Later, Oliver's father drives a long distance to Ithaca, New York, to see his son's hockey game against Cornell University for the All-Ivy title. Barrett is suspended from the game for fighting and Harvard loses to Cornell, 4–3. Oliver turns down his father's offer of a steak dinner and help in getting into Harvard Law School.
Jenny reveals that she has a scholarship in Paris arranged for after her Radcliffe graduation. Oliver is upset that he does not figure in Jenny's plans and proposes marriage. She accepts his proposal and he takes her to the Barrett mansion to meet his parents, who are uncomfortable with her Italian-American and blue-collar background. Oliver's father says he will cut him off financially if he marries Jenny.
Jenny works as a teacher but without his father's financial support the couple struggles to pay Oliver's way through Harvard Law School. Oliver graduates third in his class and takes a position at a high-powered New York City law firm. They are ready to start a family but fail to conceive. After Jenny undergoes three blood tests, Oliver is told that she is terminally ill.
Oliver attempts to continue as normal without telling Jenny of her condition, but she confronts her doctor and finds out the truth. Oliver buys tickets to Paris, but she declines to go, wanting only to spend time with him. Oliver seeks money from his estranged father to pay for Jenny's medical care, but as a matter of pride does not disclose the reason for this request. Although his father assumes an extramarital affair, which Oliver makes no attempt to deny, he lends the money anyway.
From her hospital bed, Jenny makes arrangements with her father for a Catholic funeral. She tells Oliver to not blame himself, insisting that he never held her back from music and Paris and it was worth it for the love they shared. Jenny's last wish is for Oliver to embrace her tightly as she dies.
A grief-stricken Oliver leaves the hospital and he sees his father outside, having learned the true reason for Oliver's request. When his father gives his condolence, Oliver replies that "love means never having to say you're sorry", something that Jenny had said to him earlier. Oliver walks alone to the open air ice rink, where Jenny had watched him skate the day she was hospitalized.
Erich Segal was an academic who had branched into screenwriting with films such as Yellow Submarine and The Games. He wanted to do a "story out of a 1940s movie" updated to the present day, "based on what I have observed among my students, living as I do right on campus. It deals with today’s personal commitment of one to one and the quest for a permanent relationship which begins much younger than it used to. The old, mindless football game dating is gone. The question of sexual morality is irrelevant, but there is much less ‘swinging’ among young people now than in the old days.”[6]
The movie was originally written as a screenplay but Erich Segal was unable to sell it. Howard Minsky, who was head of the motion picture division on the east coast for the William Morris Agency, who represented Segal, believed in the project. According to Arthur Hiller, "He gave up his job and made an arrangement with Erich Segal because he had such faith in that project. He mothered it all the way through. If it hadn't been for him, it would never have been a film."[7]
Minksy says he had Segal rewrite the script seven times. The changes included altering the female lead from being Jewish to Italian-American, deleting the character of the girl's mother, and minimizing swearing and nudity.[8][9]
The script was read by Ali MacGraw, who wanted to make it. She had just made Goodbye Columbus for Paramount Pictures, then under Robert Evans. Paramount had signed MacGraw to a three picture deal and agreed to make the film as a vehicle for MacGraw.[7] In May 1969, Evans announced that he wanted a "sensitive young actor" like Beau Bridges or Jon Voight for the lead and Larry Peerce, who had made Goodbye Columbus, would direct.[10] Evans later said Peerce took the job because he "desperately needed a gig" but the director was always unhappy working on the project and pulled out after a month.[11] He was replaced by Anthony Harvey, who had made Lion in Winter, but Harvey quit the project after collaborating with Segal. Eventually Arthur Hiller, who was making two films at Paramount (The Out of Towners and Plaza Suite) agreed to direct.[12]
In September 1969 it was announced Hiller would direct and that Harper and Row would publish a novelized version of the script in February of the following year.[13] According to Evans, Paramount had suggested Segal adapt the screenplay into a novel to help promote the film. Minsky says he was the one who suggested this.[8]Peter Bart, then an executive at Paramount, claims he suggested it. Segal says that he wrote the novel at the same time as the screenplay with considerable input from Gene Young of Harpers who was editor.[6] The book was published in time for Valentine's Day in 1970, and became a best seller.[14][8][9]
Hiller says "we tested eight or nine different actors and Ryan was the best. He didn't bowl us over at first. Then I saw some footage of a film he was just completing at 20th Century Fox and I thought it would be wonderful. He just had that empathy and feeling that was so necessary."[7] According to a contemporary account, O'Neal was tested on the recommendation of Erich Segal, who had worked with him on The Games; he was paid $25,000.[16] Evans later claimed he insisted O'Neal be cast because he made the best test, over the objections of Hiller who wanted Walken.[17]
In November 1969 Evans claimed "We looked at 1,000 actors and that's not an exaggeration. We tested 14 unknowns and none of them compared to O'Neal."[18]
Bill Cleary, former Harvard and 1960 U.S. Olympic hockey star (and later Harvard's hockey coach/athletic director), was Ryan O'Neal's hockey stand-in during key hockey scenes where skating and hockey-playing ability were required. Hockey scenes were filmed in three days at Harvard's former Watson Rink, which was rebuilt and is now known as Bright-Landry Hockey Center. Other hockey players in the film were played mostly by actual Harvard and Boston University hockey players, including Joe Cavanagh and Mike Hyndman.
O'Neal's younger brother, Kevin O'Neal (1945-2023), had a bit part in the film.[19]
Production
Filming started November 18, 1969, on location in Cambridge and Boston, and New York. It was the first time a film had gotten permission to film at Harvard. Moreover, the Ice Skating Rink for the Harvard vs Cornell game was shot at Hamilton College.[8]
Filming Love Storyon location resulted in damage to trees on campus. This experience, followed by a similar experience with the film A Small Circle of Friends (1980), caused the university administration to deny most subsequent requests for filming on location.[20]
The scenes where they lived as newlyweds in Cambridge were filmed in the Agassiz neighborhood. Oliver carries Jenny over the threshold at 119 Oxford Street.[21]
Jimmy Webb wrote a score for the film that was not used. Burt Bacharach was approached to do the score but pulled out when Robert Evans requested a score similar to that of Frances Lai. Eventually Lai was cast.[12]
Arthur Hiller recalled, "We thought we were making a nice little movie. Well, all of us thought that except the producer who kept saying, "Arthur, believe me, this will be big." And I said, "Yes Howard, you're the producer, you have to feel that way." But he was totally right."[7]
The premiere for Love Story took place at Loews's State I theater in New York City on Wednesday, December 16, 1970.[22]
Critical reception
Overall, Love Story received positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected reviews from 30 critics and gave the film a score of 63%. The critical consensus reads: "Earnest and determined to make audiences swoon, Love Story is an unabashed tearjerker that will capture hearts when it isn't inducing eye rolls."[23]
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and called it "infinitely better than the book," adding, "because Hiller makes the lovers into individuals, of course we're moved by the film's conclusion. Why not?"[24]Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was also positive, writing that although "the plotline has been honored many times... It's the telling that matters: the surfaces and the textures and the charm of the actors. And it is hard to see how these quantities could have been significantly improved upon in Love Story."[25]
Newsweek felt the film was contrived[24] and film critic Judith Crist called Love Story "Camille with bullshit".[26]Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "I can't remember any movie of such comparable high-style kitsch since Leo McCarey's Love Affair (1939) and his 1957 remake, An Affair to Remember. The only really depressing thing about Love Story is the thought of all the terrible imitations that will inevitably follow it."[27]Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four and wrote that "whereas the novel has a built-in excuse for being spare (it is told strictly as the boy's reminiscence), the film does not. Seeing the characters in the movie ... makes us want to know something about them. We get precious little, and love by fiat doesn't work well in film."[28] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "I found this one of the most thoroughly resistible sentimental films I've ever seen. There is scarcely a character or situation or line in the story that rings true, that suggests real simplicity or generosity of feeling, a sentiment or emotion honestly experienced and expressed."[29] Writer Harlan Ellison wrote in The Other Glass Teat, his book of collected criticism, that it was "shit". John Simon wrote that Love Story was so bad that it never once moved him.[30]
Love Story was ranked number 9 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions list, which recognizes the top 100 love stories in American cinema. The film also spawned a trove of imitations, parodies, and homages in countless films, having re-energized melodrama on the silver screen, as well as helping to set the template for the modern "chick flick".
Box office
Love Story was an instant box-office smash.[31] It opened in two theaters in New York City, Loew's State I and Tower East, grossing $128,022 in its first week.[22] It expanded into another 166 theaters on Christmas Day and grossed a record $2,463,916 for the weekend, becoming the number-one film in the United States.[32][33] It also grossed a record $5,007,706 for the week[34] and grossed $2,493,167 the following weekend.[35] It remained number one at the US box office for the next four weeks, before finishing second behind The Owl and the Pussycat for one week and then returning to the top of the box office for another six weeks.
It went into general release in the United States on June 23, 1971, expanding into an additional 143 theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis, grossing $1,660,761 in five days and returned to number one at the US box office for another 3 weeks, for a total of 15 weeks at number one.[36][37] It was the sixth highest-grossing film of all time in U.S. and Canada with a gross of $106,397,186.
Adjusted for inflation, the film remains one of the top 50 domestic grosses of all time.[5] It grossed an additional $67 million in international film markets for a worldwide total of $173.4 million ($1.3 billion in 2023 dollars).[3]
Arthur Hiller later reflected, "We had been going through a period of individuality in the 1960s, what I call the ‘biker films, like Easy Rider (1969). If Love Story [had come] out a few years earlier, it would have been run over by the motorcycles. A few years after, it would be lost to special effects. Movies have their time of why they work and why they don’t."[38]
Hiller also said, "The message of Love Story really is what two people can give to each other for love alone. You know, people made fun of the phrase "Love means never having to say you're sorry." But think about it. All it says is that if you love somebody, you understand they're not perfect and they don't have to apologize for every little thing they do that isn't perfect. Its an affirmation of the human spirit... We hit at a time when if you disagreed with somebody, you hated them. That was the feeling in 1969 and 1970. Well, people were tired of that and were looking to say, hey, love is okay. You can be mad at somebody and still love them."[7]
Peter Bart, an executive at Paramount when the film was made, said "Love Story had become a sort of cinematic aphrodisiac. A kid would take his date to the film, they would cry together, commiserate about the tragedy, then they would go to bed, as though to celebrate their survival. Hence each night the lines seemed to grow longer as the boys kept pressing their luck."[39]
The film was first broadcast on ABC television on October 1, 1972, and became the most-watched film on television surpassing Ben-Hur (1959) with 27 million homes watching, with a score of 42.3 by Nielsen ratings and an audience share of 62%.[46][47] The rating was equaled the following year by Airport (1970) and then surpassed in 1976 by Gone with the Wind (1939).[47]
O'Neal and Milland reprised their roles for a sequel, Oliver's Story, released in 1978. It was based on Segal's 1977 novel. The film begins with Jenny's funeral, then picks up 18 months later. Oliver is a successful, but unhappy, lawyer in New York. Although still mourning Jenny, he manages to find love with heiress Marcie Bonwit (Candice Bergen). Suffering from comparisons to the original, Oliver's Story did poorly with both critics and audiences.
NBC broadcast Love Story, a short-lived romantic anthology television series, in 1973–1974. Although it shared its name with the novel and movie and used the same theme song – "(Where Do I Begin) Love Story" – as the film, it otherwise was unrelated to them, with no characters or storylines in common with either the novel or the film.
Jenny Cavilleri's disease being unspecified and her relatively good looks during the onset of her illness was met with criticism for its implausibility.[64]Vincent Canby wrote in his original New York Times review that it was "as if Jenny was suffering from some vaguely unpleasant Elizabeth Arden treatment".[27]Mad magazine ran a parody of the film ("Lover's Story") in its October 1971 issue, which depicted Ali MacGraw's character as stricken with "Old Movie Disease", an ailment that causes a dying patient to become "more beautiful by the minute".[65][66] In 1997, Roger Ebert defined "Ali MacGraw's Disease" as a movie illness in which "the only symptom is that the patient grows more beautiful until finally dying".[67]
In popular culture
In 1971, the 20th episode of the fourth season of The Carol Burnett Show featured a take-off of the film called "Lovely Story", with Carol Burnett in the MacGraw role and Harvey Korman in the O'Neal role.[68]
The film's female protagonist has been credited with the spike in the baby name Jennifer in North America in 1970, launching it to the number 1 feminine given name.[69] It would hold this position for 14 years.
Forrest Gump is a 1994 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. An adaptation of the 1986 novel by Winston Groom, the screenplay of the film is written by Eric Roth. It stars Tom Hanks in the title role, alongside Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field in lead roles. The film follows the life of an Alabama man named Forrest Gump (Hanks) and his experiences in the 20th-century United States.
Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal was an American actor. Born in Los Angeles, he trained as an amateur boxer before beginning a career in acting in 1960.
Elizabeth Alice MacGraw is an American actress. She first gained attention with her role in Goodbye, Columbus (1969), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She then starred in Love Story (1970), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. In 1972, MacGraw was voted the top female box office star in the world and was honored with a hands and footprints ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre after having made just three films. She went on to star in The Getaway (1972), Convoy (1978), Players (1979), Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), and The Winds of War (1983). In 1991, she published an autobiography, Moving Pictures.
Robert Evans was an American film producer who worked on Rosemary's Baby (1968), Love Story (1970), The Godfather (1972), and Chinatown (1974).
The Getaway is a 1972 American action thriller film based on the 1958 novel by Jim Thompson. The film was directed by Sam Peckinpah, written by Walter Hill, and stars Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Al Lettieri, and Sally Struthers. The plot follows imprisoned mastermind robber Carter "Doc" McCoy, whose wife Carol conspires for his release on the condition they rob a bank in Texas. A double-cross follows the crime, and the McCoys are forced to flee for Mexico with the police and criminals in hot pursuit.
Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the business district and Harvard University surrounding that intersection, which is the historic center of Cambridge. Adjacent to Harvard Yard, the historic heart of Harvard University, the Square functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge, the western and northern neighborhoods and the inner suburbs of Boston. The Square is served by Harvard station, a major MBTA Red Line subway and a bus transportation hub.
Oliver's Story is a 1978 American romantic drama film and a sequel to Love Story (1970) based on a novel by Erich Segal published a year earlier. It was directed by John Korty and again starred Ryan O'Neal, this time opposite Candice Bergen. The original music score was composed by Lee Holdridge and Francis Lai. It was released by Paramount Pictures on December 15, 1978.
Popeye is a 1980 American musical comedy film directed by Robert Altman and produced by Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions. It is based on E. C. Segar's Popeye comics character. The script was written by Jules Feiffer, and stars Robin Williams as Popeye the Sailor Man and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl. Its story follows Popeye's adventures as he arrives in the town of Sweethaven.
Erich Wolf Segal was an American author, screenwriter, educator, and classicist who wrote the bestselling novel Love Story (1970) and its film adaptation.
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel. The film stars an ensemble cast including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte and Diane Keaton. It is the first installment in The Godfather trilogy, chronicling the Corleone family under patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando) from 1945 to 1955. It focuses on the transformation of his youngest son, Michael Corleone (Pacino), from reluctant family outsider to ruthless mafia boss.
William John Cleary Jr. is an American former ice hockey player, coach, and athletic administrator. He is an alumnus of Belmont Hill School, played on the United States men's national ice hockey team that won the gold medal in ice hockey at the 1960 Winter Olympics, and was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 1997.
The Kid Stays in the Picture is a 1994 print autobiography by film producer Robert Evans. A film adaptation of the book was released in 2002.
The Cornell–Harvard hockey rivalry is a men's ice hockey sports rivalry between the Big Red of Cornell University and Crimson of Harvard University dating back to 1910.
"Love means never having to say you're sorry" is a catchphrase based on a line from the Erich Segal novel Love Story and was popularized by its 1970 film adaptation starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal. The line is spoken twice in the film: once in the middle of the film, by Jennifer Cavalleri, when Oliver Barrett (O'Neal) apologizes to her for his anger; and as the last line of the film, by Oliver, when his father says "I'm sorry" after learning of Jennifer's death. In the script, the line is phrased slightly differently: "Love means not ever having to say you're sorry."
"(Where Do I Begin?) Love Story" is a popular song published in 1970, with music by Francis Lai and lyrics by Carl Sigman. The song was first introduced as an instrumental theme in the 1970 film Love Story after the film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, rejected the first set of lyrics that were written. Andy Williams eventually recorded the new lyrics and took the song to number nine on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 and number one on their Easy Listening chart.
The Great Gatsby is a 1974 American historical romantic drama film based on the 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film was directed by Jack Clayton, produced by David Merrick, and written by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston, Bruce Dern, and Karen Black. The plot concerns the interactions of writer Nick Carraway with enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby (Redford) and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan (Farrow), amid the riotous parties of the Jazz Age on Long Island near New York City.
Love Story is a 1970 novel by American writer Erich Segal. Segal wrote a screenplay that was subsequently approved for production by Paramount Pictures. Paramount requested that Segal adapt the story into a novel as part of the film's marketing campaign. The novel was released on February 14, 1970, along with segments of the story which appeared in The Ladies' Home Journal. Love Story became the top-selling work of fiction for the duration of 1970 in the United States and was translated into more than 33 languages. The novel stayed on The New York Times Best Seller list for 41 weeks, and peaked at number one. The film was released on December 16, 1970.
Love Story is a musical written by Stephen Clark with music by Howard Goodall and lyrics by Stephen Clark and Goodall. It is inspired by Erich Segal's best-selling 1970 novel of the same name. Love Story transferred to the Duchess Theatre in the West End in December 2010 following a critically acclaimed sell-out season at the Chichester Festival Theatre.
Face-Off is a 1971 Canadian feature film produced by John F. Bassett starring Art Hindle, Trudy Young and John Vernon. The story line concerns a rookie Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey player and his romance with a musician. Several National Hockey League players also appeared in the film.
The 1978 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards were released by the Hastings Bad Cinema Society in 1979 to honour the worst the film industry had to offer in 1978. The ballot was later revisited and the expanded version was released in the summer of 2003. Listed as follows are the original ballot's picks for Worst Picture and its dishonourable mentions, which are films that were considered for Worst Picture but ultimately failed to make the final ballot, and all nominees included in the expanded ballot. All winners are highlighted.
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