L'amore che ci incatena

I'm not sure why RKO Pictures entitled this film Affair With A Stranger since what it is is the story of two married people played by Victor Mature and Jean Simmons. It's told from the point of view of their friends who read about it in the Broadway gossip column of Henny Backus and the influence of that other RKO classic Citizen Kane is unmistakable.

Mature is a likable enough fellow who is an aspiring playwright on Broadway who likes to gamble and have a good time as well and Simmons is a girl who nurtures him until he gains success. But then being a Broadway success he falls prey to the usual temptations. A really big temptation comes his way in the form of his latest leading lady, husband collecting Monica Lewis.

The cast has some real scene stealing character players like George Cleveland, Jane Darwell, Wally Vernon and Dabbs Greer all of whom are part of the lives of Simmons and Mature. They form a real rooting section for this marriage and they all care about the two leads and make you care as well. The story is told mostly through their recollections of how the relationship of Mature and Simmons has developed over the years and you get to know them as good if flawed people, especially Mature.

It's not Citizen Kane hardly, but Affair With A Stranger is a good entertaining drama with a great cast even if the title of the film was probably done to sensationalize the film a bit and get folks to plunk down their money thinking it might be something else. It's good enough as it is, on its own merits.

In Affair with a Stranger, Victor Mature's marriage to Jean Simmons is falling apart, only they're the only ones who don't know it. Each vignette of flashback is led into by an "extra", like a taxicab driver, the maid, etc. who remember different parts of their marriage and tell the audience about it. With that format, the movie had potential to be cute, but it didn't turn out that way.

They meet, they fall in love, they fall on hard times, but as the rumor mill flies with their impending divorce, they're completely unaware of it. After all, they're not watching the movie. The reason I didn't really like this romance is because of the title. It's pretty obvious someone has an affair, and I didn't like the way the film handled it. If you like the two leads, though, you can give it a whirl.

When a television personality provides announces the breakup of a famous married couple, Bill Blakely (Victor Mature ) and wife.... their friends talk and think about the couple and their relationship. Jean Simmons is the young starlet on the rise, who is apparently coming between the married couple. This one has a lot in common with "A Star is Born".. which was first made in 1937. And of course, the Judy remake in 1954, right after THIS film. It's a little confusing. Seems to end a bit abruptly. Not a lot of rhyme or reason. Directed by Roy Rowland. Didn't win any Oscars, but made some pretty well known films. Was also married to Louis Mayer's neice. One fun note: Alvy Moore apparently filmed scenes for the film, but they were left on the floor... he was Hank Kimball in Green Acres ! It might have been fun to leave those scenes in.... guess we'll never see them now. So many roles in the cast list here were uncredited or deleted. The kid "Timmy" was child actor Billy Chapin... appears to have quit hollywood before he hit age 20.

Jean Simmons is always reliably good, while Victor Mature sometimes can be awful. Here they are teamed together in a marriage that maybe never should have been. Actually, Jean Simmons is advised against it, and Victor Mature is really not much to have, as a playwright of flops and with a bad habit of gambling and losing. Still she accepts him and mothers him, which he needs, and eventually he makes a success and even gets rich, so he doesn't have to gamble any more. She gets pregnant but loses her child and can't have any more, so the marriage is put to some test. Then a scandal beauty and imprudent actress gets the ambition to hook him and spreads some premature news to a dirty columnist, far too sure of herself as an actress, imagining she has him all wrapped up. The film starts with the columnist incident and then tells the long story of the marriage by flashbacks, eventually returning to the present, both Jean Simmons and Victor Mature getting highly surprised by finding the news of their divorce in the paper. They never even had thought of it. That's the argument of the film.

It's not an uninteresting film, above all it's fascinating as a study in the mechanics of a marriage, what makes it hold and what may threaten it. A certain child also plays an important part, he was later the brother in Charles Laughton's famous "The Night of the Hunter", and on the whole, the story is well written and gets some interesting turns. It is great entertainment on a high level, and the twist in the end to all the predicaments can't leave anyone dissatisfied.

"Affair with a Stranger" is an excellent, though poorly named, movie. It's really not about an affair but what could become one unless both the husband and wife attend to their marriage instead of their respective careers. And, it's a good object lesson for couples.

When the film begins, the star of William Blakeley's latest play calls a gossip columnist to announce that she is about to run off with married Blakeley (Victor Mature). It seems, however, a tad premature as no affair has yet occurred...but the lady's 'female intuition' tell her he'll soon be hers. What follows is a very interesting story....told through flashbacks as the couple's friends read the gossip column and then recall the ups and downs of the Blakeley marriage. And, in every case, the folks love the Mr. and Mrs. (Jean Simmons) and wish the story wasn't true...which, it really isn't...though the marriage is in trouble though neither the husband nor wife realize it. It seems over time, they both began focusing too much on their own careers...and this puts the marriage in serious jeopardy.

I liked this film for many reasons. The leads were both at their best and the story really was intelligently written and adult--and I mean that in the best possible way. In other words, it's not sleazy but a good drama illustrating a great object lesson couples could learn from and avoid. Well worth seeing.