Cary Grant Closes His Eyes And I Cry

"An Affair to Remember" is so wonderful. It's so 50s. It's so Leo McCarey. I love it.

The clothes are fantastic. The dialog to die for. The smarmy guy with the big glasses ("Robert Q. Lewis"). Making the colored kids jive. The precious lisping little girl. Oh - and don't forget the priest. And that ever so classic line uttered by the doctor in the hallway while Terry McKay is staring down death in the hospital room - "She seems nice."

"Order the bouillabaisse," Terry says, "It's divine."

"Merci mille fois," say Nicky.

"Pas de croi," she retorts and in disgust he says, "Oh, shut up."

And yet...when Cary Grant goes to Deborah Kerr's apartment (hey - did anybody else notice that the wheel chair lady lives in an apartment with two stairs at the entrance?), when he begins to cotton on to the fact that she might be the poor young woman who was at the gallery and "besides, she was...she was.." and goes into her bedroom, only to realize (gasp!) that Deborah/Terry was the poor girl who was...

That moment, when he leans against the door and closes his eyes for all of two seconds...I start leaking hot tears. It doesn't matter that I've mocked the movie up to and including this point. Whenever Archie closes his eyes for that moment to bear the realization that Deborah had a perfectly good reason for not being at the top of the Empire State Building, I cry.

It's good to know there's a good go-to movie still around.

I haven't dared watch "Meet Joe Black" in years.

Next up - "Leave Her to Heaven".

PS - And I do not want to hear a word about Randolph Scott!