Spotlight
Spotlight Date: 10-November-02
Spoiler Rating: High
An Affair to Remember (1957)
I first saw Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in "An Affair to Remember" many years ago, but when I approached it again recently my expectations were not based on recollection. (In fact, I had no recollection of it.) This film comes with a lot of noted baggage — an initial version (by the same director, Leo McCarey) in 1939, the gushing homage of "Sleepless in Seattle" in 1993, and another remake with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening in 1994. The story of the worldly pair who meets on a ship and makes a date to reunite atop the Empire State Building six months later has become a landmark of romantic melodrama, and with good reason. Emotions run high here, that's for sure — and as I discovered on my second viewing, not all of them are welcomed ones.
The movie starts out strong from the opening credits, with a heart-swelling rendition of the now classic theme song in the delicious, honeyed tones of Vic Damone. (Think I, "Now that's a classy beginning!") It then indulges in an amusing trio of vignettes showing an American, an Italian, and a British radio announcer reporting the engagement of international playboy Nick Ferrante (Grant) to wealthy heiress Lois Clark. (I chuckle at the little tweak to our European friends.) From this auspicious beginning, the story plunges right into the meat of the matter, as Ferrante encounters Terry McKay (Kerr) on an ocean liner headed for New York. Terry, like Nick, has been around the block a few times, so while she does not swoon at his notoriety or suaveness, she does appreciate his urbane company. (As do I — the no-nonsense affair strikes me as wonderfully mature and believable, for once.) Terry and Nick fall into an easy friendship and find that they have much in common: both are kept by rich lovers (he by a steady stream of fashionable ladies, she by long-time beau Ken, who plucked her out of a night club to make her into a high class mistress with wife potential); both have given up on love and decided to settle for comfort; and neither seems to regret this decision much until the inevitable moment when they realize they don't want to live without each other. This moment occurs in the lovely island home of Nick's even lovelier French grandmother, Janou (Cathleen Nesbitt), where Terry gets to see a more intimate side of Nick in his family environment and loves what she sees. As they kneel side by side in Janou's little chapel, no words are exchanged, and none are needed. Their fate is sealed. (Here I ejaculate, "Mon dieu, where has this movie been all my life?")
And then it happens. Without warning, in the midst of a perfect, personal, heartfelt scene, Janou sits down at the piano and starts to play (the theme song, again), and Terry tilts back her lovely head and begins to hum, and then to sing. And sing. And sing. (I take the opportunity to wonder, "That's not really Kerr, is it?") From that point on, the spell is broken, a corner is turned, and "An Affair to Remember" suddenly changes from a brilliantly conceived drama about adults taking one last stab at life to a schizophrenic, loopy combination of cutesy musical, cautionary romance, poor-boy (and girl)-trying-to-make-good story, and Christmas fairy tale.
Perhaps I should have known. After all, what was I expecting from a movie renowned as the height of sappy melodrama? But the fact is, while I was ready for Kerr's fabulous dresses, Grant's impossibly charming grey sideburns, the frequent use of "Darling," and the mystique of an ocean cruise, I wasn't prepared for how effectively these things are used in the first half of the movie. (Along with Grant and Kerr, two real pros.) There is a delicious fascination, albeit stylized, to the tale of Nick and Terry making their callous way through the world but finding just enough crazy hope to throw away everything for a chance at real happiness. Once we're hooked on finding out if they make it, there's no reason why the fateful meeting at the Empire State Building and what happens afterwards couldn't be a grand, sentimental, three-hanky affair, as well as genuinely powerful and touching.
But instead we get a view of the penitential punishment the lovers have to go through before they are allowed to get what they want, in addition to more inane singing (at which I wonder, what have I got to atone for?). After arriving in New York determined to make herself worthy of a future with Nick, Terry goes back to night club work, during which time she sings the goddamn theme song again. (I cringe — was it just an hour ago that Vic Damone sent me into raptures?) Then tragedy strikes, and for no reason I can think of other than a sick, conservative-era desire to make her pay for not being prim enough in her youth, Terry is forced to take a job teaching music to a truly revolting group of the gosh darn, fresh-facedest kids you ever did see, complete with a couple of dancing pickaninnies (my horror knows no bounds; my only comfort is the fast forward button, which I hold down grimly for what seems like hours). Nick, meanwhile, must live in a garret and mooch off men instead of glamorous women while nursing a broken heart. (Their former paramours Ken and Lois don't get off scot-free, either, paying for their shallowness with frustrated desire.) Finally, Christmas arrives, a time of forgiveness when Terry can don one last fantastic outfit (red, very becoming and passionate) for her destined but unexpected reunion with Nick, and the tears can flow at last. (I say to myself, bitterly, "The 1950s were so weird!")
In the end, "An Affair to Remember" is memorable, indeed, mostly for the way its first-rate set-up was betrayed by its hideous denouement. I can understand why this story has been made into a movie three times (and memorialized in another) — it has the potential for greatness. In 1957, however, Grant, Kerr, McCarey, and screenwriter Delmer Daves had this potential in their grasp and let it go for a song.
Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.
