Associate art direction by Alfred Herman
- Sound by John L. Cass
- Special Effects by Vernon L. Walker
- Montage by Douglas Travers
External links
- Review of Love Affair by Edwin Jahiel