Out in Owosso, nippy again

Taking Nancy's Advice, part two

This time we bought wellies, and explored the trail next to Nancy's house further.

Taking Nancy's advice, part 1

So, recently I had some physical therapy for my back, and one of the physical therapists, Nancy, told me about some leisurely hiking trails near where she lived (off Dixie Highway on the way to Holly Rec.). So today, I thought I'd investigate.

Here's the first trail, which is literally right next door to her house. Sadly...

...the path turned out to be seriously flooded, and we didn't have boots. So we set off to try the other trail.

As you can tell, this one was by a Security Credit Union, which we've watched being built over the past few years as it's right next to I-75. One presumes part of the deal of the local authorities okaying it was that they provide nice trails. They're okay - tarmac, at least, for our flimsy footwear.

Metamora Hadley, still very chilly

You can tell it's bloody cold because I'm back to the fleece-lined hat and the super-warm polo neck.

A trot round Holly Rec Lake

Reports of Spring have been greatly exaggerated

Atlas County Park

Still hat weather, Holly Rec (not the lake walk)

Flushing Riverwalk in a light drizzle

Last gasp for the winter parkas?

Film review: Love Affair (1939)

Leo McCarey directed the great screwball comedy The Awful Truth, with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant.  Then he recruited her to be the female lead in his tearjerker Love Affair of 1939, and him to play the male lead of the remake, 1957's An Affair to Remember.  We already watched the latter as part of our Deborah Kerr binge, but having very much enjoyed Boyer as the romantic lead in History is Made at Night I was keen to see the original.  I was under the impression that a fair amount had been changed between Love Affair and An Affair to Remember, but having seen both, I can report that the later film is pretty much a direct re-shoot of the original (albeit with a little bit of padding).  There isn't a significant plot difference between them.  So really, the only question is, which cast is better?  Well, it sort of depends.  I like Dunne better than Kerr, whom I find rather stiff (she's best suited to playing nuns, at least, in the films of hers I've seen), and Dunne certainly seems more at ease teaching music to the orphans in the last act of the film 

(and had her own musical career, so I'm going to assume that's her real voice in the scenes where she's a nightclub singer, or singing by the piano at his Grandmother's house in Madeira - unlike Kerr, whose voice was dubbed by the same singer whose voice it is in The King and I).  Boyer is good, and perhaps more believable than Grant as a playboy, but Cary Grant is Cary Grant, so you're not going to top him.  But the acts of the film are identical: they meet on the cruise ship in the same way - a gust of wind blows a cablegram from one of his lovers (his now fiancee's best friend) through a porthole and in front of her and she reads it.  

He tries to seduce her but is shamed by her loyalty to her fiance, and then they try to avoid each other but are given tables side-by-side... A cameraman snaps a picture of them together and they steal the film... They stop off in Madeira and she bumps into him heading off to see his Grandmother and comes along, and sees a whole other side to him, not to mention falling in love with her...  

They make an agreement that if each wants to marry the other then they will meet on the top floor of the Empire State Building in six months time.

They spot each other's intended waiting at the docks and appraise them unflatteringly... They each ditch their intendeds (this part is expanded in the 1957 film - we barely see Boyer's lover in this one and just see Dunne looking at a paper that says "Michel Marnet and Lois Clarke Wed" - and then when she unfolds it you see that the rest of the headline is "ding off!") and try to earn a living, she by returning to nightclub singing and he by returning to painting.  They both head off to meet up at the Empire State Building, but she walks in front of a car on the way and he hears the sirens while he's up there waiting without knowing what they're for.  He thinks she's rejected him.  He goes back to Madeira to find that Grandma has died (and left a shawl for her).  He goes out with his ex-fiancee to the theater on Christmas Eve and bumps into her, also with her ex-fiance, now simply friend, without knowing that she's paralyzed.  He resolves to travel again, and somehow finds her address and drops in on her on Christmas day to tell her he's leaving and to get her to explain herself (by pretending to be the one who didn't show up and asking her to imagine what led him not to).  Then he tells her that his favorite picture, of her, has been bought today by (so his dealer tells him) a poor girl who was... and the penny drops that he hasn't seen her move from the couch 

and he goes into the bedroom to find she has the picture.  I tell you, it's corny but undeniably affecting (we were both definitely moist-eyed at the end, even though we recognize its attitude to disability is regrettably retrograde).

Metamora Hadley in the sunshine

Mist on the Lake

Now THAT'S more like March in Michigan. Rain on a lake that still has ice on it.