The Story of Three Loves

One of the movies in the Kirk Douglas tribute on TCM tomorrow that I haven't blogged about before is The Story of Three Loves, which comes on at 10:00 AM.

Douglas doesn't come into the movie until the third act, but that's be design, since as you might have guessed from the title, this movie is an anthology of three love stories, with the hook tying the three together being that the men in the love stories are all traveling on the same transatlantic liner to the United States.

First up is James Mason, in a story called "The Jealous Lover". He plays Charles Coutray, a choreographer and producer. His love is a tragic one, being involved with ballerina Paula Woodward (Moira Shearer). Or maybe I should say ex-ballerina, since she has a heart condition that is supposed to keep her from dancing. But she's so desperate to dance that she runs off to Charles and does a tremendous dance for him. Too tremendous, in fact.

The scene then goes to young boy Ricky Nelson, playing Thomas Campbell. He had a French governess named Mademoiselle (played by Leslie Caron; "Mademoiselle" is also the title of this segment), who was taking care of him while his family was in Rome. He couldn't handle the French poetry and irregular verbs that Mademoiselle was trying to make him learn. On a dare from another American, he goes to see alleged witch Hazel (Ethel Barrymore), who gives him a special ribbon that turns him into an adult for one night (Farley Granger), a night on which he falls in love with Mademoiselle.

Finally, we get to Kirk Douglas, in a story called "Equilibrium". Kirk plays Pierre Narval, a French trapeze artist who is no longer doing his routine because it was an extremely daring one. Too daring, in fact, as it killed his previous partner. But then he meets Nina (Pier Angeli) and thinks she'd be perfect as his new partner. This even though she knows nothing about the trapeze and has a tragic past of her own, having lost her husband in World War II and having tried to commit suicide as a result. Still, Pierre trains Nina and the two fall in love along the way. But then the time comes for the two to do their most daring stunt without a net....

Anthology films are quite often uneven because each story is self-contained, and naturally some stories are going to be more interesting than others. For me, I found that The Story of Three Loves had a different problem. It was made in nice Technicolor at MGM, and all three stories are very competently filmed. But to me the movie kept having that MGM touch that I've described before where everything seems a little too perfect, winding up cold and sterile instead of full of vitality. Some point out that "The Jealous Lover" has an obvious comparison to The Red Shoes, and to be honest I've never been a fan of The Red Shoes either (not that it's bad, just that I find it a difficult watch). Leslie Caron isn't my favorite actress, so for me the Kirk Douglas story is the best of the three.

But I'm sure that other people will like The Story of Three Loves more than I did, considering how professionally made it is. The movie is available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive, so if you can't catch the TCM showing, you can still watch and judge for yourself.