Torn Between Two Lovers

Many TV movies are rather banal things, with bland characterizations and limited insight into their subject matter. TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS is pretty routine but it does have a great trio of actors and a top director (Delbert Mann) who manage to put the plot across quite well.

Diana Conti (Lee Remick) is happy married to Ted (Joe Bologna) when she meets up with architect Paul Rasmussen (George Peppard) while both are stranded at an airport by a snowstorm. Diana and Paul fall in love and begin a passionate affair, during which she must choose between her longtime husband or her exciting new lover.

While we've seen all of this before, the star cast kept me interested during the entire film. Remick appeared to become more beautiful the older she was, and Bologna and Peppard are fine, although Peppard was getting a little lazy by this stage of his career. It was nice to see an Italian-American character (Bologna) who wasn't temperamental and overly emotional, and it was also nice to see sturdy character actor Jess Osuna in a brief bit. TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS isn't a landmark movie or a breathtaking experience but it's very good on its own terms--a pleasant and modest story.

Lee Remick is Diane Conti, married to Chicago accountant Ted (Joseph Bologna) but having an affair with architect Paul Rasmussen (George Peppard). Paul meets Diane after he rescues her lost print of Klimt's The Kiss in a snowbound New York airport. Their affair is romanticised by them dancing to a tap dancing record and kissing, with the patrician cool of Remick and Peppard juxtaposed against Bologna's ethnic emotionalism. Diane's procrastination is voiced by Paul's "If you're not going to leave him, why did you tell him?". Remick uses her blue eyes to convey her fear of moving either way. The teleplay by Doris Silverson, based on a story by Rita Lakin and Silverson, is suggested by the pop title song by Peter Yarrow and Philip Jarrell, here sung 3 times, though the writing is above the expected standard. It's a relief that Diane never actually says that she is "torn". The Conti marriage is paralleled with Ted's older brother who has divorced his wife to marry a younger woman, presumably on the wife's instigation, after she became aware of the affair. The treatment gets a few funny lines, with the younger woman's "My friends say he's a father figure but that's ridiculous because I never even knew my father", Ted to Paul "I don't know whether to kill you or congratulate you on your taste in women?", and Ted's mother to Diane "What will I be if I'm not your in-law? An outlaw?". Director Delbert Mann uses the music score by Ian Fraser in counterpoint to the song effectively the time it is sung in the film itself (the other times are in the credits) and Bologna steals in terms of performance, as a non-hysterical Italian.

I suppose basing a movie on lyrics of popular song is not unique or even a bad idea. The song "Torn Between Two Lovers" is not clear whether the woman telling the story is married to either of them but in this movie, she is, and so it is a little misleading to refer to a husband simply as a lover since there is a lot more than just two people shacking up. A movie based on three unmarried people probably would be a bore, though to me it sounds like that what the song was about, and any man worth his salt would just get up leave this two-timer. Trouble in the movie is that Lee Remick's character doesn't come across as that evil type of person, just caught up in something. The weird thing is that she seemed to have better chemistry with her paramour than with her husband, and the movie doesn't really try to convince you otherwise.

Based on the 1979 song by the same name, a married woman by the name of "Diana Conti" (Lee Remick) becomes anxious to learn that her flight from New York to Chicago has been cancelled due to bad weather and she is stuck at the airport until the weather improves. While there she meets a kind stranger named "Paul Rasmussen" (George Peppard) who escorts her to the VIP lounge where she is not only able to use the telephone to call her husband but is also made much more comfortable while the two of them wait for the weather to clear. Although the two become quite attracted to one another, they eventually part ways without any romantic entanglements for her to regret. Things change, however, when she meets Paul again in Chicago--and the deeper in love she falls with him, the more she realizes that she will eventually have to make a choice between him and her husband "Ted Conti" (Joseph Bologna). Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I remember the song by Mary MacGregor when it first came out, but I had no idea a movie had been made based upon it until very recently. That being said, like most movies based on songs, I didn't expect too much from this film. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad due in large part to the solid acting of both Lee Remick and George Peppard who played their roles quite well. Likewise, having an attractive actress like the aforementioned Lee Remick certainly didn't hurt the rather drab scenery either. Be that as it may, while certainly not a great romantic drama by any means, I suppose it passed the time well enough, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.