Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

utgard14 Socialite (Dorothy Mackaill) takes flying lessons from a pilot (Humphrey Bogart) who has invented a new kind of plane motor. The two begin a romance but, despite caring for him, she proves to be a bad influence and his career suffers. When she suddenly finds herself broke, she decides to marry a man with more money so she can help Bogie with his dreams. Lackluster pre-Code drama of interest only for an early starring role for a fresh-faced Bogart. He does a decent job here but doesn't give any indication of his future superstardom. There are some scenes where he plays awkward and a little shy. That's not something you saw much of later in his career. Dorothy Mackaill is lively and less stagy than the normal style of the time. The supporting cast is adequate with no standouts. Best parts of the movie are the flying scenes and one scene where Mackaill is speeding in a car. Also some pre-Code elements some viewers might get a kick out of, such as suggested premarital sex. The story and romance are flat, even by 1932 standards. For Bogie completists and airplane enthusiasts only.

gullwing592003 This is a typical romantic drama that audiences were used to seeing in the early days of the talkies. But this one shows a very young Humphrey Bogart in a early leading role as Jim Leonard, an aeronautical engineer working on a new airplane motor invention. He needs some investors. In the meantime he gives flying lessons to a heiress named Carol Owen ( Dorothy Mackail ) who's father has died & turned all his affairs over to her financial adviser & lover Bruce Hardy ( Hale Hamilton ) who is secretly courting Jim's sister who believes she's an actress & doesn't know. Carol & Jim fall in love & Carol wants to help Jim further his career financially so he can get a patent for his new airplane engine. But Carol learns from Hardy that he's been supporting her all these years & that she's broke & penniless & can't help Jim & feels she's not good enough for him & so she wants to end her life by going on her first solo flight. When Jim hears about all this he makes a dashing effort to chase her down at the hanger to stop her from flying & grabs hold of the plane as it is taking off & climbs into the cockpit to take over the controls.The movie has some great scenes of some daredevil flying stunts which is kind of entertaining. This is a very different Bogart very early in his film career & one we're not used to seeing. But to audiences of the early 1930's it was not a surprise to see him in this type of role as a romantic lead. Bogart often played romantic Juveniles on the Broadway stage in the 20's & 30's. He shows no signs of what he would later become except for one scene when he discovers that Carol's suitor Hardy is also courting his sister. Enraged Jim confronts Hardy & punches him out. A sneak preview of his "tough guy" image established 3 years later on stage & screen as Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" & later refined as Roy Earle in "High Sierra" leading to his stardom. Bogart was quite handsome as a young man & he looks like a matinée idol. This was at a time when movie stars had to be good looking & it's ironic that Bogart achieved stardom later when his features turned rather grim & rugged but as a handsome young man he didn't get noticed. Bogart's pre-star film career is interesting & fascinating because these movies show a different kind of Bogart unlike what he later became & what he's most remembered for. It looks like in this early stage the studio was trying to turn Bogart & George Raft & other "good looking" young men into Rudolph Valentino's, it didn't work. Fans of pre-code cinema & Bogart fans should watch this at least once for it is an interesting curiosity & a revelation into Bogart's earlier acting career.

calvinnme ... in this rather muddled tale involving a love quadrangle. The four corners of this quadrangle (in order) are engineer Jim Leonard (Humphrey Bogart) who is the protective brother of chorus girl Linda, who is the secret mistress of Bruce Hardy, who is the financial adviser and suitor of poor little rich girl Carol Owen (Dorothy McKaill) who falls for Jim Leonard. As Jim Leonard says to Carol, "Can you read blueprints?". If you can, you might have a chance of following this busy little precode film. Add in one more important character - a sleazy guy who wants to star Linda in a revue financed by Hardy's money. What really hurts this movie is that the subplots don't really gel that well into one well integrated plot of a movie. Also there are some lines that you wait to hear that you never do. For example, when Carol brings Jim over to her mansion for a party the serious upright young man is obviously disgusted by Carol pretending to auction off her servant Kibbee like he was a piece of furniture to her drunken guests to offset her losses in the stock market. Jim walks out without saying goodbye. However, the next time the two meet Jim soft soaps the entire affair. I really wanted him to tell her off. What saves the film are the fine performances and the fact that the subplots are interesting enough even given the lack of motivation for the players' actions. It's truly interesting to see Bogart playing a rather shy very scrupulous engineer - what a great smile he has! Dorothy McKaill is quite good as bored rich girl Carol who is trying desperately to fill up her day with fun things to do when her real problem is that she's lonely in spite of her busy social life. She really had a great voice and did good work here. It's a puzzle to me why she didn't really do that well in talkies. I'd recommend it to fans of McKaill and/or Bogart and to anyone interested in films of the early 30's.Best precode moment - Jim has spent the night with Carol and is standing at the base of the stairs wearing the clothes he had on when he got there last night - a tuxedo. He's surprised by Carol's butler Kibbee. Jim then tries to stutter through an explanation of why he is there at 8AM in formal attire. Kibbee plays the part of the father figure that pretends to be convinced of his grown daughter's chastity when he knows otherwise and this is one of the few times you'll ever see Bogart behaving like a tongue tied teenager on film.

classicsoncall Filmed in 1932, "Love Affair" has traces of the silent film era coming to a close, particularly in the wide eyed and innocent faces of the two female leads, Dorothy Mackaill as free wheeling socialite Carol Owen, and Astrid Allwyn as struggling actress Linda Lee. Linda is the sister of Humphrey Bogart's character Jim Leonard, a former flight instructor with bigger things on his mind, as he seeks financial backing for his new airplane motor that he touts as the "greatest motor in the world".The only trouble is, wealthy businessman Bruce Hardy (Hale Hamilton), who's willing to back Leonard, is also backing the penniless Carol Owen, who is completely in the dark about her financial situation. Hardy wants to marry Owen, even as he entertains an occasional dalliance with actress Lee, all without the knowledge of any of the other players. When Jim Leonard meets Carol, he is immediately smitten with her looks and charm, and begins spending time with her at the expense of the new company he's just formed. But there's a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he's just not worthy of big spender and girl about town Carol.There's a well done counterpoint at the beginning of the film when Carol first meets Jim. She requests him for her first flying lesson, and he obliges by performing some daring flight stunts, chock full of rolls and dives. As Carol turns green (you can tell, even though the film is black and white), she returns the favor once on the ground by giving Jim a harrowing ride into town in her roadster.At sixty eight minutes, the film is probably just a bit too short to effectively tell it's tale. There are a number of quick cuts and fades that create a somewhat choppy feel, though they are coherently done and maintain the flow of the story.In what could have been a disastrous ending, Carol, unwilling to marry Hardy for his money, and too embarrassed to come crawling to Jim, leaves a suicide note for airport manager Gilligan. As can be guessed, Jim races after Carol who's about to take off for a one way solo flight, and manages to create some tension as he hangs on for dear life of his own before scrambling into the cockpit of the airborne plane. The movie closes on the two lovebirds as they head off into the skies, Bogey thumbs up to indicate everything will be A-OK.Humphrey Bogart had five films under his belt by the time "Love Affair" was released. This would actually be his first leading role, and though capably done, it would be a few more years before he got to portray real meaty characters like Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1936), and "Bugs" Fenner in the gangster drama "Bullets or Ballots" (1936). As a Bogey fan, I recommend them all, even if you're not.