Though it’s wonderful to get a day of Kirk Douglas on TCM – any Kirk Douglas – I wished the selection could have included one of my possibly inexcusable and inexplicable favorites, 1960’s Strangers When We Meet, directed by Richard Quine and co-starring the luscious Kim Novak.  A steamy adult tale of suburban love, lust, guilt and everything in between, Strangers features Kirk as a married-with-children architect who falls hard for sexually frustrated and emotionally fragile Kim Novak as a housewife with an unappreciative and carnally-repressed husband.  Truly, if two people, circa 1960, are going to fall in love on screen, I can hardly think of a more perfectly emblematic couple than Kim and Kirk.

Based on novelist Evan Hunter’s 1958 novel, and of course with the book’s frank depictions of sexuality toned down for the screen, Strangers When We Meet nevertheless manages to capture the heat of a forbidden love affair between these two extremely attractive individuals.  In addition to the sheer physical charisma of the Kim as Maggie, and Kirk as Larry, the movie also establishes a warm friendship and camaraderie between the two, naturally in contrast to the colder and definitely less exciting lives they lead with their respective spouses, played by John Bryant and Barbara Rush.  Kim’s husband is just a cold fish, but Barbara Rush as Eve, Larry’s wife, is a well-rounded character whose marriage is going on the rocks through no fault of her own, really, just a victim of the monotonous drone of mid-20th Century monogamy as practiced in the United States. 

Also along for the ride is Walter Matthau, in the days before he was a big star, playing Larry’s neighbor Felix, a smarmy neighborhood lothario with a dirty mind and a wife, played by Helen Gallagher (Maeve from the famous old ABC soap Ryan’s Hope), without a clue about her husband’s nasty nature.  More amusing and utterly delightful is the egotistical but likable and humane best-selling novelist, played by the brilliant comedian/actor Ernie Kovacs, for whom Kirk designs a spectacular hillside house.  (This house, which was specifically built in swanky Bel Air, California, for the movie — and was later purchased by director Quine as a love pad for himself and his inamorata Miss Novak — was given an extensive renovation/makeover [look under Projects, Wolf Residence) a couple of years ago for its current owner.)   Kim’s mother in the movie is played by veteran actress Virginia Bruce, who was once married to silent screen idol John Gilbert.

I’d also mention as a big plus the lush score by frequent and fantastic Columbia Studios composer George Duning.  Anyway, Strangers When We Meet is the Kirk Douglas movie I wish I could have seen yesterday.  TCM ran the title a year or so ago in a tribute to movies about architects (but evidently not in letterbox!), and let’s hope we get to see it again someday (the right way).  It is available, at least, on DVD, and I highly recommend it to folks looking for a poignant souvenir of days and mores gone by, set in a bright and fascinating Los Angeles.  I know that I also particularly love the movie for this look, as I was six years old when this movie came out, and the suburban L.A. I grew up in was the one depicted here.  In fact, though I certainly can’t prove it, I have always thought that the scene with the kiddie carnival might have been filmed close by where I lived.  Can’t prove it – though I’m sure somebody could – but that area and the Von’s looks awfully familiar.  Maybe I’m dreaming, but it’s a good dream!