Tonight I watched a movie called "Love With The Proper Stranger" (1963), starring Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood, and directed by Robert Mulligan of "To Kill A Mockingbird" fame. The movie opens in New York City. McQueen is entering a crowded ballroom that is being used as a meeting hall for the local musician's union. He is looking for a gig as is nearly everyone inside. It is never specified what instrument he plays, but that will become unimportant as the plot will soon take a turn in a completely different direction with the arrival of Natalie Wood, who in real life was 25 but in the movie is perhaps playing somewhere between 18-21, though her character's age is never specified either.
As McQueen tries to hustle a gig, he gets a page over the loudspeaker. Pushing through the crowd of musicians, he comes upon a young woman (Wood) who says "Hello", but then their conversation falters before it begins. She seems to expect McQueen to know her, but he doesn't. Then she drops a bombshell : "I'm going to have a baby". She certainly knows who he is, and he can't continue to pretend he doesn't know who she is for very long. At the present time, though, she storms out of the union hall, pregnant by McQueen yet basically ignored after giving him the news.
The implication is that he is a "typical musician" - fast with groupies, uncaring later on - but he isn't a total heel. He does in fact remember her from a one night stand after a show a few months earlier. Before leaving the musician's hall, she gave him her place of employment, Macy's department store, so he shows up there to try and do right by her.
During their awkward meeting at the hall, Natalie shyly asked McQueen if he "might happen to know a doctor" to assist her with her pregnancy. In 1963, the issue of abortion was just beginning to be dealt with in a handful of motion pictures. Here it is presented delicately at first, just by her inquiry. She never says what she needs the doctor for, and McQueen doesn't ask. In 2019, however, the implication is clear (as I'm sure it was in 1963 as well).
McQueen feels bad and shows up at Macy's, with the name of a doctor and a quoted price : 400 dollars. The scenes that follow are very poignant, yet not depressing or overly dramatic. McQueen, while still trying to keep his emotional distance from Natalie, accompanies her on the clandestine trip to the abortion "doctor". Of course this subject is topical right now, but in 1963, when the issue of back alley abortions was first being confronted in movies, it was new to popular culture, as an open admission of what many women already knew - that a trip to the abortionist might cost them their lives.
The movie deals with this issue very seriously, and the plot turns on this appointment. The "doctor" turns out to be an old woman in a room with some blankets and steel instruments, and it's all very horrible. But then - the plot axis - Steve McQueen becomes instantly protective of Natalie Wood. He pulls her out of there, and because she is now going to keep the baby, he offers to marry her on the spot.
This is New York in 1963, everyone in the movie is either Irish or Italian (mostly the latter), and Natalie's family is Italian and Catholic. She has brothers who drive a fruit truck for a living but who also follow her around to spy on her in the name of "protecting her honor". Herschel Bernardi plays one of the brothers with brute force. I think he got an Oscar nomination for his performance and deservedly so. He is out to get McQueen, until he finds out that Steve is indeed willing to marry his sister Natalie.
Now the plot shifts again, from serious to Rom-Com. Steve McQueen, itinerant musician though he is, is willing to marry Natalie Wood, which - in the patriarchal family structures of the time - is good enough for the overprotecting brothers of Miss Wood. They agree to let Steve off the hook if he will marry their sister.
But she won't accept his offer, because she is a modern woman, a concept that began in the 1920s but took several decades to take hold, and she won't marry any man just to save face for her family. She won't marry McQueen because she feels he doesn't love her. She sees him as a self-absorbed musician who likes the hedonistic lifestyle, and she would rather date a nebbish friend of the family (Tom Bosley of "Happy Days" fame), who owns a restaurant and is a total Momma's Boy than marry handsome and cool Steve McQueen, just because he won't commit.
As I say, this is where the movie turns from serious to rom-com as the abortion issue is dealt with and the feelings of the couple grow as the fear dissipates. Now she is going to have a baby regardless, but can McQueen commit his heart to her in marriage? She is far ahead of him. She has moved out of her family's apartment and has her own place. He still lives with a stripper (Edie Adams).
The chemistry between Wood and McQueen is like real life, and this pairing makes the movie. Steve McQueen in particular was so good at nonchalant comedy. I had never seen him playing a "schmo" until recently. I thought he only played super cool outlaws and romantic heroes, but now I see he can do it all. He is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors. So yeah, the coupling of the two is what holds the film together, and they are bolstered by the support of Herschel Bernardi as Miss Wood's brother.
There are many other excellent characters in peripheral roles, especially Tom Bosley as the geeky restaurateur and Edie Adams as McQueen's showgirl roomie.
The black and white photography is excellent and provides a time capsule of New York's concrete jungle in the early 60s. You feel as if you know the place even if you've never been there.
I give "Love With The Proper Stranger" Two Big Thumbs Up, even though the shift in tone from serious to comedic feels a little abrubt, and even though the ending could've been stronger. These are minor complaints, however, because this film was a gem, a nuanced tale of the intricacies of love and how different people define it's meaning in relation to their own personal needs. /////
Tomorrow morning is church so I will see you there. The singing will be mutually good.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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