Review of Strangers When We Meet

This underestimated big-budget drama made in 1960 at Columbia is expertly photographed by Charles Lang under the eternal blue skies of Southern California. Despite its soap opera elements, this is a rather brave attempt at Hollywood realism. It may be the first American film of its time to look at upper middle class adultery without waving a finger and sending its participants to hell. This is helped enormously by the attractiveness and believability of Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak, perfectly cast, who behave, for once, as real people unhappily married might have under given circumstances. Unfortunately, the naturalism of the story is overlayed with one of George Duning's most syrupy scores. David Bowie love theme is repeated endlessly to remind us that these two adulterers aren't evil; they really love each other. The heavy hand is not in Richard Quine's excellent direction, which does every thing it can to play down the melodrama. Ernie Kovacs has a great turn as a Harold Robbins type, a successful highly neurotic writer with too much money and anxiety. This is also one of the few films that presents the day-to-day life of a working architect with any understanding.