Remember An Affair to Remember? Our romance begins on a Valentine's Day and ends on Christmas Day, with an important date to remember in between.

A young woman runs out to catch former star quarterback and current sportscaster Mike Gambril (Warren Beatty, who also produced and co-wrote the screenplay) on his way to the airport with his friend and agent Kip DeMay (Garry Sandling), handing him his wristwatch. Kip questions Mike as to why he would remove his watch in a vanity room: "What did she take off?"

Flying from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, Mike meets Terry McKay (Annette Bening), a singer for soup commercials, who's engaged to investment banker Ken Allen (Pierce Brosnan) on her way to decorate his sailboat in red. Also engaged, to TV personality Lynn Weaver (Kate Crapshaw), Mike maneuvers into the seat beside Terry, who shows annoyance before reminding Mike of their having had an intimate acquaintance previously, which he then pretends to recall after all.

The aircraft is forced to make an emergency landing on an atoll from which Mike and Terry board a Russian cruise ship to Tahiti, the nearest land. Concerning her engagement, Mike assures her it's common knowledge that he's discreet, to which she responds, "If it were common knowledge it wouldn't be discreet." A photographer repeatedly attempts to get a photo of the ex-football playboy in a compromised situation. Terry eventually informs him, "We never met."

On Tahiti Mike tells her that he has an aunt to see. "Do you have an aunt on every island?" she queries. But he does, his 86-year-old wise Aunt Ginny (Katharine Hepburn in her final feature film), who lives on a gorgeous plantation with horses (they're monogamous), roosters (they're promiscuous), and ducks (they're indiscriminately promiscuous), wearing a red shawl her husband had given her, tells Terry that she, having equine sense (widowed for a dozen years, she still thinks of herself as married), is worried about her ducky nephew in search of his swan. A mutual affection develops between the two women during their brief visitation.

Back on the ship, leaving their temporary Gilligan's Island, Terry, who had planned to depart immediately by air, says: "Michael, let's forget about the plane. We have two days." To Mike's question of what makes her happy she replies: "I guess I'm happy when I don't want to be anywhere else than where I am."

Before their jetliner lands in New York City they make a pact to meet in three months on May 8th at 5:02 p.m. atop the Empire State Building if they feel the same as they do at that moment, but it's to be all or nothing - if either fails to show up, the other is not to seek another assignation. Both break off their respective engagements and take new, more modest careers. A woman tells Terry: "It's always the boys against the girls, and the boys are always trying to run up the score."

At the appointed date and time, Mike is waiting on the observation deck, 86 floors above the city, with a painting he's made for Terry. (Remember Cary Grant waiting for Deborah Kerr? Or perhaps Charles Boyer impatient to see Irene Dunne in the original Love Affair?) When she doesn't arrive as hoped for, Mike leaves the painting with a woman in the hotel, who takes a liking to the picture of a woman in a red shawl: "Is she real?"

On Christmas Day Mike finds an excuse to look up Terry after they notice each other with their former significant other at a Ray Charles concert, admitting to her about the appointment, "I didn't keep it." This closing - "If you can paint, I can walk" - and the earlier with Katharine Hepburn are among my favorite scenes in the movies. Music by Ennio Morricone.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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