Mi vida eres tú

The first time I saw "Love Story" it was in London fifty years ago, and till now, when I take this movie into consideration, I unceasingly hear - together with the accurate, majestic and melancholic theme of Hubert Bath "Cornish Rhapsodie" - the sea-mews flying and crying on the cliff! In my opinion, "Love Story" is a masterpiece of poetry: a simple film that was able to speak to the heart of a generation of people concerned in the most terrific war, and who understood the charm of hope and of life.

I have no doubt that the title of this film was changed due to the popularity of the Ryan O'Neal/Ali McGraw film of a later generation. But Love Story has certainly stood the test of time no matter what you call it.

A couple of the most beautiful women of the British cinema, Margaret Lockwood and Patricia Roc of the World War II era, compete for the affections of Stewart Granger. Granger and Lockwood have some secrets that they are withholding from each other. Granger is an RAF flier on leave because his eyes were injured during a bomb explosion and he is going blind. But an untried and tricky operation might save him. Lockwood had a bout of rheumatic fever which has left her with a weakened heart that won't get any better. She's a famous concert pianist who discovers she's slowly dying when she's examined after trying to enlist in the service for war work.

They meet at a seaside resort where Granger has gone back to his old trade of mining engineer looking for valuable molybdenum deposits for the war effort. In the end everybody's secrets do come out including a couple that Lockwood's rival Patrica Roc has.

Almost as much a character in the film as the players is the seaside area of Cornwall. Miles from any large city where population and war industry made it a target of the Luftwaffe, the seaside of Cornwall has never been more beautifully photographed. You'll not hear a shot or a bomb, the only explosion involved is during a key sequence in an old mine. Granger's keeping his secrets and some think he's a slacker not being in the war, but he proves he has the right stuff.

Love Story really cements Granger's star status in British cinema and at the end of the decade he's in Hollywood. Lockwood and Roc both had some American film credits but never attained the international status Granger did. Love Story on the other side of the pond ranks with films like Love Letters, Casablanca, and I'll Be Seeing You as great World War II romantic dramas.

This film shows Stewart Granger's acting to great effect. Tom Wall's Yorkshire accent slipped into posh English at times but was very nice to listen to. Scenery superb and made me want to go stand on those rocks and look at that clear water.

Described by the late David Shipman as 'riotous'. Both Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Granger (who makes no mention of it in his memoirs) suffer nobly in this glossy and garrulous early example of the 'disease' genre that swept the cinema in the seventies after the 'other' 'Love Story'.

One of the few Gainsborough romances in a contemporary setting, it's basically 'Last Holiday' done as a chick flick with concert pianist Lockwood pounding the ivories in as glamorous a wardrobe as wartime clothing restrictions permitted.

The English films of this time - with a few exceptions - are stunningly awful, as this relic reminds us.

Packed with derivations from films that weren't any good in the first place (DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT, BEETHOVEN'S GREATEST LOVE) we get the studio-with-location-insets romance of classical pianist (wouldn't you know) Margaret Lockwood, who is not quite as awful as she would be in her post war efforts, and soon to be blind (he practices walking in mine shafts !) Stewart Granger, which inspires her to go riding in Pony Carts singing traditional numbers then pushed by the radio and composing the Cornish Rhapsody, in which she entombs the sound of sea gulls and breaking waves.

Never convincing and never throwing up appealing fantasies, this twaddle just offers a complacency which disturbs in its historical context. Despite it's attempts at high gloss, it's also remarkably drab.