The End of the Affair, I noticed in this film Van Johnson’s voice has started to obtain gravel. Previously he just had a kind of whiny snide voice (Best example of this is in the 1948? 49? film “Battleground”) I will always love Deborah Kerr, from my POV she can never do any wrong. It is all the better when she was handed a good script and a good director.
I would classify this as one of the better scripts. This film is almost like a comedy of errors, instead it is a tragedy of errors. Actually it is quite a sad movie, I would have to read the original book that this was based upon.
What attracted me to this film, are the spiritual aspects. If this film were to be remade today, and I see it was remade in 1999, I wonder how much of the spirituality would remain? I have yet to see the newer version. This film is a quest into the reason behind Faith. I can’t explain it, but this film makes a lot of sense. Mrs Miles questions to the priest, to the atheist, and to God are all valid.
Most people will see this film and will only consider the “affair” between Johnson’s character and Kerr’s… But that is not what this film is about at all: The affair is just a device author Graham Greene used to tell a story about Faith: What it means to have, and what is expected of us who have it.
Of course this film has its melodramatic aspects. Also it has Peter Cushing, who is not chasing vampire Christopher Lee for once.
The only weak things in this film are the confrontations between Van Johnson and Cushing- If I were Cushing and I had a wife that looked like Kerr I would have punched Johnson in the nose. But maybe the weakness of the encounters were to display that Cushing really did not care about his wife, being more interested in becoming a Lord or some important personage.
