Movie review - "Love Story" (1944) ***

Leslie Arliss was a journeyman director who hit a gold streak in the mid 40s resulting in three all-time British craptacular classics - The Man in Grey, The Wicked Lady and this. He never produced anything remotely as well known ever again. Margaret Lockwood was in all three, and they were the peak of her career, too.

Here she's a goodie, a concert pianist who has only a short time to live. She flees to a coastal village, where there's a whole lot of stuff going on: snobby old ladies who Lockwood delights in making gasp by pretending to be racy, a salt of the earth Yorkshireman, a dashing local (Stewart Granger) who she romances, Granger's childhood friend (Pat Roc) who is always chain smoking and having her hair up; everyone thinks Granger's a coward but its only because he's going blind, Roc's putting on a production of a tempest, and there's a mine which collapses and Granger proves his bravery. 

 

Laugh if you will but its done with honesty and enthusiasm and the mood of living for today really struck the note of the public. 

 

 Sociologically and dramatically this is fascinating: Roc refers to Granger having "slept his way" though a number of affairs (she says "slept"!); the socialism of the war is shown in the character of the sympathetic Yorkshireman; Roc doesn't want Granger to get better so she can finally have him, leading to a brief cat fight between Lockwood and Roc (Roc slaps Maggie, she slaps back twice, then threatens that she'll go root Granger unless she persuades him to have the operation); Roc gives Granger a big dirty pash at the train station. 

 

As pointed out by Screenonline, the film combines the excess of costume melodrama with a slightly more realistic war setting. It's totally hokey and remains watchable today.

Roc normally played nice girls but here she's sort of nasty nice, i.e. willing to do whatever it takes to get Granger - but at heart you think she's decent. (Imagine if Lockwood played the role - the character would come across as evil and the film would be thrown off balance). 

 

Although Roc is pretty she doesn't have the charisma of Granger or Lockwood - all three of them, incidentally, are a bit amateurish when it comes to the old acting, but enthusiastic; watching them is like watching recent graduates from an acting school go at it.