Love Affair is a 1939 American romance film, co-starring Charles Boyer, Irene Dunne, and 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. The film follows a French playboy and an American former nightclub singer who fall in love aboard an ocean liner. Controversial on concept, the official screenplay was re-tooled and rewritten to appease Hollywood censorship and relied on actor input and improvisation, causing long delays and budget extensions.
The movie became a sleeper hit in 1939, showing McCarey's versatility after a long career of comedic films, and launching the surprising team-up of Dunne and Boyer. The film received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Its popularity was later dwarfed by McCarey's 1957 remake An Affair to Remember, which spawned its own remakes with 1994's Love Affair and a few Indian adaptations.
Plot One December, French painter (and famed womanizer) Michel Marnet meets American singer Terry McKay aboard an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean. They are both already engaged—he to heiress Lois Clarke, she to Kenneth Bradley. They begin to flirt and to dine together on the ship, but his worldwide reputation makes them conscious that others are watching. Eventually, they decide that they should dine separately and not associate with each other. At a stop at Madeira, they visit Michel's grandmother Janou, who bonds with Terry and admits wanting Michel to settle down.
As the ship is ready to disembark at New York City, the two make an appointment to meet in the new year, six months later on top of the Empire State Building, giving Michel enough time to decide whether he can start making enough money to support a relationship with Terry. His paintings fail to sell, so he finds work designing advertising billboards around the city, while Terry breaks off her engagement to Kenneth and successfully negotiates a contract with a Philadelphia nightclub to perform through to June.
When the rendezvous date arrives, they both head to the Empire State Building. However, Terry is struck by a car on a nearby street and is told by doctors she may be paralyzed for the rest of her life, though that will not be known for certain for six months. Not wanting to be a burden to Michel, she does not contact him, preferring to let him think the worst. Meanwhile, Michel, who waits until closing time, travels to Madeira to discover his grandmother has recently died, and continues working in New York City. Terry is overheard singing in the garden of her physiotherapy by the owner of a children's orphanage, who hires her as a music teacher.
Six months pass by, and during Terry's first outing since the accident, she and Michel meet by accident at a theater on Christmas Eve, though since she is already seated, Terry is able to conceal her disability. The next morning on Christmas Day, after the children visit Terry at her apartment, Michel makes a surprise visit and finally learns the truth. Terry, delighted Michel proved he had changed his ways, tells him it is her turn to prove she can change hers, but Michel assures her that they will be together no matter what the diagnosis is.
Cast Irene Dunne as Terry McKay Charles Boyer as Michel Marnet Maria Ouspenskaya as Grandmother Janou Lee Bowman as Kenneth Bradley Astrid Allwyn as Lois Clarke Maurice Moscovitch as Maurice Cobert, art dealer Scotty Beckett as Boy on ship (uncredited) Dell Henderson as Cafe Manager (uncredited) Lloyd Ingraham as Doctor (uncredited) Frank McGlynn Sr. as Orphanage Superintendent (uncredited) Ferike Boros as Terry's landlady (uncredited)
Other uncredited actors include Joan Leslie, Oscar O'Shea, Bess Flowers and Harold Miller (as couple on liner), Phyllis Kennedy, and Gerald Mohr.
Development Despite the popularity of his romantic and screwball comedies, Leo McCarey had become tired of directing them. His wife suggested they should go on a cruising vacation around Europe to combat his writer's block, and when they returned to the United States, they watched the Statue of Liberty pass. McCarey immediately told her his idea about two passengers who fall in love on a cruise, but realize they are both "obligated to somebody else." With the premise created, Mildred Cram co-developed the rest of the story under the working title Memory of Love, then later Love Match, as Delmer Daves created the screenplay and Donald Ogden Stewart helped McCarey with the comedy. James Anderson stood as assistant director, Edward Dmytryk and George Hively were the movie's editors, and Roy Webb composed the film score. Filming took place in the fall of 1938. The rough cut was screened in January 1939.
Actresses such as Helen Hayes and Greta Garbo developed interest in starring, but the McCarey couple preferred Irene Dunne, who had previously appeared in McCarey's The Awful Truth and was a close family friend; Terry's occupation as nightclub singer intended to display Dunne's singing talents. Charles Boyer's reputation as a romantic actor (from starring in History is Made at Night and Algiers) made him McCarey's first choice. Concurrently, Boyer rejected Harry Cohn's offer of the leading role in Good Girls Go to Paris to do Love Affair, instead. He and McCarey were acquaintances and Boyer believed McCarey was an underestimated director, so he canceled many acting plans for the rest of 1938 to work with McCarey and Dunne. "Any picture that Leo McCarey directs is its own guarantee[;] he can't make a bad picture," he later explained.
Irene Dunne later noted that the dialog changed frequently, and the cast received pieces of paper between filming; McCarey's common directing tactic of improvisation also continued throughout. Both he and Boyer were unimpressed with the final draft, despite Boyer being used to memorizing his dialog very quickly. News columnists visiting the set observed the actors waiting around for their dialog as scenes would be rewritten moments before shooting: "'I've been here doing nothing since 8 o'clock this morning,' [Boyer tells] me (it is now 4 in the afternoon)," reported Sheilah Graham. Delays and rewrites caused the film to go over its budget of $800,000 by about $600,000.
McCarey reused and retooled the line "According to you, everything I like to do is either illegal, immoral or fattening," from his 1934 movie Six of a Kind, and gave it to Terry; W. C. Fields (who ad-libbed the retort in the original film) approved but critics hated the reference, McCarey later revealed. Boyer was allowed input in Michel's characterization; he suggested that Michel visiting his grandmother should have a prominent appearance so Terry's accident would not create a tonal shift. The champagne industry used the film to promote pink champagne to the audience, which caused a sales boost.
McCarey gave Dunne the opportunity to choose the signature song for the movie: she decided upon "Wishing", which became one of the most popular songs of 1939; the orphans were dubbed by Robert Mitchell's Boys Choir. Other songs performed are "Sing My Heart" and "Plaisir d'Amour", performed by Terry in a Philadelphian night-club and at Michel's grandmother's home, respectively.
Maria Ouspenskaya described working on the film as "an atmosphere of work that is inspirational. [...] Actor, electricians, and cameramen loved their work and did not want to break away from that atmosphere." Boyer would later praise McCarey's filmmaking for the movie's success; he was described in an interview years later as "still speak[ing] of Mr. McCarey with sincere awe."
Controversy The initial screenplay was rejected by the Production Code Administration, accusing the story of endorsing adultery. Another related argument believed Terry had not been punished for her kept behavior, while Michel had been given redemption, so this led to Terry's paralysis. "You dissolved to her in a hospital with her realizing that God hadn't wanted her to meet [Michel] until she was sorry for what she had done before," explained Donald Ogden Stewart.
Initially a period piece set in the 1850s about the tragic romance of a French ambassador, the final draft of the script was complete and filming was announced to begin September 15, but it was later pushed back a month. Due to concerns of a potential war in Europe, the French embassy wanted stronger allyship with the United States and had concerns about a movie about a French diplomat and an American woman having an affair. McCarey and Daves reworked the story as a modern tale, with Terry's characterization now based on a woman Daves met on a cruise who was rumored to be returning to the United States after hiding in Europe for being caught as the mistress of a small-town government official.
Release Film Daily reported that Love Affairs release had the potential to be premiered in late January or early February 1939 at Radio City Music Hall; later issues would give the initial release date as February 17 and March 10. The film premiered March 16 at the Music Hall with a pink champagne-themed cocktail party for Dunne, emceed by W. G. Van Schmus; McCarey was on vacation in Santa Monica and could not attend.
Reception
The praise for Love Affair among film critics was reflected in Clark Wales' quip: "Recommending a Leo McCarey production is something like recommending a million dollars or beauty or a long and happy life. Any of these is a very fine thing to have and the only trouble is that there are not enough of them." Liberty magazine wrote "a pleasant little ," New York World-Telegram called the film "the most absorbing and delightful entertainment of its kind [in] a long time" and New York Daily News called the film "tender, poignant [and] sentimental without being gooey". "Put this one down among the contenders of the Academy Awards of 1939," declared Associated Press, "and [one] of the most satisfactory movie endings."
"The screenplay is an exceptionally intelligent effort," wrote the Box Office Digest, "[and] McCarey's skill in handling individual scenes with the old [Hal] Roach technique carries through this tough spot and on to a grand climax," but the review added: "It must be unfortunately recorded that there is a let down in interest for a half reel when [Michel and Terry] are separated." Meanwhile, The Charlotte Observer found the movie refreshing, describing it as "outdoing" other romances that are "slap-happy wherein boy spanks girl or shoves her into the fish pond by way of displaying his affections." Pare Lorentz described the film as "a mood, rather than a story" as McCarey effortlessly balanced the conflicting tones of comedy and melodrama, "[keeping] it alive by expert interpolations." Stage also praised the direction: "McCarey is the man responsible for shifting, with no detectable trickery, from the brittle comedy of the early sequences to the genuine emotionalism of the later. It is superior entertainment all the way through."