Les amants de Capri

This is my first viewing so I can't start by saying it's a favorite, but with Joseph Cotten in the romantic lead and Joan Fontaine with all her charm and understanding, you really can't be far wrong to expect the best in a love story.

They meet on a plane flight, he as an untiring industrialist who has placed business and projects before his wife and son, and she as a concert pianist performing in various engagements on tour. An error in flight identity has these two fine people listed on a plane that crashed and they are mistakenly presumed dead. As their budding romance unfolds they both realize it's an opportunity for them to take hold of a new life together. That leads to complications of course, as we can expect.

I marvel at the way Joan (Manina) can reflect in her features so many subtle emotions, it's as if we can hear her unspoken words, the thoughts and agonies of a love that has many hurdles to overcome. That is great acting in my opinion.

Eerily similar in storyline and backdrop to William Wyler's 1936 masterpiece, Dodsworth. It's not so much the script or the direction that doom this film, it's the premise and its execution. Don't get me wrong; I like the film. However, it could have been much better. As other reviewers stated, the actors, their chemistry were excellent. It's the character development that's faulty.

Whereas in Dodsworth the triangle is played out logically, along the lines of solid character development so that the hero ends up in Naples with the other woman; in September Affair (1950), love takes a back seat to 1950's morality, or "family values" which state that if you sin, you must pay.

To represent this on the screen, the screenwriter uses the deus ex machina device of having the wife morph from shrew to martyr, not by showing us, as a film should do, but by telling us, in a letter no less, that she won't agree to a divorce. But when we actually see her, she doesn't seem all that bad a person. She's not like the woman in the letter and she's not the woman Cotten makes her out to be. With Ruth Chatterton (star of Dodsworth), the character development progressed faultlessly. In September Affair, the wife's character arc is unbelievable. Which is she? A shrew or a noble, long-suffering wife? If the latter, the film couldn't end with Joseph Cotten walking away from that sort of woman. He would have lost favor with the audience.

That means forcing credibility to depend on us buying the unbelievable character arc of the wife who somehow morphs from meanie to martyr.

He goes back to his wife and I'll bet the first thing she does is revert to her original persona (you can't escape that easily) — her Ruth Chatterton ways, emasculating Cotten out of spite, and he'll end up with no way back to the woman he loves, who loves him because she's also foolishly played the martyr to the point of NO return.

The film is a cop out. No film should hinge on the changes in a minor character; it should be the leads whose actions set the course. In fact, the ending even goes against common sense:

1) the wife's new persona has accepted the split, so has the son. That he's alive is enough for her.

2) As for Joan, he loves her and Joan loves him. They've taken it to another level — like John Huston and Mary Astor in Dodsworth, a level the wife can't understand. They are clearly superior in their maturity, their lifestyles, their tastes.

Why not let them fade into the Florence sunset together, she with her piano, him with his engineering projects?

In "September affair ",the real star is Italy :we are taken to a guided tour of Pompey (it was made before Rossellini 's "viaggio in Italia " starring Bergman and Sanders) , of Capri ,of Florence (so there are two David :Cotten's and Michelangelo's); what a pity it was not filmed in color :it would have been a feast for the eye,mainly the first part.

As for the story itself,it 's part soap opera ,part valid drama ; Dieterle is here on Douglas Sirk 's territory but less efficient than him in melos .The excellent cast is the main asset of a rather derivative screenplay , using hackneyed tricks (the plane crash) .Cotten is true to himself ,as good as a romantic man subject to the middle-age lust as he was the terrific wicked uncle in " shadow of a doubt" or the unfortunate deceived husband in "beyond the forest " ; Fontaine has always been the dainty heroine ,frail and coy ,but who hides a genuine strength under her angel face ("Rebecca" "suspicion" "letter from an unknown woman") ;and the French audience will be thrilled about Françoise Rosay's presence , an actress who played with the best French directors (Feyder ,Carné,Duvivier) and who played opposite both sisters (Joan in this movie, Olivia in "that lady") ;so did Cotten (see "hush hush sweet Charlotte ")

The title is well-chosen ;September is the end of Summer and indicates a new phase in someone's life ;Sinatra had an album called " September of my years" .Music plays a prominent part from Italian bel canto to American songs to classic music grand finale ;it recalls sometimes Borzage's "I've always loved you" (1946)

An unhappily married industrialist and a pianist engage in a passionate romance after they are presumed dead in a plane crash. It gets off to a slow start, with the early scenes feeling more like a travelogue than a drama, as the lovers take a tour of Italy. However, things start to get interesting about half way through as the plot thickens. Fontaine and Cotten are charming as the lovers who find a second chance for happiness. A young and pretty Tandy plays Cotten's long-suffering wife. Given all that has transpired, the ending seems contrived and unsatisfying, perhaps restricted by the censorship in effect at the time. Rachmaninov's second piano concerto is effectively used as Fontaine's signature piece.

This is my favourite movie of all time.

I often watch this with friends and family who have never seen the movie and I dare not tell the ending. It is very romantic and at the same time a bit sappy as hollywood Romance movies go.

This movie along with An Affair To Remember and Imitation of Life will have most of you in tears. A great 3-pack weekend tear-jerker selection.

September Affair is unique in the sense that even though the plot line seems far fetched...It actually could happen and has probably crossed a few peoples minds at that. This movie is not to be missed.

Do not Rent this one, purchase it and I assure you you will watch this one over, and over again. I give this movie a 10 out of 10.

Enjoy all you lovers.

Peter.