Love Affair (1939)

Directed by Leo McCarey. Starring Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Lois Clarke, Maurice Moscovitch.

Womanizing Frenchman Boyer and American singer Dunne meet during a transatlantic ocean voyage and, despite each of them being promised to another, they strike up a conscious but flirtatious romance. After the ship arrives in port, they make an appointment to meet again in six months, but fate intervenes. Flaky storytelling and occasionally syrupy direction from McCarey hinder this otherwise tender and engrossing romance. Largely written and improvised on the fly, well-cast Dunne and Boyer polish the wayward and sentimental edges with their natural charisma. Though the screen story is better known today through its 1957 remake (An Affair to Remember), this original telling is superior in pretty much every way but one (Boyer has charm, but he’s no Cary Grant), benefiting from a leaner running time and far more restraint when it comes to the “three-hanky weepie” tactics. Also remade under its original title in 1994 with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

68/100