What can you say about a 50-year-old movie that made people cry?
It still can. Combine perfect casting, a man and a woman who were born to be together, and a glittering New York City backdrop, and you've got a film that holds up pretty darn well after half a century.
A very girlish-looking Ali McGraw was 31 when she played Radcliffe student Jenny from working-class Cranston, RI, who immediately hits it off with wealthy Harvard student Oliver, played by 29-year-old Ryan O'Neal. Despite their ages, they are believable as lovers who are inseparable almost from the moment they meet. The movie conjures relationship magic as the two find they enjoy nothing so much as just plain being together -- engaging in snappy repartee, tackling each other in the snow, or canoodling on the couch, each absorbed in a book.
Thickening the plot is a preoccupation with fathers. There is snooty, ice-king Oliver Barrett III (Ray Milland) -- that's "sir" to his son -- who wants to live Oliver's life for him ("You'll be the first Barrett on the Supreme Court"). We find his polar opposite in Jenny's widowed dad, Phil (John Marley), who wants whatever will make Jenny happy. The contrasts may be black-and-white, but they make for absorbing viewing. We like that Jenny and Oliver live according to their scruples, even if they eat peanut-butter sandwiches and live in a simple abode.
Along the way we see quaint signs of a New York that's no more. Jenny rides home on a bike and just leans it against a tree, no lock required. The couple has a picture of the LOVE sculpture on their wall (which had been introduced five years earlier on a card advertising the Museum of Modern Art). At one point, Ollie passes a sign plate for Best & Co., the upscale department store that was liquidated the year this movie was released.
I remember audible sobs in the Pittsburgh theater where I saw this film as a 14-year-old. She's older now, but no less moved.
It still can. Combine perfect casting, a man and a woman who were born to be together, and a glittering New York City backdrop, and you've got a film that holds up pretty darn well after half a century.
A very girlish-looking Ali McGraw was 31 when she played Radcliffe student Jenny from working-class Cranston, RI, who immediately hits it off with wealthy Harvard student Oliver, played by 29-year-old Ryan O'Neal. Despite their ages, they are believable as lovers who are inseparable almost from the moment they meet. The movie conjures relationship magic as the two find they enjoy nothing so much as just plain being together -- engaging in snappy repartee, tackling each other in the snow, or canoodling on the couch, each absorbed in a book.
Thickening the plot is a preoccupation with fathers. There is snooty, ice-king Oliver Barrett III (Ray Milland) -- that's "sir" to his son -- who wants to live Oliver's life for him ("You'll be the first Barrett on the Supreme Court"). We find his polar opposite in Jenny's widowed dad, Phil (John Marley), who wants whatever will make Jenny happy. The contrasts may be black-and-white, but they make for absorbing viewing. We like that Jenny and Oliver live according to their scruples, even if they eat peanut-butter sandwiches and live in a simple abode.
Along the way we see quaint signs of a New York that's no more. Jenny rides home on a bike and just leans it against a tree, no lock required. The couple has a picture of the LOVE sculpture on their wall (which had been introduced five years earlier on a card advertising the Museum of Modern Art). At one point, Ollie passes a sign plate for Best & Co., the upscale department store that was liquidated the year this movie was released.
I remember audible sobs in the Pittsburgh theater where I saw this film as a 14-year-old. She's older now, but no less moved.