Unlike other reviewers, I do not think any of the three stories presented here would do much good on their own as feature productions. "The Jealous Lover" is especially anemic plot-wise (and a little too close to The Red Shoes (1948) for its own good) and "Equilibrium" wanders on far too long.In spite of these shortcomings, The Story of Three Loves is a lovely melodramatic anthology, shot beautifully in Technicolor. "The Jealous Lover" is the most visually stunning of the three. Though it utilizes the love at first sight trope so mocked by contemporary audiences, Moira Shearer and James Mason share great chemistry and make the brief love between their characters poignant, masking how thin the plot really is."Mademoiselle" is a charming precursor to Tom Hanks' Big (1988), with Farley Granger as a child in a grown man's body who comes to fall for his French governess, Leslie Caron, whom he had previously bullied and deemed too "mushy" for his respect. This segment is perhaps the best of the three: it has both a good story and good pacing."Equilibrium" has the strongest love story of the three, with Kirk Douglas and Pier Angeli as two lonely people who find a chance to come to terms with their tragic pasts after he rescues her from a botched suicide attempt. As I mentioned previously, it does run on too long, but Douglas and Angeli make sure it is never unbearable.Overall, not a bad way to spend time if you love melodrama or any of the actors involved.

There's an impressive line-up of marquee stars in this triumvirate of love stories that leans heavily on Rachmaninoff's music and little else as it listlessly moves from one tale to the next with little time to develop plot or character.In the first we have The Red Shoes meets The Seventh Veil as Moira Shearer and James Mason do what they do best (dance and display disdain) in a would be Svengali scenario short circuited by a bad ticker. The second has little Ricky Nelson in a Cinderella situation where he becomes Farley Granger for the night romancing his previously detested French teacher Leslie Caron. The third features Kirk Douglas as a French trapeze artist attempting to rescue cold and detached Pier Angeli from herself.Unimaginatively tied together by an ocean liner each improbable brevity sinks as fast as the Lusitania without ever gaining any depth. Performances are rushed and forced with Douglas and Mason chewing scenery up as fast as they can in their alloted time. Old pros Agnes Moorehead and Ethel Barrymore do the most with the crumbs they are thrown and Ricky Nelson is surprisingly effective as a bratty child while Caron, Shearar and Angeli along with a two sentence performance by Zsa Zsa Gabor provide window dressing in this lushly designed but soulless production.

MGM put together these three stories of passengers on board a ship remembering three recent romances that all ended rather differently for the protagonists. The three passengers are James Mason, Leslie Caron, and Kirk Douglas and each one had things turn out quite differently.The first story The Jealous Lover concerns ballet impresario James Mason and his protégé Moira Shearer. The story is a bit of condensed version of her film, The Red Shoes. Shearer is the greatest ballerina of her time, greater than even her aunt and teacher Agnes Moorehead, but she has a congenitally weak heart. As for Mason who is it he really loves, the woman or the ballerina?The second story, Mademoiselle, could have served as the inspiration for the Tom Hanks movie Big. Leslie Caron is the French governess of a rich American kid, Ricky Nelson, who's both spoiled and bored with his French lessons and eager to grow up. A visit to a neighbor Ethel Barrymore who's a witch in her spare time grants him a few hours until midnight as a grownup, in this case as Farley Granger. He's everything the love lost Caron could hope for.The last story is Equilibrium with former circus trapeze artist Kirk Douglas saving Pier Angeli from drowning herself in the Seine. He lost a partner in a circus accident years ago and despaired of ever finding someone and returning to the circus. Angeli may just have the right stuff to be that partner, but Douglas is also looking at her in more than a professional way.Equilibiium got the most acclaim, Kirk Douglas and Pier Angeli were given a film of their own, Act Of Love, later to do. I liked all three of the stories, they were stylishly written and performed. Vincente Minnelli did the second story, Gottfried Reinhardt directed the first and third.All three stories end rather differently so you can expect quite a roller-coaster for your emotions. But the ride is well worth it.

Each of the three love stories would have been worthy of a movie to itself. The second, with Leslie Caron, must rate at least a 7 for anyone who enjoys her, but her work in Lili outshines everything else she has done. The third, with Pier Angeli and Kirk Douglas was a treat even for a viewer who does not usually like Kirk Douglas. It rates a 9 on the basis of the marvelous sequences as he teaches Pier Angeli the art of high wire performance. But it is the first, which deserves 11 out of 10, which makes this film a "must see." I know of no other film in which great orchestral music has been treated with such respect and insight. There are long, uninterrupted sequences of the marvelous Moira Shearer dancing to one of Rachmaninoff's fabulous Variations on a Theme of Paganini. The combination is superlative ballet, and superlative interpretation of a great orchestral work of the late romantic school. As icing on the cake, James Mason is the audience of one as she dances, an irascible impresario who is, quite understandably, overwhelmed by the magic of Shearer's performance. The story ends too soon. At full length, with three times the dancing, and a better love story between Shearer and Mason, it would be a movie I might expect to see in Heaven. It makes the whole film easily worth a 9.