Strangers When We Meet (1960)

STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET features an all-star cast including Kirk Douglas Kim Novak Ernie Kovacs Barbara Rush and Walter Matthau. Douglas stars as Larry Coe a gifted architect who unhappily married falls in love with his beautiful neighbor Maggie (Novak) whose marriage is also on the rocks. The two meet secretly while Larry is at work building a dream house for the eccentric writer and playboy Roger Altar (Kovacs). These clandestine trysts are known only to one other person their mutual friend Felix Anders (Matthau). But when Larry is offered a tremendous career opportunity in Hawaii he is suddenly torn between his home his career and his love for Maggie. And when Felix starts making passes at Larry s wife (Rush) the foundations of his entire life starts to crumble. Based on Evan Hunter s novel STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET is a film in the tradition of classics such as Peyton Place and No Down Payment. System Requirements:Running Time: 117 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 043396050389 Manufacturer No: 05038 Product Description

Superior, Engrossing Douglas/Novak Soap Opera

Strangers When We Meet is one of those glossy, well-made soap operas that were very popular from the mid-1950s to early 1960s. And this is one of the better ones of the genre.

Kirk Douglas plays an architect who works primarily from home. He's married to Barbara Rush and has two sons. He meets and developes an affair with neighbor Kim Novak, also married with a son. Douglas and Novaak both feel guilty, but also feel powerless in the face of their attraction to each other. As time goes on, their secret bubbles closer and closer to the surface. Smarmy neighbor Walter Matthau (who also starred with Douglas in The Indian Fighter and Only The Brave) gives Douglas pointers on how to cheat, and even tries to entice Rush into a tryst. Further complicating things is an offer Douglas is weighing to move to Hawaii for five years to help develop a city. Does he leave to make a fresh start with his wife (who is beginning to suspect what's going on), or does he stay and juggle his marriage and affair?

The film is entertaining and well-acted. Ernie Kovacs plays a pivotal role as a writer for whom Douglas is building a house - a single, amoral man who is a success in career, but envies the wife and kids that Douglas has. Strangers When We Meet is a fine film that might end too neatly for some, but still manages to take a practical look at a topic that will always be with us. May 5, 2008

Adultery, Architecture and a Bit of Misogyny Dominate This Glossy Melodrama

This glossy 1960 melodrama was part of a wave of elegantly mounted Eisenhower-era films that dealt with seemingly normal people caught in situations in which they violate socially acceptable behavior but of course, not without a lot of grief, much of it self-inflicted. The acknowledged master of the genre was German-born filmmaker Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows, Imitation of Life), but this especially soapish entry is definitely cut from the same cloth. Directed by journeyman Richard Quine (Paris When It Sizzles), it doesn't have the Baroque-level sensibilities to make this quite the wallow that Sirk's films have become over the years. Part of the reason is that the story is told mostly from a decidedly male perspective, which appears to run counter to the viewing audience one would expect for this film. It also feels overlong at 117 minutes.

Written by Evan Hunter (The Birds) based on his own novel, the plot concerns successful architect Larry Coe frustrated by his inability to live out his Frank Lloyd Wright-level aspirations while married to Eve, a sharp woman whose innate pragmatism encourages him to take on unappealing commercial projects. At the local supermarket, he meets Maggie Gault, beautiful but also married, and sparks are inevitable. She helps him get a commission to build a mid-century stunner of a cliff-side house for commercial novelist Roger Altar. The out-of-the-box design and construction of the house appears to parallel the illicit affair that develops between Larry and Maggie. What's most interesting about the story is not so much the adultery but the motivations behind the affair. Larry is not running away from a shrewish wife but rather looking for a kindred spirit who understands his artistic aspirations, while Maggie is married to an indifferent, probably impotent husband and trying to escape the stigma of "the other woman" already lived out by her mother. Nonetheless, what really dates the film is the underlying misogyny toward both Maggie and Eve as both appear victimized by how men define them.

Quine gathered an intriguing cast here. Just before taking on Kubrick's Spartacus, Kirk Douglas can't help but look heroic with his clenched jaw and chiseled features, but he is also surprisingly reserved and life-sized as a suburban father who waits with his children at the bus stop. Still fresh from Hitchcock's Vertigo, Kim Novak uses her glamorous allure and hesitant manner to solid effect here. Truth be told, despite the attractiveness of the leads, the sideline performances are comparatively more interesting - Barbara Rush shifting mercurially from sensible to distraught as Eve; TV comedian Ernie Kovacs likeably vulnerable in a rare dramatic role as Altar; and best of all, a young Walter Matthau as caddish neighbor Felix whose prurient interests become fully exposed when he discovers the affair. There is a particularly unnerving scene between him and Rush that makes you wish Quine took even more chances with the trite story. The movie even comes with a syrupy, overblown theme song with a full orchestra and chorus. Unfortunately, the 2005 DVD offers no extras except previews for three other films. I would have liked to have seen a featurette on the modern Japanese-style house Larry designed. May 5, 2008

Finding the restaurant?

There is a restaurant in the first part of the movie where Maggie and Larry meet for the first time. It is right on the ocean, you can see the waves through the window. My husband and I have been there and can't think of the name of the restaurant. Anyone out there know? May 4, 2008

Lovers when we part (2.5 stars)

I am guessing the house in this movie was metaphorical for something, but what? Perhaps Kirk Douglas was the epitome of the true artist (who will not sacrifice his talents for filthy lucre). Whereas Douglas had a strong personality, Kim Novak, playing the cool, icy blonde type Hitchcock had a thing for, had a weak one, but Douglas obviously saw something in her besides her beauty (he even tells her she's not that beautiful when they happen to meet in the grocery store; something else about her draws him to her, but what?)--he fell in love with her (and was willing to give up a plum job in Hawaii to stay in Vermont, where I believe this was set, though many reviewers are saying California?, to stay near to her). He probably would have left his wife had she not told him she couldn't live without him and practically begged him not to leave her, yet Barbara Rush (who plays Douglas's wife) did it in such a way that I, even with my feminist leanings, did not find sickening and typical of the era.

As for Novak's husband, he came across as either a religious fundamentalist who doesn't believe in frequent sex (even within the bonds of marriage unless for procreational purposes) or a closet homosexual. He just didn't seem very excited seeing Kim Novak wearing a black brassiere (but they didn't have Viagra back then), leaving his wife unfulfilled sexually.

It was easy to see why Novak strayed, but as for Douglas--all I could see was that Barbara Rush, an attractive brunette, wasn't very understanding about her husband's work (she was a practical woman--providing for the family came first, the art came second), but this didn't make her a monster. Douglas simply coveted his neighbor's wife when he first looked upon her, and she knew she would want him, too, if she let herself get close to him. I did think it was best Novak's husband never found out because husbands aren't nearly as forgiving as wives, even though his inattentiveness did play a part in her infidelity (not excusing her for it, for the vows do say, "in sickness and in health").

Though adultery is wrong (I don't think anyone would dispute that fact), I did feel for Novak at the end, and it would have been so much easier had Douglas's wife been a shrew who didn't love him anymore and Novak's husband not worshiped her, but too many people would have been hurt. I don't like to see two people who truly love each other be separated, but there was really no other way for this to end without promoting destroying families in the pursuit of happiness by destroying another's.

Ernie Kovacs' comedic talent was wasted here (watch him in "North to Alaska" instead).

"Strangers" is somewhat entertaining the first time, but it isn't a movie I would care to watch again. April 20, 2008

Great Kirk!

I'm a life-long fan of the great Kirk Douglas. This film not only demonstrates WHY, but it opens a wonderful window into the look and feel of the 1950's worth seeing and studying! The fashions, the cars, the houses, the streets... watching this film gives you the feeling of true time travel. My gratitude to Kirk Douglas for putting his best foot forward and giving men across this country a model to live by. God Bless you, Kirk! You're TOPS!!!! January 15, 2008

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