The End of the Affair

I am indebted to Turner Classic Movies for televising this film today. I had not seen it. I am a great admirer of both the novel and the 1999 film version by Neil Jordan. I count it as one of the greatest love stories in literature.

Yes, Van Johnson is miscast as Maurice Bendrix. Still, he is a sincere actor and his work is good considering that Maurice has been "Americanized." I wasn't prepared for the devastating performance by Deborah Kerr. Sarah Miles is one of literature's greatest creations. The "saint" as "whore." Or is it the "whore" as "saint?" I found myself engrossed and deeply moved watching her. It only confirmed my belief that she was with Vivian Leigh one of the two best English actresses in cinema. I love Julianne Moore in the 1999 version and equally love Deborah Kerr in the 1954 version. Sarah Miles is such a great creation that it would be wonderful to see another filmed version and compare the work of three actresses.

Incidentally, "The End of the Affair" is one of those notable works of literature that went from the page to the screen to the opera house (Jake Heggie, composer -- commission by The Houston Grand Opera -- 2004.) I do like the treatment given to the other characters in the 1954 film version. We get to meet Smythe and the priest and Sarah's mother. In the Neil Jordan screenplay, Smythe and the priest are combined into one character, a Catholic priest named Smythe. Sarah's mother is omitted in that version. If I was disappointed in the 1954 version it has to do with the character of Smythe. His character has a horrible facial birthmark that Sarah kisses when she parts from him. In the novel we are told that the birthmark disappeared upon her death. We have no idea that this happens in the 1954 film version. In the 1999 film version, the birthmark is given to Lance, Parkis's son. Also, in the novel, Lance suffers from stomach disorders. We learn that he is cured of that upon Sarah's death. No mention is made of this disorder in the 1954 film version.

Henry Miles, the cuckold, is more tragically portrayed in the 1999 film version. I tip the scales in favor to Stephen Rea whose performance is so true to the gravity of Graham Greene's creation.

A great story of human and Divine love with Maurice and Henry fighting for possession of Sarah's soul and only God receives it.

This is not a great film, but it is better than many critics said it was when the 1999 remake came out. THE END OF THE AFFAIR was one of the key novels of Graham Greene in the 1950s that delved into his intense Catholicism.

With a background of World War II, neighbors Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles (Van Johnson and Deborah Kerr) have a deep, passionate romance. But they are separated for a year or so, and when they try to resume the relationship (or when Johnson tries to resume the relationship - Kerr seems relatively hesitant). It turns out that, due to personal experiences, Kerr has had a religious revelation. She is listening to a Catholic priest. She is also trying to help a man with a deformity (a birthmark) on his face who hates God. She is also concerned about the spiritual health of Johnson and of her actual husband Henry (Peter Cushing, in a very moving - and non-horrific role). The film shows how Kerr affects all the lives around her, even beyond her death after a short illness (as the novel does). Yes, it is too talky - novels about ideas (and here it is the age old question of what is real love, the spiritual or the profane)usually are. Greene, good Catholic exponent that he was, would have said that Kerr's devotion to her God was an outpouring of divine true love to her fellow creatures. Her death is not a tragedy. But Greene the novelist and part-time realist cannot leave it there. Johnson's character is bitter at the end of this remarkable novel, and at the end of the film. And his bitterness is directed at the source of that love that triumphed over his profane one.

Graham Greene's The End Of The Affair has Van Johnson coming over from America and Deborah Kerr returning to the United Kingdom for this British film with British supporting cast. Of all the Graham Greene work I've seen on the big and small screen this is the most overtly Catholic film I think was ever done.

Kerr is married to dull and earnest Peter Cushing and one night at a party during World War II she meets American writer Johnson who after being invalided out of the service stayed on Great Britain. Johnson intrigues and excites Kerr and the two of them are soon in love. Then the guilt starts. Guilt on Kerr's part, jealousy on Johnson's. Poor Cushing for most of the film he hasn't a clue.

After the beginning the two can never quite get together. Imagine Johnson who is the paramour hires a private detective to keep track of Kerr's movements to reassure Cushing. This is after things have cooled down. What a pair Johnson has. The detective is John Mills who I'm surprised is taking a small supporting role. He even takes along his young son Christopher Warbey for his surveillance work, the better that his subject doesn't think he's being followed. Besides he's breaking him into the business. The part must have intrigued Mills because he's the best one in the movie.

I suppose being a Catholic really helps understand all the subtleties in the story. I much preferred that other affair film Johnson did with Jane Wyman, Miracle In The Rain. No guilt, just people in love.

Cushing's character was odd. He was sweet but weak, the kind you feel sorry for. No grand passion was ever to be forthcoming with Kerr or anyone else he would have ever hooked up with.

The End Of The Affair is all right. The remake done in 1999 with Ralph Fiennes in the Van Johnson role was more explicit. If you like Graham Greene you'll like both versions.

This is an astonishing artifact from 1955 -- astonishing because it is so grownup and sophisticated in its outlook, and because it grapples with moral complexities and ambiguities that English language films of this period never went near. An adulterous affair begun with a certain amount of cynicism on both sides grows into a true and passionate love affair, which in turn raises issues of guilt, trust, duty, self-denial and religious belief. As a story, it holds our interest and causes us to wonder where it will end. As a parable and philosophical meditation on belief and its role in love and contemporary life, it is both stimulating and unexpectedly moving.

That a novel as layered and difficult was attempted with major stars at this time is surprising enough. That THE END OF THE AFFAIR succeeds on so many levels seems miraculous, especially in the context of most mainstream film product of the mid-'50s.

Van Johnson is not as expressive or deep an actor as the excellent Deborah Kerr and Peter Cushing (and John Mills, Michael Goodliffe and Nora Swinburne) yet his character's relaxed masculinity, reluctant anguish and saturnine, rather malicious jealousy are well-conveyed, and he manages to be a presence you remain interested in. As Greene's Mary Magdalene character, the woman in whom the sacred and profane are mingled, Kerr is terrific in a complex role that is an interesting inversion of her promiscuous, childless woman in the far more famous and popular FROM HERE TO ETERNITY of just two years before. ETERNITY, done for Columbia, the same studio that released this, was far more shallow and conventional in the way it dealt with Kerr's Karen Holmes and her redemption. Just as shallow (and evasive) was TEA AND SYMPATHY, which Kerr did after this, and which received far more fame and attention than was merited.

This 1955 version of THE END OF THE AFFAIR deserves to be much better known and remembered, and all concerned deserve belated kudos for attempting such a provocative film in the midst of Hollywood's synthetic movies of the period. I saw this after recording it on TCM, and would like to see it scheduled in prime time, to perhaps begin to get the wider audience it deserves and to hear commentary from moderator Robert Osborn (for that matter, he ought to do one hour interviews with both Kerr and Johnson while they are still around).

Let the rediscovery and rehabilitation of this good film begin . . .

Van Johnson is miscast but still surprisingly good as the loving/bitter writer who tells this story; Kerr is very good and Cushing is even better. In fact, Cushing is distinctly superior to Stephen Rea, who played the role of the husband in the 1999 version. Rea was mopey and morose, but Cushing is a mild man doing the best he can, a picture of unexpected courage -- and frailty. It's one of the best performances he ever gave; it's a shame it didn't lead to bigger roles.

The movie does not, cannot, express the passion so much a part of Neil Jordan's version; furthermore, it's talkier, and the talk isn't as good. It doesn't capture the period (World War II and just after) in the slightest, despite some newsreel footage, but otherwise London is presented very well in handsome black and white photography. It's an honest and respectable version of Greene's novel, but Jordan's is the classic.