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Love Affair
Screening on Film
Directed by Leo McCarey.
With Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya.
US, 1939, 35mm, black & white, 88 min.
With Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya.
US, 1939, 35mm, black & white, 88 min.
When a French artist (Boyer) meets an American nightclub singer (Dunne) while crossing the Atlantic, a shipboard romance is born, even though both are already engaged to be married. They throw over their other relationships to have a brief fling in Europe and then head back to America, where tragedy awaits. Just as Make Way for Tomorrow is an unblinking, adult look at aging, here the director and his actors portray mature passion with as much candor as the studios' Production Code would allow. With its understated but undeniable charm, Love Affair is one of the most romantic Hollywood films of the studio era, on par with the films of Borzage and Ophuls.