Torn Between Two Lovers (1979)

When a married woman (Lee Remick) is stranded at a snowbound airport, she meets an architect (George Peppard) and while there's an undeniable attraction, she prevents it from going further. But when he seeks her out, a seed is planted that will hurt everybody. Movies based on hit records have been done several times (HARPER VALLEY PTA and ODE TO BILLIE JOE come to mind) and, perhaps inevitably, they're never very good. TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS was a huge hit in 1977 going to no. 1 on the charts but it's a pretty sappy song. Films about adultery are tricky, if there's to be any sympathy for its characters, the adultery needs to be justified in some way. An unhappy marriage, an irresistible attraction between two people ... something. There's no sympathy for Remick's dilemma. She's got a good marriage to a great guy (Joseph Bologna) and while Remick and Peppard are certainly attractive, there's no sense of a passion so great that it can't be denied. Instead, what we get is the usual man with the nice little wife at home with a mistress on the side and each only getting 50% of him plot. Only this time, the genders are reversed. It's an unremarkable TV movie of week, only with a higher caliber of actors and director (Delbert Mann, MARTY). With Giorgio Tozzi and Andrea Martin.