A toast to the old and the new

As we usher in the new year ahead we get a moment to celebrate the old with a classic Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr film “An Affair to Remember”. The Panida will offer a champagne (or apple cider) toast to patrons on New Year’s Eve at 8 p.m.

“An Affair to Remember” has been digitally remastered and patrons will get their first opportunity to hear it with the first phase of the Panida’s new sound system. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, high-profile types both engaged to be married to other people, meet and fall in love during an ocean voyage. To test the depth of their commitment to each other, Grant and Kerr promise that, if they’re still in love at the end of six months, they will meet again at the top of the Empire State Building. Clips from “An Affair to Remember” were used as reference points throughout the 1993 romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle”, which likewise concluded atop the Empire State Building.

“After all of the positive comments we received last year when we played ‘Casablanca’ and it had been digitally remastered and patrons loved the clarity of the picture and the sound quality of the dialogue — some of which I didn’t remember hearing before — we ordered in the remastered version of this classic as well,” said Panida Theater Executive Director Patricia Walker.

Writer/director McCarey had come up with the initial idea for the movie “Love Affair” while taking a cruise to England with his wife. Inspiration had eluded him for the entire trip, but as the ship returned to New York and Carey saw the Statue of Liberty, the whole plot of the movie came to him in an instant. “Affair” was one of three films Grant and Kerr made together, including “Dream Wife” (1953) and “The Grass Is Greener” (1960). Like his character, Grant had met Drake and fallen in love with her on the Queen Mary. Grant had gone into semi-retirement in 1953 and spent 18 months traveling the world with wife Betsy Drake. The success of “Affair” inspired Grant to keep working for another decade. He’d actually seen Drake perform on the London stage in the starring role in “Deep Are the Roots” in the summer of 1949 and had been impressed by her performance, but he didn’t meet her until after the play closed and they were both aboard the famous cruise ship, returning to America.

McCarey had commissioned Harry Warren to compose the theme song, “An Affair to Remember (Our Love Affair).” Warren tried 25 melodies before he came up with one that would work as a piano piece played by the grandmother character, as a French folk tune, and as a contemporary pop song. The movie grossed nearly $4 million, making it one of the top-grossing movies of 1957. It proved to be the last hit for McCarey, who made just two more movies before he died in 1969.

Grant would claim over the years that watching the end of “An Affair to Remember” made even him cry. Come join in a toast to the old and the new at the Panida on Saturday, Dec. 31 at 8 p.m.

Tickets available online or at the door.