Love with the Proper Stranger

Angie works in a department store in New York and lives with a strict Italian immigrant family. A brief affair leaves her pregnant. She tracks down the man, a jazz musician called Rocky, and asks him to pay for an abortion. He agrees, and then, on seeing the place, refuses to let her go inside. The film takes on abortion in 1963 and does it without preaching. What unsettles is not the situation but the depiction of the room where an illegal procedure happens and of the people conducting it. Robert Mulligan directed, with Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen. Wood was nominated for the best actress Oscar, and the film also drew nominations for screenplay, cinematography, costume design and art direction. Its flaw is that the last stretch turns into a romantic comedy and takes back some of the nerve it began with. The family is drawn at the level of type. Who it is for: viewers who like urban romance drama of the 1960s. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a film that stays hard to the end.