Love Story

US (1970): Drama/Romance

In director Arthur Hiller's surprise-hit weepie -- based on Erich Segal's novella -- Ryan O'Neal plays Oliver Barratt IV, a comfortably-off Harvard pre-law student who falls in love with Radcliffe music student Jenny Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw), a freewheeling, delightfully profane product of a blue-collar Italian/American family. Oliver's father (Ray Milland) heartily disapproves of the subsequent marriage and cuts off his son's allowance. Despite financial travails (the pampered Oliver actually has to go to work!), the couple is blissfully happy... until Jenny is diagnosed as having one of those diseases that consigns the victim to an early death, but which leaves said victim looking like a million bucks even on the brink of Eternity. The movie's catchphrase "Love means never having to say you're sorry" became the stuff of parody as the film went on to gross more money than any Paramount production before it. This enormously successful film inspired an execrable sequel, Oliver's Story (1978). (Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide)

Love Story ranked #9 on the AFI list of "100 Years... 100 Passions". Author Erich Segal based the character Oliver on Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones. He wrote the screenplay first, then adapted it into a novel - which was published before the film's release and became a runaway bestseller. Eight up-and-coming actors including Michael Douglas and Peter Fonda turned down the role of Oliver, despite being offered 10% of the gross. Today, incoming freshman at Harvard University, where the movie takes place, are traditionally shown a screening of the film at which they indulge in ritualized mass heckling. (IMDb)

 View a trailer that features still photos from this film from YouTube.com.

7 nominations, 1 Award