LOVE STORY

[quote]"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.

You know Al Gore claims that this story was based on him?

J: You look stupid and rich. O: Well, what if I'm smart and poor? J: *I'm* smart and poor. O: Well what makes you so smart? J: I wouldn't go out for coffee with you that's what. O: Well what if I wasn't even gonna ask you to go out for coffee with me? J: Well that's what makes you stupid.

[quote] You know Al Gore claims that this story was based on him?

Except Tipper didn't die, she lived and is responsible for warning labels on rap and heavy metal albums that only made kids want them more.

The picture was a huge hit. If it wasn't for the MacGraw character dying it probably would've been forgotten in the Oscar nominations. I think MacGraw got her nomination based on her death bed scene alone. I didn't find it horrible. I've seen much worse. Ryan and Ali had great chemistry. That made up for a lot of shortcomings in the script. MacGraw actually beat Glenda Jackson for the golden globe. Jackson of course won the Oscar rightfully so.

They need to remake it with two men in the lead. Maybe as a TV Movie of the Week.

"Love means never having to clean up the cum stain"

[quote]"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

She's wooden and unpleasant, and no matter what he does, he's still ryan o'neal.

The 1978 sequel, [italic]Oliver's Story[/italic], was truly horrible and pointless and only worth sitting through for Ryan O'Neal's ass.

It really, truly was horrible. Almost unwatchable.

But the Academy loved it because it was about, you know, young folk, and therefore it must have actually been really hip and cool because it was all about, you know, young folk.

Remember, most of the people voting at that time were born around 1900. To them, this was a daring, innovative movie because it was all about, you know, young folk.

Is this what spawned these horrid cartoons, the ones with the naked boy with no dick and the naked girl with no tits, decorating frau-cubicles all over the country?

And it made Paramount see that pretty girls who die at the end can lead to big-time box office bucks.

[quote]They need to remake it with two men in the lead. Maybe as a TV Movie of the Week. —Myan Rurphy

They already did: it was called [italic]Longtime Companion[/italic].

[quote]You know Al Gore claims that this story was based on him?

That's silly. He looks NOTHING like Ali McGraw.

I saw it at a drive-in in a double bill with Toklat

They screened it incessantly in one of our college auditoriums the winter of '71, and we would go to laugh at it and talk to it, kind of like people would do later in the decade with RHPS.

It was the La La Land of its day.

You have to put this movie into the context of its time. The Academy love it because it wasn't a war movie. At that time, everything was about Vietnam. In 1970, there were many war movies: MASH, Patton, Kelly's Heroes, Catch-22, Tora Tora Tora. It was intellectual AND a chick flick.

I bet Ryan ONeal was pissed that George C. Scott won for Best Actor and refused the award.

It's also interesting that Barb Streisand had TWO pictures out that year and got zero, nada, bumpkiss.

And that was the year Joan Crawford was hoping for a nomination for Trog.

And Paramount (and its then-parent company Gulf + Western) loved it because it only cost $2 million, roughly a 12th of what [italic]Paint Your Wagon[/italic] cost.

[quote]They need to remake it with two men in the lead. Maybe as a TV Movie of the Week.

They did.

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards...Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor John Marley, Director, Adapted Screenplay & Original Score which it won.

Nominated for 7 Golden Globes Winning Best Picture Drama, Best Actress, Director , Original Screenplay and Score, losing Best Actor & Supporting Actor.

The goof on Love Story in What's Up Doc was brilliant. It came out the year after Love Story and was a nice way to end the film. Though Streisand was a butterface she did look kinda sexy in that film.

Awful movie. But the score was lovely.

R18 I don't get your logic. Patton (a WW2 film) cleaned up at the Oscars that year.

R17 Please explain that because Love Story was so ingrained in the culture at that time. LA LA Land was not seen as nearly as many people..

[quote]I don't get your logic. Patton (a WW2 film) cleaned up at the Oscars that year.

There were so many war movies, and so much war talk in culture, that the Academy felt they had to nominate a mediocre love story to balance things out. It wasn't a year where they had many good chick flicks.

The thing about the Love Story movie is that the book had been spectacularly successful. No book, no movie.

In real life she would have gone to Catholic school and would be just as bigoted against the poor as he is.

Meh. Carnal Knowledge was better.

1971 was a better year for films overall, R29, regardless of rating.

Love Story was the top-grossing US film of 1970, which was probably the worst movie year ever.

A bunch of studios were hemorrhaging money and auctioning off huge chunks of their respective histories around that time. "Youth" pictures like this were less expensive than musicals, period costume dramas, and war epics, so the low cost and higher profit margins for hits made them more attractive to studios. And the economy started to go into a recession around the same time.

r27 is correct.

Here's what happened: Erich Segal wrote a script called Love Story; Paramount Pictures honcho Robert Evans loved it, cast his then wife Ali MacGraw in the lead role, got Ryan O'Neal (fresh off the TV series Peyton Place) for pennies, and told Segal to write a novel based on the script so that there might be some pre-release hype for the film; the novel was published on Valentine's Day, 1970, and shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, becoming the bestselling book of the year; thus, when the movie was released in December of 1970, there was immense anticipation for the film.

Romeo and Juliet scored with Oscar nominations two years before also. The Academy are suckers for tragic love stories.

Carl Sigman added lyrics to Francis Lai's music and gave Any Williams his first top 10 hit since 1963 with "(Where Do I Begin?) Love Story":

both the book and the tickets sold like hot cakes, so Hollywood took notice and "thanked" them with the noms. You often have a mediocre but hip movie in contention

R34, at least Romeo and Juliet will always be memorable for Leonard Whiting's ass.

Hell, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet is Citizen Kane compared to Love Story.

I Loved the,song and the music and the movie !

The book was trashy also.

[quote] The Academy are suckers for tragic love stories.

Oh, really?

[quote]J: You look stupid and rich. O: Well, what if I'm smart and poor? J: *I'm* smart and poor. O: Well what makes you so smart? J: I wouldn't go out for coffee with you that's what. O: Well what if I wasn't even gonna ask you to go out for coffee with me? J: Well that's what makes you stupid.

I couldn't help but hear that in the voices of Lucy van Pelt and Charlie Brown.

Best fucking SCREENPLAY?!

[quote]of our college auditoriums the winter of '71

You expect us to believe you were in college in 1971 and are still alive?

The Academy has always nominated god-awful films from time to time. AIRPORT was also up that year. TOWERING INFERNO a few years later. GHOST was nominated in 1991. BRAVEHEART in 1996. Need we go on? (We could, for all of the mediocre shit that crept through year after year into the top 5).

Hollywood has always been about including its own product or zeitgeist films. Sometimes if you remember the period, it makes sense (FATAL ATTRACTION and THE SIXTH SENSE). Other times, it seems ludicrous (THE FULL MONTY). Then there are times you say, okay, that still holds up in some ways (FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL).

But quality film and high art?

This is the Oscars we're talking about.

And it's all relative.... This is what flickchart thinks were the worst of the last 25 years based on its own users.

Comparing the ENGLISH PATIENT, BABE and THE HOURS as the worst but not THE FULL MONTY. There you go.

[quote] Robert Evans loved it, cast his then wife Ali MacGraw in the lead role,

And then the ungrateful bitch left him for Steve McQueen.

Love Story made Ali McGraw a big star. But it didn't last long. She was simply the flavor of the month for awhile.

If Matt Bomer would do a remake the could call it "Lovelier Story"

[quote]Love Story made Ali MacGraw a big star. But it didn't last long.

Yeah? Well fuck you and your no lack of Golden Globes

LOL Ali McGraw didn't want to be cast in The Getaway because she knew she couldn't control herself besides McQueen but Evans convinced her to do it anyway. The rest is history.

And wasn't it McQueen's insistence that she stay home and be a "proper wife" that resulted in her disappearing from the screen for the rest of the 70s?

[qote]I bet Ryan ONeal was pissed that George C. Scott won for Best Actor and refused the award.

Did he punch Scott?

I'd take it over a recent wave of young adult lit based movies with the same premise of two kids falling in love and then one of them having some terminal disease, blah, blah, blah...

Great movie for that era.

Great movie??? What was great about it?

The fact that it was 1970.

I think Andy Williams is one of the few people who have seen Ethel Kennedy naked and survived. Certainly that is worth some kind of award.

Uh, no, R56...

Actually the only movie worth anything that year was this one!

r27 - Yes, it was the IT book at that point in time. It made no difference how much the movie sucked, it was going to make lots of money. If I recall correctly, Segal originally wrote it as a screenplay before he sold it as a book. GWTW, Valley of the Dolls, Jaws, and others were such major bestsellers that the quality of their film adaptations had no direct effect on their box office draw. Luckily some of the adaptations managed to be high quality and attain classic status as films. Of course some attained classic status due to their unbelievable lack of quality.

R33, R34 and R35 have it right.

You have to remember, the book was a huge best seller. Erich Segal was on every talk show plugging it. And he was young, hip looking and personable. He came across a bit like Dick Cavett..

And I think there really was a "Romeo&Juliet" effect. That film was also a big hit with it's story about tragic lovers.

Also: West Side Story had it's first rerelease in 1968 at the time of the Romeo&Juliet film. This was before DVDs and such. And so WSS found a whole new audience.

The public was really primed to see another big tragic love story.

And: Love Story's theme song was similar to "A Time for Us"... which recalled "Somewhere" from WSS.

As far as the Academy Awards go: this was a time when block-busters won best picture, no matter what. And that was that. Add to the fact that we were in the middle of Vietnam and hippies and war films. Musicals were bombing. "Love Story" was just very right for the moment.

A remember seeing it as a teen when it was released. We all laugh at it. But we all had to see it.

This was the only movie worth anything in 1970.

I love Shirley Bassey's unhinged scary version of "Where Do I Begin".

(It is a one hell of a beautiful melody though)

....

R58 Um, yes.

Still waiting for a reason, R65. Crap is crap whether it was made in 1970 or any other year.

I saw it years ago and I thought it was a lousy film but I don't like romance and I hate super heroes.

R66 You obviously don't understand the era of the 70's. The film was a fucking blockbuster.

I lived through the era, R68. A blockbuster does not automatically equal a good movie. There were enough good, even great movies from 1970. Love Story is not one of them.

I was about 16 when the movie came out. I saw it by myself at lest twice and cried both times in the theatre. Sobbed. I really like the film, the locations they used in the film. I tried watching it a few months ago and couldn't believe how "simple" and trite the plot was and how cliche the script was. It was borderdline funny warching it again, trying to imagine me as a 16 year old falliing for that type of entertainment as I watched it as an adult.

But as r68 said, the film was a huge, huge blockbuster. I think it was a different era. Ryan O'Neal was gorgeous. Stunningly gorgeous. Ali McGraw was also atractive. Exotic-looking. The two of them together ignited the film. So, whle the plot may have been pretty lame, the actors rally made it come alive. I remember that feeling. Would it work today? Probably not. That time was more innocent. A more innocent era.

R69 There were enough good, even great movies from 1970. Love Story is not one of them.

No one, but no one, considered Love Story to be a great film back in 1970. But it was a cultural phenomenon. And it was trashy fun.

(I'm not R68 btw)

Women everywhere started wearing that crochet hat.

Corny as crap book and screenplay which was basically word for word the book. Two terrible actors, especially MacGraw. I can't imagine why 1970s people took this to their heart or why such schlock would have had any nominations nevertheless a win. I guess that year it was a popularity contest.

This is truly a case where "You had to be there" applies, r73. It was a different time.

R73 You no nothing about the Academy Awards during that period.

"Hello, Dolly!", "Oliver!", "Doctor Dolittle", "Airport"...were all nominated for Best Picture.

R74 is correct: "You had to be there"

*know

Right up there with another 1970 blockbuster, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls!

Are there nude photos of Ryan Oneal, back then?

r73 - As I stated upthread, Segal wrote it as a screenplay first. That just may be why the screenplay follows the book so closely.

R78...

Hehe, R7

The frauiest, chickflickiest movie ever. What were you expecting, OP?

[quote]This is truly a case where "You had to be there" applies, [R73]. It was a different time.

It happened again 20 years later with The Bridges of Madison County

My mom had ceramic kissing angels that played the movie theme music. I loved them as a kid. They would spin around to the music and then meet in the middle and look like they were kissing.

"Love Story," while certainly not a great film, is a cultural artifact of its time. In popular media, moments like that are fleeting. It's really no better or worse than later nominees "Ghost" or "Titanic."

[quote]That time was more innocent. A more innocent era.

You're kidding with this, right?

Erich Segal

Can't find it on YouTube right now (dammit), but back when the movie was out Carol Burnett did the requisite parody, "Lovely Story."

R85 Uh...well...it was a more innocent time.

"Love Story" was rated "PG" for language ...and a love scene.

Some CB parodies

[quote] You expect us to believe you were in college in 1971 and are still alive?

I can believe it. But I also know how to add and subtract. 18 + 46 (2017-1971) = 64 yrs old

I remember going to see this film with a friend when it was first released. It was my 45th birthday and it was either see this or Dr. Doolittle, as we were in a small town with two movie theaters, a first run and a second run. I didn't hate it at the time, but it was on cable a couple of months ago and I couldn't get over how bad it was.

The scene in the snow was lovely. The snow angels even inspired Mary Richards.

Cheesy movie with corny dialogues that only fraus will love. The movie made me hate romantic movies. It was so sappy like a soap opera.

You were 45 in 1970?!?!??!? Damn! You old.

This performance should have been nominated in 1970

knock knock knockin' on 90's door...

The most acclaimed films of 1970, according to They Shoot Pictures, Don't They:

1. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci)

2. Performance (Donald Cammell, Nicholas Roeg)

3. Husbands (John Cassavetes)

4. Wanda (Barbara Loden)

5. Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson)

6. Tristana (Luis Buñuel)

7. Gimme Shelter (Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin)

8. The Red Circle (Jean-Pierre Melville)

9. Claire's Knee (Eric Rohmer)

10. The Wild Child (François Truffaut)

11. Dodes'ka-den (Akira Kurasawa)

12. The Hart of London (Jack Chambers)

13. El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky)

14. Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski)

15. MASH (Robert Altman)

Top 10 box office hits in the United States in 1970 (initial gross/adjusted for inflation gross):

1. Love Story ($106 million/$618 million)

2. Airport ($100 million/$584 million)

3. MASH ($81 million/$474 million)

4. Patton ($61 million/$352 million)

5. Woodstock ($50 million/$279 million)

6. The Aristocats ($43 million/$239 million)

7. Little Big Man ($31 million/$179 million)

8. Ryan's Daughter ($30 million/$165 million)

9. Tora! Tora! Tora! ($29 million/$162 million)

10. Chariots of the Gods ($26 million/$145 million)

Some interesting factoids about the Oscars for 1970:

Helen Hayes (Best Supporting Actress for Airport) became the first performer to win both Lead and Supporting Oscars, having won Best Actress for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) 38 years earlier -- also the longest gap between Oscar wins for a performer.

All five Best Actress nominees -- Jane Alexander in The Great White Hope; Glenda Jackson in Women in Love; Ali MacGraw in Love Story; Sarah Miles in Ryan's Daughter; Carrie Snodgress in Diary of a Mad Housewife -- were first-time nominees.

All five Best Actor nominees -- Melvyn Douglas in I Never Sang for My Father; James Earl Jones in The Great White Hope; Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces; Ryan O'Neal in Love Story; George C. Scott in Patton -- were all first-time nominees in that category: Douglas already had a Supporting Actor Oscar win for Hud (1963); Scott had previously been nominated in Supporting for Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and The Hustler (1961); Nicholson had been nominated for Supporting Actor for Easy Rider (1969); Jones and O'Neal were complete newbies.

The lead was originally offered to Stephen Collins (yes, that Stephen Collins from Seventh Heaven and...um....other things). He was touring in a play produced by David Merrick and Merrick refused to let him out of his contract so the part went to O'Neal who wanted that fucking Oscar so badly he started a smear campaign against GCScott who didn't even want the thing. McGraw was/is gorgeous but not a great actress. I remember the movie mostly for that dumb tagline and the hat.

Those were the days when a hit movie stayed in a theater for months at a time. I seem to remember Love Story playing at the Village in Westwood near UCLA and the ads claimed something like "Eight straight months".

Ali MacGraw was so terrible and wooden in this - she spoke her lines as though someone was reading them into an earpiece for her. Ryan was a different kind of terrible, smarmy and full of himself. Well, but he always is. Even back then I had a hard time believing that after a few years of newly-married poverty and peanut butter sandwiches, he got a fabulous job and she (the Paris scholarship piano prodigy) stayed home cleaning house and trying to get pregnant.

I remember watching a big strapping athlete of a guy reading Love Story on a long flight. (I guess late 60's?) Started and finished it. I had read the book already and knew what was coming. But frankly, didn't think he would react. He did. Big old tears at the end. Didn't much care who saw him. Kind of funny that I remember it. But it was a nice moment.

r101, it would've been after February 14, 1970. See r33.

Saw Love Story on tv a few weeks ago and yes, it's aged terribly. The snow angels scene had me in tears of laughter!

The 1970 Boston sky looks like it is is full of holes, since all the iconic buildings had not been built yet.

In 1970, I was a seventh grader. Every other 12-year old girl had a paperback copy of LOVE STORY in her bag or in her locker. They wanted to be Ali McGraw and to find Ryan O'Neal. As late as my senior year of high school, girls were carrying around paperback back copies of LOVE STORY, which was a better read than JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL

From Wikipedia:

The lead role was turned down by Beau Bridges, Michael York and Jon Voight. Ryan O'Neal was given the lead role on the recommendation of Eric Segal, who had worked with the actor on The Games; he was paid $25,000

[quote]And it's all relative.... This is what flickchart thinks were the worst of the last 25 years based on its own users. Comparing the ENGLISH PATIENT, BABE and THE HOURS as the worst but not THE FULL MONTY. There you go.

By the time I got to #6 on that list--where they imply THE CIDER HOUSE RULES's nomination should've gone to OFFICE SPACE or FIGHT CLUB--I knew it was fanboy-time over there, and the #1 Worst Nomination would be one of the films that supposedly "robbed" DRIVE of its Oscar nod in 2010.

I was a movie nut kid at the time and I remember the phenomenon. Movies don't always age so well and at the time, but "Love Story" WAS considered a good film. Oscars and Golden Globes, lines around the block for months and audiences were really in tears. Can't think of another film except "Terms Of Endearment" where you could hear audible weeping.

Vincent Canby of the NY Times gave it an intelligent loving but tongue-in-cheek review.

I watched it when I was 15. Bawled my eyes out. I wouldn't want to watch it again and spoil the memory.

Of the various renditions of the theme played during the movie, my favorite is the classical guitar version.

Can't think of another film except "Terms Of Endearment" where you could hear audible weeping.

Obviously you never saw me in Sophie's Choice

R112, "Field of Dreams" and "Resurrection".

I was 18 in 1970. "Love Story" was THE date movie that Christmas season. Had to make three separate attempts to see it, kept selling out.

Not surprised, r114. No one believves it but it was extremely popular. Each I saw it, the theatres were packed. Jammed.

I can relate, r110. That was the effect this movie had. I was just a teenager too.

There was a question in another thread about when the various decades actually began.

For me the 1970s actually did begin in the year 1970. With "Love Story" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" debuting that year, 1960s were officially over.

I seem to remember the scene that bowled everybody over was when he climbed into her hospital bed with her.

Wrong, r1. Go back to WorldNut Daily.

Yup, r118.

R109, I LOVE that review! It's in an old anthology of NYT movie reviews that I bought as a teen queen. I've always adored this passage in particular

[quote]When, at the end, Jenny (née Cavilleri), the self-styled social zero from Cranston, R. I., the daughter of an Italian baker, is dying of a carefully unidentified blood disease in the arms of her husband, Oliver Barrett 4th, the preppie millionaire from Boston, there is nothing to disfigure love, or faith, or even the complexion. It's as if she were suffering from some kind of vaguely unpleasant Elizabeth Arden treatment. Jenny doesn't die. She just slips away in beauty.

Here's my second favorite NYT review, of the 1917 version of [italic]Cleopatra,[/italic] starring Miss Theda Bara:

[bold]THEDA BARA AS CLEOPATRA: With Much Rolling of Eyes She Portrays "The Siren of All Ages"[/bold]

Lovely gif R118. Does it relate to the film. Sorry I'm not getting it but thanks for the image anyway.

Mad Magazine- Lover's Story

ALi Mc Graw so wooden that she beats Keanu Reeves by a mile.

Shitty movie.

The sequel, "Oliver's Story", with Ryan O'Neal and Candice Bergen was even worse, except for Ryan's naked ass.

They should have called it shit story.

Ryan's ass . . .

My hoo-ha smells like lavender

Ali McGraw, Trump Model

Ewwww...what is a Trump Model?

Ugly, R130!

R130 Ali looks like Joan Baez last night on the rock n roll hall of fame show lol

Joan Baez sure is ugly!

"Love means never having to say you're sorry" sounds like something people say to justify abusive relationships.

Also another thing to mention is that by 1970, handsome young male movie stars were few and far between. After all the clean cut handsome actors of the late 50s and early 60s, Hollywood preferred quirky looking guys like Dustin Hoffman and Elliott Gould.

O'Neal was a throwback to the handsome young romantic lead that women in the audience could fall in love with and the public responded.

Ali and Ryan appeared in the play Love Letters in Boston last year.

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I finally watched "Love Story" on HBO Max last night. I was born in the 90s so I've never seen this film, but I had a coworker at my first job who kept telling me that her husband took her to see LS on their first date. So the movie had a special place in her heart. This was about 7 years ago. I finally watched the movie, and realized that my coworker was even wearing her hair in that early 70s look, long straight black hair, similar to Jenny's. She and her husband, who did have Ryan O'Neail's haircut back in the day, are the only cute things I can pull from that shitty movie.

Thoughts: He's a wealthy heir to a large fortune. I saw no reason for him to force her to derail her goals of being in Paris. I'm sure it wouldn't have taken much to convince his parents to let their son spend half a year or a year abroad prior to law school. We are talking about Paris. Would make for a good conversation for his parents. Basically, he could have easily followed her for a minute and enjoyed Paris in style for half of the year, propose then come back to Boston with or without her while he was in school. Seems like he didn't trust his wife to be on her own without fucking around or finding a less selfish spouse.

When he finally gets over himself, for a minute, and gets her tickets to Paris, the bitch has the nerve to reject them? What is this, some romanticization of giving up on one's dreams for dick? He should have insisted since he's always in control. They could have spent some wonderful time in her dream city. That part made zero sense unless he was lying to her for months.

Also, what type of asshole spouse doesn't tell their wife that they have a terminal disease? Just weird. Oh and of course she was happy to watch him skate around on the ice for her final day alive. He of course doesn't wear a hat because his hair must be perfect. I had to laugh when he came crawling to daddy for help. All this stuff about being independent was such bull. He always knew that daddy was there to help him, just like all rich kids.

Basically, there is nothing romantic about this film. He encourages a girl to give up her dreams, continue in poverty, despite Ivy League degrees, and even when given the chance for HER to complete a dream, the poor woman gives up all of that to sit in their apartment with the lights off hugging her husband. Um, what the fuck?

I can see why Mitt Romney and his wife used their "poverty" in story during his 2012 campaign. Selling daddy's stock to get by while he bravely completed his education. All of this would have occurred around the early 70s.

I have never been able to sit through that movie...thankfully as a teen I wasn't a sentimental sap

R3, I love banter like that.

This movie was what it was; it was a different era, shot on location; captured Massachusetts beautifully.

The reason people like that banter is they never have it in real life.

I like to banter; sometimes it goes well for a while, but then guys go psycho.

People like this shit even if theyve seen it a million times. Maybe in the 70s it hasnt been overdone to death and still somewhat fresh? Theres now A Walk to remember, the notebook, fault in our stars, sweet november, some crappy anne hathaway movie. Chick flick infused with grief porn.

I recall seeing it at the movie theater with my mom and older sister. I believe I was 9 years old and I found it unremarkable even at my age. I though perhaps I didn't think it was that good because I was too young to appreciate the nuances, but I saw it for the second time on cable just a few months ago and I can confirm it was overrated schlock.

R138 you are looking at it through a 2021 lens. And overthinking it.

The film takes place in 1971.

Of course, two bourgie irish kids pretending to be separated by class and ethnic differences. They gave her a beauty spot to make her look Italian. And god know what shop in Chinatown they got that cheap wig from

The snow play was the best thing in the movie

There's a long-standing rumor that the story was based on the romance of future Vice President Al Gore, and his former wife Tipper Gore... not that anyone cared about that in 1970.

Apparently it could be true or true-ish, the book was written by one of Gore's professors, and Tommy Lee Jones who played Oliver's roommate had been Al's real-life roommate at Harvard. But of course the author had to change the ending of their story, wrap it up quickly instead of letting them have a long marriage and eventual divorce.

The leads have a winning chemistry on screen and their looks complement each other very well.

I remember reading the book when I was ten years old in 1970. Every one of my Mom's friends was reading it, so I was damned curious. I can recall most of the movie still, after 50 years. I just wanted to see Ryan O'Neal naked. Did he have a big dick? Was it surrounded by the thick bush I imagined? I was slightly disappointed. I was sure he was going to be naked to show her a rich guy looks just like a poor guy this way. I was already analyzing the text....

When I was a kid and I liked a movie, I would write myself into it (9 times out of 10 as the beloved younger brother of the handsome leading man) and create and act out scenes. This was a big one for me.

That's right. A love story of a man and his dying wife and I was right there in the middle of it. What the hell. It was better than reality.

r143 I thought women were going through their liberation in the 70s but she became a 1950s spouse and everyone in America appears to cheer that shit on. No one thought it was odd that a wealthy man refused to follow his girlfriend to Paris but it was ok for her to give up on her dreams to marry him?

Was the world that fucked up in 1970 that this was acceptable to folks?

r146 is Al Gore's family that wealthy or was that just for this fake story?

It was a huge and surprise hit and it's theme song was everywhere. It had a major studio (Paramount) behind it and probably appealed to older Academy members (like Airport and Patton) as a breath of fresh air compared to such youth oriented films of the time: Easy Rider, Alice's Restaurant, Five Easy Pieces, Joe, Last Summer, Medium Cool, Getting Straight, RPM, The Landlord, The Strawberry Statement, Zabriske Point, 3 in the Attic, Wild in the Streets, The Baby Maker, The Todd Killings, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Myra Breckinridge, It was not a critical favorite for the most part.

Other eligible mainstream films from 1970 Little Big Man, Diary of a Mad Housewife, Loving, Lovers and Other Strangers were more deserving of consideration as Best Picture.

National Society of Film Critics top 5 choices were

Film: M*A*S*H, the Passion of Anna, The Wild Child, My Night at Maud's, Five Easy Pieces

Actor: George C. Scott, George Segal (Loving, The Owl and the Pussycat, Where's Poppa?) Jean Louis Trintigant (My Night at Maude's) Jack Nicholson(Five Easy Pieces), Alan Arkin (Catch 22)

Actress: Glenda Jackson (Women in Love), Francoise Fabian (My Night at Maude's), Liv Ullman (The Passion of Anna), Barbra Streisand (The Owl and the Pussycat), Carrie Snodgress (Diary of a Mad Housewife)

Francis Lai’s “Search For Jenny” from the film is exceptional

Being nominated and actually winning are 2 different things.

[italic]The Aristocats[/italic] had a more believable love story.

R18 BS got her revenge with Ryan O Neal right next to her pretty soon after Love Story came out. Remember the ending of What's Up Doc?

BS was so cute with that hair and tan. Just so youthful and fun, especially for a woman that's not naturally beautiful but the camera loves her.