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Inside Film

From Love Story to Fifty Shades: Why Hollywood no longer makes proper heartfelt tear-jerkers

‘Love Story’ is being re-released in the US this month in time for Valentine’s Day to mark its 50th anniversary, but when it comes to romantic dating movies in Hollywood, humour has now become their main ingredient, says Geoffrey Macnab

Thursday 13 February 2020 13:32 GMT
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Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal in the romantic weepie, ‘Love Story’ (1970)
Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal in the romantic weepie, ‘Love Story’ (1970)

It’s half a century now since Yale classics professor Erich Segal, at the request of Paramount executive Peter Bart, agreed to write the novelisation of his own screenplay for the new movie, Love Story. The book, which Segal dashed off in under a month, appeared on Valentine’s Day, 1970, and the Arthur Hiller film followed 11 months later, the week before Christmas. Both were phenomenal successes, feeding off each other’s popularity.

Love Story, billed as “one of the most romantic films ever made”, has just been re-released in the US in time for Valentine’s Day to mark its 50th anniversary. However, it’s a sign of changing tastes in dating movies that the most successful Valentine’s Day film of recent times is Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). It made $570 million at the box office globally, roughly five times the $106 million haul, unadjusted for inflation, of Love Story.

Sam Taylor-Johnson’s adaptation of the EL James novel about the sadomasochistic relationship between Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) is poles apart from the Hiller film with its famous slogan, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” In Fifty Shades, the catchphrases tend to be about sex toys, blindfolds and safe words.

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