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Upon being released theatrically in 1970, Love Story struck many as being anachronistic: a schmaltzy tearjerker that ignored Vietnam-era realities and recalled simplistic dramas produced by a less socially conscious Hollywood during the "good old days." Perhaps that's what appealed to moviegoers, who flocked in droves to this unabashed weepie. Three decades later, it's still one of the screen's best-remembered romances. Ryan O'Neal stars as the athletically inclined scion of a wealthy family, attending the college from which his father graduated. He's handsome, popular, and a bit arrogant -- but that changes when he falls for Ali MacGraw, a serious-minded scholarship student from a working-class background. The relationship blossoms into profound love, a love that's tested when she's diagnosed with a terminal illness. Director Arthur Hiller (The Hospital) adapts Erich Segal's bestselling book (which evolved from his screenplay) in a straightforward fashion, allowing this modern-day fairy tale to run its course without directorial embellishment. As basic and unpretentious as its title suggests, Love Story is what the old movie moguls used to call "a three-hankie job" -- but it still rates among the very best of that type. Hiller revisits the film's production in his detailed audio commentary for the DVD, which also includes a retrospective featurette, "Love Story: A Classic Remembered." Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

In director Arthur Hiller's hit tearjerker -- based on Erich Segal's novella -- Ryan O'Neal plays Oliver Barrett 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 an unnamed disease that consigns her to an early death. The movie's tagline "Love means never having to say you're sorry" became an iconic American catchphrase, the film's theme a number one hit. One of the early products of Paramount guru Robert Evans, Love Story grossed more money than any Paramount production before it. This enormously successful film inspired a 1978 sequel, Oliver's Story. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 097360800647
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: stereo
• Time: 1:40:00
• Sales Rank: 2,171

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Romeo & Juliet / Love Story / Falling in Love

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