So when Lisa at Boondock Ramblings told me she was going to do a Spring of Cary Grant, I knew I wanted in on it. She introduced me to the legend that is Grant last fall, and I am woefully behind on his films. So I am tagging along on her journey, posting along with her as well.
This week’s feature: An Affair to Remember
Oh please don’t kill me internet but I was not a super fan of this one! I know this is a classic tearjerker, romantic film but.. it was hard for me to get past some things!
I feel like this is such a famous movie that I don’t need to do a recap, but real quicklike, Grant plays a player, he likes women and dates them all. Sometimes all at once. Well, he gets engaged and goes on a cruise and meets Kerr, who is also in a relationship, but the two of them being otherwise connected to other people doesn’t deter Nick (is his name always Nick in movies?) from working his wiles upon Terry (Kerr), who does refuse his advances, although she is very drawn to him.
Anyway, she meets his sweet grandma (I guess I am doing a recap), she learns he yearns to paint as his secret passion, he learns she can sing. It is on this visit that they realize they love each other, however since they have other entanglements they make a deal – they will go back to their lives, decide what it is they really want, and if they decide that what they want is the other person, they will meet New Years Eve on top of the Empire State Building.
So anyway, NYE rolls around and Nick is waiting. Terry is on her way to their rendezvous and happiness is in sight – until she is plowed by a car in front and becomes paralyzed from the waist down.
This is where the movie loses me. And I tried not to let my own emotions interfere here but it was hard to separate. Kerr is not a lesser woman or person because she is in a wheelchair! I realize sentiments and things were different then but this was a hard plotline to swallow as the parent of a child in a wheelchair. I never, ever want him to feel like he is not good enough for someone to love. And I know this is just a movie, but the whole thing bothered me.
So the end – which makes everyone cry and made me throw hands. So Nickie finds Terry after she visits his gallery and he learns of a woman who looked like the woman in the painting but this woman was in a wheelchair. He barges into her apartment (because no one locked doors back then) and puts two and two together, and then he rushes to her side with declarations and questions, why didn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t it have been me? kind of things. And they reconcile and embrace and Terry says “Don’t worry, darling. If you can paint, l can walk. Anything can happen, don’t you think?” I mean, sure maybe. I don’t want to take that away from her. But, does it matter if she doesn’t? Billy chose to interpret that as his paintings of her will allow her to walk, like through art but not physically.
And yes, I am being overly reactive and emotional about this. I am normally not. I am not one for going back and revising things to meet modern beliefs and standards- I like to take those moments as learning opportunities, or to look back and think look how far we have come (sometimes). But I guess I also don’t need to get weepy over something that actually made me feel sad for a much different reason.
I don’t want to take away how far things have come for the disabled community either, by getting too up in arms. This was just too close to my mama bear heartstrings. I can see how it would be a beautiful, teary moment in the 50s, and even now. So if you loved it and were teary then I see nothing wrong with your reaction! I think that is the typical, normal response. Mine was just influenced by my own emotions this time around. So please don’t feel like if you did love this movie and wept over the ending that I am being critical of you. I am not. Really, truly, I mean that. We all just view life through a different lens and for me my lens was a little clouded. This was just not my favorite, although the acting range was incredible. It just wasn’t my Grant movie. So far that is still To Catch a Thief (with Houseboat a close second).
For Lisa’s post, click here!
Next up – Holiday!
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 
I’m with you. It’s a predictable weeper. It’s not that I don’t like some preditability — if it’s done right I’m all for it. But this was too melodramatic for me! (Cary looked good, though, didn’t he?!)
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Yes! So melodramatic!! Lol. Plot aside, the acting was incredible and Grant did look very handsome!!!
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Okay…. I kind of see where you are coming from because of your situation – truly but I think it was the woman that thought she wasn’t good enough for him because of her injury. I don’t think that the message of the movie was she wasn’t good enough now but I can somewhat see how to comes across that way. I mean she was still teaching and going out to shows in this movie. Often in old movies they just left people with disabilities in their rooms to show how useless they were now 🙄. At least this movie didn’t do that!
The thought of being not enough was her problem in my take on it and the message of the movie was actually that she was wrong and that he loved her even though she couldn’t walk. That’s what I got out of that but this shows that different experiences can shape our movie impressions. I see what you mean for sure but I truly do not believe that is what the point of the ending was at all. It meant he loved her despite what happened and I guess that’s why most people are so touched by it when they see it.
But we all have our likes and dislikes and I wouldn’t say this was my favorite but it was way better than My Favorite Wife! 😂
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No, I totally got that she was the one who felt that way. And it bothered me! LOL. I don’t want Wyatt to ever feel that way about himself. It made me sad. And I do think he did love her, even though their situation was different than when they had met. I think….had it ended with him just declaring his love for her and her for him, like I love you, no I love you, and they left it at that I would be cool with it. Lol.
And you are so right with the representation of disabled people in old movies. Honestly, it is only becoming more typical now, for disabled characters to have “typical” lives in television and movies and books, where they aren’t just like an object lesson for everyone to learn kindness or acceptance, which was the next step taken.
I am looking forward to next week and Holiday!
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It made me sad though too. I really get what you are saying. I’m so glad we are seeing better representation now than we used to! I am also looking forward to Holiday. Hopefully less melodrama 😂
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I’m not sure, but I got the impression that there was something else going on with her health besides being paralyzed or at least that it wasn’t like it was just her legs, that there were internal injuries or something that also made the day-to-day health stuff kind of precarious. It’s interesting, though, because each of us sees things that we know more about. I certainly thought the not telling Nickie thing was a little ridiculous, but when they had the sounds of the sirens below being heard at the top of the Empire State building… Well, being a big city kid and knowing how far up one is and how quickly the sounds at street level disappear… farfetched, to say the least. (Looking it up, I guess the observation decks there are open but still…)
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I never thought about that, the sirens and how they should not have been heard! Lol!
It is interesting to see how our live influence what stands out, what our brains decide is important. Today I feel slightly embarrassed by my knee-jerk reaction to this movie – but yesterday it felt so important!!
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No need to feel embarrassed! The three of us managed to all hit very different aspects of the film for blog posts and it is fascinating to see how we all did “take it in”. 🙂
In looking up more about the movie, I found out that it’s basically a remake of the same director’s movie from 1939, except that time, it was titled “Love Affair”. In that aspect, a couple of little things make more sense – in 1939, it would have been a given that someone travelling from Europe to the US would have to go by boat. However, I was scratching my head a little bit about why people who were that rich weren’t just flying, since by the 50s, that option was much more widely available. (Of course, there are holdouts – I still pay some things by check and I have a land line, and I’m not a grandmother or anything!)
A lot of the attitudes about disabilities have changed radically, probably mostly since the 1970s. I remember reading the book “Karen” by Marie Killilea when I was 11 or 12. The book is about Karen Killilea, was born with cerebral palsy in 1940. At that point, nobody seemed to think that she’d live very long or that she’d “do much” with her life. She died in 2020 at age 80, and proved everyone wrong. https://jjffh.com/tribute/details/817/Karen-Killilea/obituary.html
You are the living witness to the worth of “the disabled”. My mom’s youngest brother was born in 1961 and developed profound autism. From the time he was 12, he was in care homes because it was impossible to take care of him at home. We’d go visit him occasionally with my grandma when I was little and it wasn’t easy, and boy, did we stand out when we took him out for a day in town! On the other hand, it was so obvious that my grandma adored him, and that he loved her as well. He lived to be 57, and the last couple of years, he was very, very sick. And even though he couldn’t talk, and he couldn’t be independent it still doesn’t mean that his life didn’t have value.
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This wasn’t my favorite Grant movie either. It just felt a bit too predictably emotionally manipulative to me and that was years and years ago. I have a feeling I’d like it even less now.
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It really was, right? What is your favorite?
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I haven’t seen this movie, either. I can certainly understand your feelings. I think that’s the wonder of movies…bringing our experiences with us to understand them a bit better. I’m going to check it out only because one of the comments was about how good he looked…yes, I am just that superficial!
https://marshainthemiddle.com/
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Lol!! I definitely watch movies for good looking people too. I have sat through some terrible ones because I have thought an actor was cute.
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