Lucy Lawson, a syndicated gossip columnist, prints a story that William Blakeley, a successful Broadway playwright, and his fashion model wife Carolyn are on the verge of divorce. Lucy obviously does not believe in fact-checking; her sole source is Janet Boothe, a young actress appearing in Blakeley's latest play. The story is in fact false; the couple have no plans to divorce, or even separate, and there is no romantic liaison between Blakely and Janet, although she would clearly like there to be. (The title "Affair with a Stranger" is misleading; it presumably refers to the growth of the relationship between Blakely and Carolyn, but audiences might have taken it to mean some sort of illicit or extra-marital affair. The studio seem to have had difficulty finding a title; possible alternatives were "Break-Up" and "Kiss and Run", both of which seem equally inappropriate).
Although the report is false, it appears in the papers where it is seen by the Blakelys and their various friends and acquaintances. The rest of the film is, for the most part, a series of flashbacks telling the story of the Blakelys' relationship as seen through the eyes of these people. We learn of their first meeting, their courtship and eventual marriage, of the various problems which have affected them and of William's rise to success after initial setbacks.
The film is sometimes described as a comedy, and there are occasional humorous moments. There is, for example, a running gag about a husband who bends over too close to a door and then gets hit on the backside when his wife unexpectedly opens it (and vice versa). "Comedy" does not, however, strike me as the right description, as a lot of the material deals with serious issues. Carolyn, for example, suffers a miscarriage and learns that she cannot have any more children. She and William adopt a son, Timmy, but he is also taken ill. Carolyn objects to William's habitual gambling; at first it seems that she is making too much of this when she objects to him taking part in a nickel-and-dime poker game with friends, but we later learn that he has lost much larger sums betting on horseracing.
Miscarriages, infertility, illnesses and gambling addictions are not normally regarded as the stuff of comedy. But this film they are not really used as the stuff of serious drama either. Too many potentially interesting plot-lines are left hanging in mid-air. We never actually hear what happens to young Timmy- we presume that he recovers from his illness, but this is never made clear. Similarly, William's gambling problem ceases to be an issue in the second half of the film, but we are never sure whether this is because he has overcome it or because, after having several smash hits on Broadway, he is now earning so much that he can gamble to his heart's content without Carolyn worrying.
Some reviewers have objected to the teaming of the twenty-something Jean Simmons with the 40-year-old Victor Mature on the grounds that a girl as lovely as Carolyn would never have gone for an older man, but I was never worried by this. Older man/younger woman romances were common currency in the Hollywood of the fifties, often involving actors with a much greater age difference than the sixteen years between Simmons and Mature. (The thirty-one years between Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn being a particularly egregious example). Moreover, such romances can, and do, happen in real life. My main objection to Mature is that he looks hopelessly miscast as William. This is only partly because I have great difficulty envisaging him as a playwright, or indeed as an intellectual or creative artist of any sort. It is also because he was never a very expressive actor, relying more on his looks and muscular physique, and here he never seems comfortable in scenes where he has to express strong emotions, as he is often called upon to do.
The film might have been better with another actor in the leading role, but any improvement would probably only have been slight. The script is not a good one; when the film first appeared in 1953 Bosley Crowther, film critic of the New York Times, called "a virtual collection of clichés", and nearly seventy years on it seems even more clichéd than it did then, a dull domestic drama with little to say. 5/10
Although the report is false, it appears in the papers where it is seen by the Blakelys and their various friends and acquaintances. The rest of the film is, for the most part, a series of flashbacks telling the story of the Blakelys' relationship as seen through the eyes of these people. We learn of their first meeting, their courtship and eventual marriage, of the various problems which have affected them and of William's rise to success after initial setbacks.
The film is sometimes described as a comedy, and there are occasional humorous moments. There is, for example, a running gag about a husband who bends over too close to a door and then gets hit on the backside when his wife unexpectedly opens it (and vice versa). "Comedy" does not, however, strike me as the right description, as a lot of the material deals with serious issues. Carolyn, for example, suffers a miscarriage and learns that she cannot have any more children. She and William adopt a son, Timmy, but he is also taken ill. Carolyn objects to William's habitual gambling; at first it seems that she is making too much of this when she objects to him taking part in a nickel-and-dime poker game with friends, but we later learn that he has lost much larger sums betting on horseracing.
Miscarriages, infertility, illnesses and gambling addictions are not normally regarded as the stuff of comedy. But this film they are not really used as the stuff of serious drama either. Too many potentially interesting plot-lines are left hanging in mid-air. We never actually hear what happens to young Timmy- we presume that he recovers from his illness, but this is never made clear. Similarly, William's gambling problem ceases to be an issue in the second half of the film, but we are never sure whether this is because he has overcome it or because, after having several smash hits on Broadway, he is now earning so much that he can gamble to his heart's content without Carolyn worrying.
Some reviewers have objected to the teaming of the twenty-something Jean Simmons with the 40-year-old Victor Mature on the grounds that a girl as lovely as Carolyn would never have gone for an older man, but I was never worried by this. Older man/younger woman romances were common currency in the Hollywood of the fifties, often involving actors with a much greater age difference than the sixteen years between Simmons and Mature. (The thirty-one years between Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn being a particularly egregious example). Moreover, such romances can, and do, happen in real life. My main objection to Mature is that he looks hopelessly miscast as William. This is only partly because I have great difficulty envisaging him as a playwright, or indeed as an intellectual or creative artist of any sort. It is also because he was never a very expressive actor, relying more on his looks and muscular physique, and here he never seems comfortable in scenes where he has to express strong emotions, as he is often called upon to do.
The film might have been better with another actor in the leading role, but any improvement would probably only have been slight. The script is not a good one; when the film first appeared in 1953 Bosley Crowther, film critic of the New York Times, called "a virtual collection of clichés", and nearly seventy years on it seems even more clichéd than it did then, a dull domestic drama with little to say. 5/10