Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr star in this syrupy sob story, which is actually a remake by director Leo McCarey of his own 1939 movie Love Affair (which featured Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne).
Grant plays wealthy and debonair bachelor Nickie Ferrante, who romances nightclub singer Terry McKay (Kerr) aboard an ocean liner. She sees him as just another playboy and he sees her as stand-offish but over several days they soon find they’ve fallen in love.
The story is the familiar one about two strangers who meet, fall in love although they are engaged to others, and make a romantic pact to meet atop the Empire State Building after a six-month separation if they both feel the same way – then to marry and live happily ever after.
Running to meet the man of her dreams, she gets hit by a car and crippled for life. He thinks he’s been stood up, and the rest is for you and the Kleenex to share.
The film begins as a comedy, turns into a tearjerker, and – of course – ends happily.
Kerr’s singing voice was dubbed by premiere studio singer Marnie Nixon, who also voiced Kerr in The King and I (1956).
For many years, An Affair To Remember was almost illicitly adored. Then it was outed thanks to its prominent part in the 1993 flick Sleepless In Seattle.
Nickie Ferrante
Cary Grant
Terry McKay
Deborah Kerr
Kenneth Bradley
Richard Denning
Grandmother Janou
Cathleen Nesbitt
Lois Clark
Neva Patterson
Ned Hathaway
Charles Watts
Courbet
Fortunio Bonanova
Announcer
Robert Q. Lewis
Director
Leo McCarey