The Movie
Very interestingly, An Affair to Remember breaks down into two distinct halves. The first hour, give or take, is for the guys in the audience, as a notorious playboy (the incomparable Cary Grant) meets a nightclub singer (an irresistibly charming Deborah Kerr), they fall madly in love while on a transatlantic cruise, and they make plans to be together. They're both engaged--not to each other--so they agree to take six months to wrap up all of their loose ends and then meet up again at the top of The Empire State Building to begin their new life.
And here's where it all begins to change, reality intruding slowly upon their happy yearnings as they need to reinvent themselves, and then harshly as tragedy befalls one of them and their planned rendezvous never comes to pass. Serious obstacles will put their commitment to the test and, well, not to sound sexist or anything, but based on most of the ladies I polled, this is apparently when the movie becomes really interesting.
The Picture
Fox has given us an exceptionally high bitrate for An Affair to Remember, often flirting with the coveted 40-Mbps mark. The result is an exceptionally rich and detailed 2.35:1 image, especially for a film from the 1950s, the better to celebrate "the layer of unreality," the old studio conceits so evident in the movie (the stylized production design, the lighting, the special effects and so on). There's some noticeable grain, and some odd shifts in color, particularly during dissolves, but this might just be the best that this beloved movie has ever looked.
The Sound
Despite some occasional opportunities to do more, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track utilizes the front speakers almost exclusively. The left- and right-channel audio is full and enjoyable, but not what I would call "lush." The quality is sufficiently clean and clear, with occasionally hard-to-understand dialogue, but that's just owing to performance and the rather endearing way that characters might speak at the same time.
The Extras
All of the bonus content (minus the still galleries) has been ported from the 2008 "50th Anniversary" DVD set of An Affair to Remember, starting with the audio commentary by singer Marni Nixon (Deborah Kerr's vocal double) and film historian Joseph McBride. The two "Affairs to Remember" segments are rather special, one each for Grant and Kerr, as told by their real-life spouses.
There are also featurettes on director Leo McCarey, producer Jerry Wald, and the look of the film. Some of these clips are quite brief, and all of the video is standard-def. Also included are an AMC TV special and an old Fox Movietone newsreel. This is the second of two Fox catalog titles recently reissued in a handsome hardcover book package.
Final Thoughts
An Affair to Remember might just be one of the quintessential big-screen love stories, playing to both the Mars and Venus mentalities while building to a profoundly emotional ending for all. The audio and extras might feel like a fling, but the well-mastered video is the sort that we'd want to take home to meet the folks.
Product Details
Where to Buy:
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Movie | |
| Extras |
