|
Love Affair
|
Note: I’ve been meaning to write this for months now, and my ideas may yet need refining. It was intended as a companion to a long Awful Truth review with a thesis on McCarey’s abiding realism, even in screwball comedy, even in heady romance. Hopefully that will come in time, but finally getting my hands on a good print of this one gave me the drive to begin writing something…
People forget how light and really funny this film is — or at least I had, by the time I sat down for my second viewing sometime last fall. I’ve seen it more times than self-respect allows me to count in the months since, and it never fails to delight me. But what one remembers is the tragic accident and misunderstandings that keep the two lovers apart, and even though I haven’t seen it I think one’s mind can’t help but first go to the final scene in An Affair to Remember, played more earnestly, more in the key of melodrama, by Grant and Kerr. This always sticks in one’s mind as a sad story of star-crossed lovers. Really, it’s bright and bubbling like pink champagne, just as Michel Marnay initially propositions Terry McKay — here played by the underrated and overshadowed Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, of course.
But to the extent it’s a comedy, it’s a comedy really of and about life, for adults, played by adults. I mean by that two things. Michel and Terry are real people, fleshed out and motivated, hardly the juvenile types found in most contemporary comedies or one-dimensional figures in the average romance. Between Lucy Warriner in Awful Truth and Terry McKay here, Leo McCarey gave Dunne two of the very few real women she played in her whole career. Terry is her own age for one thing (a rarity), and as such, facing middle age with a life of relative disappointment and regret behind her, one can actually believe in what “wishing” (the film’s watchword) means to a woman like her; it means something as she and Michel both begin to put their lives into perspective. And by “film for adults” I also invoke the usual meaning: from the word go it’s quite frank and saucy for a prestige film released right in the middle of the Code era. The two meet when Terry intercepts a radiogram from Michel’s latest lover, dreamily recounting the magical nights spent at Lake Como. “Do you think it’ll ever take the place of baseball?” she wonders, with characteristically suggestive raised eyebrows.
Both come with years of sexual baggage behind them, and I admire the film for addressing it so forthrightly, because it’s only natural that the characters would: and again, it doesn’t engage in that strange and false illusion of chastity too many of its contemporaries do. Michel is a world-famous seducer about to bite the bullet and marry a redeemingly rich girl; Terry is essentially a kept woman, rescued from the nightclub circuit by a guy who doubles as her boss (”He sends me on a buying trip once in a while,” she explains, fingering her pearl necklace, and the arrangement couldn’t be clearer). But initially, neither sees any reason to be embarrassed or remorseful. These are the lives they have chosen, and they’ve done quite well: here they are on a luxury cruise, all tuxes and furs and pink champagne. And the change isn’t so simple as suddenly seeing the truth in one another’s eyes; it is more like, in telling their stories to one another, they hear themselves really saying it for the first time.
But realizations and renewed perspective come slowly; the first part of the film, aboard the ship bound for New York, is fast-paced and flirtatious, playing the blossoming romance largely for laughs. McCarey’s great instinct for natural dialogue and physical interaction is well on display here, for so often Terry and Michel’s most revealing moments come in wordless, awkward fits and starts, and where there is dialogue it’s well peppered with the ‘um’s and pauses and trailing mumbled phrases of real speech. His insistence on improvisation and spontaneity pays off, too, Dunne a veteran of his methods and Boyer picking it up quickly (he was never so unaffected) — many scenes were shot with only a rough outline of the action, an idea of what the characters must say, and the specifics unrehearsed, and succeeds in feeling completely unstaged. And yet, with a cast and crew of consummate professionals, the final project is as polished as it is authentic.
McCarey captures so perfectly, so revealingly, the intimate moment. When his characters are sparring or chatting idly the camera flows beautifully (that reminds me: quite an interesting comparison in editing could likely be made between this and Awful Truth), but in intimate moments it stops, as time seems to, and focuses as intently on those involved with a minimum of cuts, except where the gaze is meaningful. Onboard the ship, from their very first moment, Terry and Michel are shot medium and close up any time they are being quite honest with one another, filling the screen as one gathers each fills the other’s eyes in that intimate moment. Only when they are playing more broadly comedic or keeping one another at bay (rather the same thing) does the camera pull back. And in between, as indeed the two vacillate between enforcing a certain distance and drawing closer, there is this wonderful flow as McCarey waits for a character to enter a shot and follows them on their path. Much could probably be said about his rhythm and the film’s treatment of time and decision-making: in any case, it is thoughtful.
Speaking of his intimate moments, the richest come when the ship docks for four hours at the island of Madeira and Michel takes Terry to visit his grandmother Janou. Their reunion illustrates for the first time a really tender side of Michel, locked in a close and happy embrace, for a moment seeing nothing in the world but each other. Terry is at first an outsider, not only several paces behind but isolated from the conversation, as they excitedly exchange words of love in a language she cannot understand. Janou quickly notices and includes her; Michel explains laughing that she asked if this was the girl he was going to marry. Later, after Michel visits and the girls bond and the boat whistle gives its first warning blow, the three gather around the piano for Janou to play a song. So much is said and felt in this moment, an instinctive intimacy having developed between the three, shot and edited so meaningfully: they gather in a triangle but soon each are shown by turns, close up, exchanging glances. Janou makes her approval of Terry clear with one look to Michel; Michel can hardly look away from Terry, his gaze brooding and full of desire; her eyes are locked on Janou, safe and comforting, and her eyes dart away shyly when for an instant they meet Michel’s.
It is in this meeting with Janou that the concerns they’d only begun to become aware of in their first conversations can be put into perspective. They come to a certain silent understanding, and the change is irrevocable. Earlier in Madeira, Terry enthusiastically and Michel somewhat reticently visit the private chapel Janou has constructed next to her home. It is one of the most beautiful images in 30s American cinema, and loaded with emotion and meaning. Terry clearly has a powerful experience, the particulars of which are not spelled out for the audience, but I imagine she is in some way reevaluating her whole life, confronted with its ugliness in a way she has not been in some time. She is moved by a spiritual experience, while Michel, uncomfortable in the room, is plainly moved by her: he can’t take his eyes off her transcendent face, struggling to know what she is thinking and praying. She crosses herself and leaves slowly, reverently; he follows suit quickly, straightening his tie as he completes the gesture.
Between Janou and the place a profound change has occurred: time takes on more meaning, and it menaces as much as it promises. The appeal of the shipboard romance is its quality of being out of time, apart from reality, so that all one sees is this other stranger, and so it has been with Michel and Terry. Being on land (and this particular land) and with Janou (awaiting, as Michel explains, her impending death) has brought time and reality into their relationship. Terry reflects in wonder that she would love to spend her life in a place like this; Janou says — almost admonishingly — it is a wonderful place to be with one’s memories, but Terry still must create hers. It is clear to Terry then for the first time that she hasn’t really been living, and time marches on all the while. Janou represents a natural order of things, a fulfilling sort of tradition, which both Terry and Michel have avoided and missed out on. It is with Janou that Michel realizes he loves painting and does experience real affection; Terry’s instinct toward a certain natural domesticity kicks in, and in helping Janou prepare the tea, her taking the tray seems almost a passing of the torch. In many ways, Michel is childlike, but Terry could be for him into adulthood what Janou had been in his boyhood. Yet time is not to be trifled with: Janou cringes to hear the boat whistle again: time brings endings too, and it can run out. Now time defines the chances they have: four hours in Madeira, seven days on the cruise, and, tempting fate, six months until they meet again.
That night, Terry and Michel share their first kiss by moonlight, taking nautical metaphors to extreme (”we changed our course today” … “we’re heading into a rough sea”), and seven days later, before arriving in New York, they assess the situation. (I find seven days of missing time frustrating, but can only conclude it’s titled Love Affair for a reason, and no real way to both work within the Code and satisfyingly represent how they passed them.) Again, I admire the frankness: Michel admits he has never worked a day in his life, only flitting from one wealthy girl to another to finance his lifestyle; Terry confesses she’s grown too fond of furs and things and has also forgotten what it’s like to live honestly. They seriously wonder if they can make the transition from pink champagne to beer, and whether it’s fair to ask the other to cast their lot on such an uncertain proposition. So it’s not a mere plot device or romantic notion for them to decide they will wait six months while they break off their entanglements and learn to make a life on their own: it is sheer good sense.
In the middle section, when they are separated, the viewer feels an absence, too. It’s not that the film drags or becomes less interesting, but the shift in tone is jarring (if appropriate): the clock and calendar rule their separate lives back on land, and even now they are not quite living, but wishing. When the time comes for them to meet again, July first, on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building, they are sure of their feelings and their worthiness to pursue them, but the tone takes another decidedly sharp turn, ever more serious, putting ever more distance between them… The circumstances of this tragic delay to their reunion are I’m sure well-known, but not played as melodramatically as it probably sounds on paper. Again, it’s not just a plot device, but revealing of their characters: it is pride that prevents Terry from telling Michel the truth, and that prevents Michel from seeking it out. They fall back onto bad habits, though Terry is rather patronizingly praised by her doctor for making a “good and sensible” choice and she keeps her head high, she’s nearly throwing away her chance. They haven’t learned their lesson yet.
Six more months pass before they meet again, by coincidence or fate. That meeting is brief and strained, but Michel tracks her down the next day, determined to bully answers out of her but finding himself disarmed. This is a wonderfully choreographed ten-minute final scene, allowing the two time to torment one another, settle the score, and ultimately reunite at a natural pace, in contrast to most romances that end in a flash with a shrug and a kiss, a fade-to-black enforcing a conclusion where it never feels like there really is one. For the first time, Terry and Michel are filmed in long shots for an extended period of time, although they share the frame: the rift between them is indeed deep. Michel paces the room as he tries to understand the situation while Terry, of course unable to move, lies still on the couch. The scene is full of wonderful counterpoints, sparkling and natural dialogue, and Dunne and Boyer at their best saying everything between their lines. It’s effective technically — I see that after the absurd number of viewings I’ve put in — but when all the elements come together it’s overwhelmingly magical. At least for this viewer, I yearn and pine with them, not from any coercion but out of a deeply felt, authentically realized moment.
It’s with some bitterness that Michel gives Terry Janou’s shawl as a Christmas present; she had promised it to Terry on their visit, and receiving it brings the realization that Janou has passed away. First, Terry is overcome with sadness; then, clutching it to her chest, she beams up at Michel. He grimaces. This is too painful: he understands that it ought to be the passing of the torch Janou intended, but that it can never be. He had wished for this moment, he had painted her wearing the shawl. It seems it is too late. Michel begins to tell her about the painting, and perhaps trying to appear overcompensatingly nonchalant reveals that he instructed his art dealer to give it to a girl for free because she was poor, and moreover… Well, you know what happens next: one of the most satisfying and hard-won reunions of all Old Hollywood romances.
Believe it or not, I have more to say about this film, but that’s got to be it for tonight… 
