Love Affair: RKO Radio Pictures, April 7, 1939

New York Times, March 17, 1939

'Love Affair,' a Bitter-Sweet Romance, Opens at the Music Hall

By FRANK S. NUGENT

Leo McCarey, who directs so well it is almost anti-social of him not to direct more often, has created another extraordinarily fine film in "Love Affair," which the Music Hall brought in yesterday. Like other McCarey pictures, this one has the surface appearance of a comedy and the inner strength and poignance of a hauntingly sorrowful romance. It is a technique or a mood-creation developed, we suspect, out of Mr. McCarey's past experiments, ranging from "Ruggles of Red Gap" through "Make Way for Tomorrow" to "The Awful Truth." The formula would be comedy plus sentiment plus X (which is Mr. McCarey himself) equal such things as "Love Affair."

As co-author, director and producer, he must be credited primarily for the film's success, but almost as large a measure of acknowledgment belongs to Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer for the facility with which they have matched the changes of their script—playing it lightly now, soberly next, but always credibly, always in character, always with a superb utilization of the material at hand. Scarcely less effective has been the contribution of the small supporting cast: Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Astrid Allwyn, Maurice Moscovich and the few bit players who have added their priceless touches of humor and pathos.

The love affair Mr. McCarey and his company are considering is the unexpectedly idyllic romance between the jaded man of the world, Michel Marnay, and the younger, but almost equally skeptical, Terry Mackay. Both of them were affianced elsewhere, not exactly for money (although that was part of the picture), but because they reasoned they might as well marry money if they had to marry at all. Then, suddenly, they met on shipboard, flirted since it amused them, parted unheroically when it occurred to them that news of an indiscretion might reach the ears of their respective future mates, and discovered, almost as surprisingly, that they were in love.

It is a discovery apt to alter the behavior of a couple of people who had been playing with life. Subtly, Mr. McCarey alters his style to meet the emergency. He finds it amusing that Michel should become a sign-painter, Terry a night club singer as they put themselves on probation for six months to determine whether they are worthy of marriage. But he finds it touching, too. And, although he keeps reminding himself (and his audience) that life is a comedian, he finds tragedy in the accident that overtakes Terry on her way to the marriage rendezvous and pity in the misunderstanding that keeps his lovers apart so long.

In a sense, his film is a triumph of indirection, for it does one thing while seeming to do another. Its immediate effect is comedy; its after-glow is that of a bitter-sweet romance. A less capable director, with a less competent cast, must have erred one way or the other—either on the side of treacle or on that of whimsy. Mr. McCarey has balanced his ingredients skillfully and has merged them, as is clear in retrospect, into a glowing and memorable picture.

Love Affair: RKO Radio Pictures, April 7, 1939