Love Affair (1939)

Although they are both engaged to other people, when a playboy (Charles Boyer) and a singer (Irene Dunne) meet on a luxury liner, there's an attraction that can't be denied and grows stronger until by the end of the voyage, it's love. One of the most popular films of its year (it received six Oscar nominations including best film), the film is just fine during the ocean voyage segment where there's enough humor to make it a pleasant love story. Plus while I've never cared much for Dunne in her dramas, I've always enjoyed her work in comedy and she gets a chance to work her comedic chops a bit. But once they reach New York, the film becomes tedious and bogs down in sentimental twaddle that sucks the life out of it. The director Leo McCarey remade the film again in 1957 as AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER and it worked better for me there than here. With Maria Ouspenskaya as Boyer's grandmother in the film's best scenes, Lee Bowman and Astrid Allwyn.