I was very excited for this film. Being an ardent admirer of Natalie Wood and Loving seeing her paired with her husband I expected this to be a sweepingly romantic and wonderful movie. I was absolutely wrong. The movie began beautifully and Immediately after the romance and bliss started, the whole shot itself in the head and died.It's the story of Courtney, (played by Natalie) a 32 year old musician and polio survivor who has never been loved, never given herself to anyone and meets a man called Marcus (played by Robert Wagner) who changes all of that for her. They fall in love, she loses her virginity to him and they become serious. He is divorced and has two boys around the ages of 8 and 9. The boys loathe her for absolutely no reason. And constantly refer to her as "she" as tho she were a dog or a cat that no one wanted. After a few months Marcus's Ex wife remarries and he is so broken by this that he tells Courtney that he "can't handle it anymore", (he never says what it is) and leaves her. The next day she drives up to her brother's home, sees his brother's girlfriend is very happy and very pregnant, becomes upset by this, has a nervous breakdown and breaks a glass in her hand cutting herself to bits and almost bleeding to death. She ends up in the hospital. The movie ends with her moving in with her brother and never finding love again.Basically the movie teaches that if you're over 30 and never had love that there is no hope of you being happy and even if you do find love you won't be able to keep it because anyone over 30 is damaged goods and undesirable for long term or happy relationships Very stupid storyline. If you were hoping for a sweepingly romantic film that makes you feel light and fluffy at the end? Don't watch this movie. Instead of being all laughter and happiness after watching this film, You'll come away feeling like a deflated balloon. Don't waste your time.

You have to give Natalie Wood credit for trying a different type of role in this poorly written T.V. movie where the hero and heroine have such sudden change of moods, you'd think that somebody would have come up with the term "Bi-Polar" long before it entered the English language. Ms. Wood, so self-aware of her short-comings as an actress, was noted for showing up to accept her award for winning "Worst Actress of the Year" for several films during the 1960's, and yet kept trying to improve her method, sometimes with, yet usually without, success.In the case of "The Affair", she plays a handicapped woman, both physically and mentally, who attempts without success to keep herself from falling in love with her father's handsome business associate (real-life husband Robert Wagner). When she first meets him, she goes out of her way to ridicule him, but no sooner has she let out her first insult than she's involved in a hot and heavy affair with him. But when he gets serious, she wants to take a step back, and when she starts to get serious, he's ready to bail. This makes their relationship quite confusing, something sad to say also became a part of their off-screen marriage.Natalie makes herself look a lot less glamorous than normal, wearing an unbecoming hairstyle and less make-up. At first, it is even hard to recognize her. The chemistry between Wagner and Wood is mixed, much like most of the Taylor/Burton pairings which go to prove that off-screen relationships don't always have the best on-screen magic. The best performance comes from Bruce Davison as Wood's free-spirited brother. Fans of "Days of Our Lives" will be delighted to spot matriarch Alice Horton (Frances Reid) in a bit part as Wood's mother.

THE AFFAIR is a very bad TV movie from the 1970s starring the then-husband-wife team of Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood as hesitant lovers. She has polio and leads a reclusive existence as a pop song writer. He's an ambitious lawyer who is very outgoing and absolutely smitten with her. Their affair, such as it is, is doomed from the start, and she knows it, but goes along with it anyway. Two things to watch for if you are trapped into watching this: Wood's Jane Fonda hairdo that is never mussed, no matter what, and a tune she sings early in this dreadful flick. She sings it for four or five or six minutes, so you know it's classic padding between commercials. It also is one of the worst songs ever written, and the woman doing Wood's singing voice should have been shot and put out of her misery. Also, keep an eye out for all the peasant tops and dresses. By comparison, Wagner looks relatively timeless, with close-cropped hair and sporting a series of classic suits.

It's difficult to know who to blame for this dreary presentation. Even the best actors are disadvantaged with a poor script and I have to say that the script has to share some of the blame for this uninteresting piece of entertainment. A few times voices are raised in heated argument but on the whole the dialogue drifts along slowly and hesitantly as each character timidly explores the possibility of an affair. Natalie Wood as Courtney does well enough as the polio victim but her scenes with Marcus (Robert Wagner)were dull and vague and I felt little sympathy for either of the characters. It is true that Courtney confined herself to her own little world and was afraid to step outside of it and let some sparks fly. Some tighter direction might have helped too with Courtney delivering a greater feeling of her frustration. For me the projection of the feelings of the characters was missing. There was little drama to speak of.So don't waste your time on this one. There are plenty of good dramas around