Back to movies this week.

We’ve all heard about this film, haven’t we?  How romantic it is, that whole meet-at-the-top-of-the-Empire-State-Building thing that Sleepless in Seattle pulled from.  But how many of us have actually seen the movie?

I finally did and it does live up to its hype.  Besides, when you start with Cary Grant, how far wrong can you go?  I just wish I hadn’t heard so much about it that I always knew what was coming.  Except the very end.  That, I did not know, so I got to experience that wonderful suspense of anticipation.  And it was fantastic!  Watching Cary Grant as he puts it all together and figures out what’s going on.  Masterful!  I played it back three times.

This is a charming, wonderful film that could never be made today.  There are inconsistencies in it that a filmmaker couldn’t get away with nowadays.  Like, how is it Grant’s character such a notorious playboy if he was broke?  Notorious playboys are always rich.  Nobody would know they were notorious otherwise.  And why is each of them was on the cruise in the first place, and without their fiancées?  Things like that.

These days, we want everything to be very real.  And I’m not saying that’s bad.  I mean, when I see something or hear something said that couldn’t really happen, it pulls me out of the movie.  I think, “No, that’s not the way it would happen.  It would go like this.”  And it takes a while before I can let that go and lose myself in the movie again.

But some stories are just fun.  They shouldn’t be held to those standards.  Singing in the Rain is another movie that couldn’t be made today.  It has no social significance, there’s no moral, it doesn’t prove a point.  We don’t make movies anymore that are just fun.  Whatever happened to  fun?

And we’re too sophisticated to accept the hokey stuff.  I mean things like it’s obvious they’re not really on a boat.  And the scenery when their driving in a car is clearly just a backdrop.  But in those days, nobody cared about that stuff.

But when we’re watching old movies, we don’t have the same expectation.  We’re okay with the fake portholes and barely-believable coincidences.  I don’t know why, but we do.  And it’s great.  An Affair to Remember is the ultimate romantic escapist film.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ve gotta.