In our Top Ten Most Romantic Movies chart we move into the top three with 1957 release An Affair to Remember.The movie, which was a remake of 1939’s Love affair, starred Carey Grant and Deborah Kerr and is widely regarded as one of the most romantic movies of all time.In this legendary tearjerker, the world's most eligible bachelor (Cary Grant) is set to marry an heiress. But unfortunately for his bride-to-be, while he's travelling alone on a luxury liner he meets Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) and realizes he's engaged to the wrong woman--and she's engaged to the wrong man. They finally agree to spend six months apart; if they still love each other at the end of that time, they will reunite at the top of the Empire State Building. But the path of true love does not always run smooth, and tragedy threatens to tear the couple apart.
On the day of their rendezvous, Terry is struck by a car and crippled. Nickie waits all the day long, even in the rain.
Not wanting to burden him, Terry doesn't contact him, leading him to believe she has changed her mind about their love. The couple remains separated until fate again intervenes.
An Affair to Remember is an old fashioned love story that doesn’t exist much anymore but the film’s major strong point is the chemistry between Deborah Kerr and Carey Grant.
It may seem a dated story today as two people fall so deeply in love yet wait for six months befre they do anything about it but it’s the sentimentality factor and the intervening of fate that makes this such a much loved movie.
Despite being remade, in a way, with Sleepless in Seattle An Affair to Remember still remains one of cinema’s classic love stories.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw