Rockin’ Around in N.Y.C.: Love with the Proper Stranger

Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) is the third film in the artistic partnership between director Robert Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula. Their partnership produced seven films including To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), and The Stalking Moon (1968). Love with the Proper Stranger ranks highly amongst those other critically-acclaimed films, nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay by Arnold Schulman. It was released on Christmas Day, just over a month after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The mood in America was somber at the time of its release, which is reflected in this romantic comedy that is also a stark drama about abortion, adulthood, and conventional marriage.

Released nearly a decade prior to the landmark ruling of Roe v. Wade, Love with the Proper Stranger is a time capsule to an era where abortions were illegal and performed covertly, often by those without proper medical training. In the controversial overruling of Roe v. Wade in 2022, this film becomes all too relevant again. Interestingly, the word “abortion” is never uttered in the film; however, the audience understands the plot quickly when Angela Rossini (Natalie Wood) seeks out Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen) to inform him that she’s “gonna have a baby” and “all [she] want[s] from [him] is a doctor.” Though the film was released while the Production Code was still officially in effect, the absence of the word “abortion” from the script’s dialogue is a creative decision, noting the power of the word and its action by its omission. 

Love with a Proper Stranger succeeds as a romantic comedy because it does not try to force any humor throughout the film. The stakes in the film’s plot are indeed life-changing for the two young adults, as the harshness of reality comes for them soon. Unique from other narrative arcs of this genre, this film has the young lovers’ tryst set prior to the events of the plot. Angela and Rocky have already met and romanced off-screen already; now comes the result of such coupling. As they are both children of immigrant families, Angela and Rocky are first-generation Americans who will face the pressure of tradition and responsibility that dominated their parents’ lives. 

Family units are at the heart of this film, as Angela is constantly surrounded by her intrusive, unmarried brothers. In particular, Angela’s eldest brother Dominick (Herschel Bernardi) tries to play matchmaker for her, unaware of her current situation. His suitor of choice for his younger sister is a restaurateur named Columbo (Tom Bosley), who Angela nicknames “Columsy” due to his accident-prone nervousness around her gregarious family. What makes Angela such a winning character is her desire for independence. She yells at Dominick, “Don’t love me so much!” as she packs her suitcase in a forlorn attempt to leave her family’s residence.

Rocky, on the other hand, has already left his parents. He tells Angela later in the film about the emotional toll it takes to escape, “That’s what makes it rough, when they love you.” He is an intermittently-working musician who clings to his Americanized freedom. “I go where the wind blows me,” he tells Angela. And yet, despite such statements of independence, and the fact that he lives with a burlesque dancer named Barbie (Edie Adams), Rocky takes responsibility for the situation with Angela, for which he is “half to blame.”

In the first portion of the film, Angela and Rocky are notably chilly and aloof to one another considering the situation they find themselves in. Angela states sarcastically about love, “Oh boy, how they build things up in the books, in all the movies. How the world comes to an end every time the flame of your lips touches mine.” The coldness between the one-time lovers is matched in their apparel, dressed appropriately for the cold New York City spring (earning the legendary Edith Head an Academy Award nomination for Best Costuming). Angela continues by expressing “All I felt was just scared and disgusted with myself” about their former romantic interlude. After hearing the titular song on the radio (written in conjunction with the release of this film), Angela questions, “That’s what love is? Bells and banjos playing? How they brainwash you.” The female lead in this romantic comedy is nearly falling out of love with the concept of love itself. 

Love with a Proper Stranger is noteworthy for its striking cinematography, also nominated for an Academy Award. The scenes in which Angela and Rocky evade her brothers’ prying suspicions justify the black-and-white cinematography. It is a thrilling sequence that shows them running through outdoor courts and on building rooftops in 1960s New York City to make their escape. The shot of Angela and Rocky arriving at their abortion appointment is also particularly stark, as they enter a silent apartment building, fearful of the life-altering decision they soon make.

Indeed, there is nothing humorous in the appointment scene, as Angela is harshly rushed to strip her clothing for the operation while an intense Rocky waits outside the room. In the film’s most dramatic sequence, Rocky is the first to refuse the operation, bursting into the room and yelling, “I’ll kill [the abortion operators] before I let them touch you.” It is not a moment of Rocky losing his nerve; instead, it is the first moment the audience sees him as a truly caring person. As Angela turns around at the disruption, she becomes emotionally distraught at the sight of the abortion tools that could have been used in the operation. She collapses as Rocky comforts her in an embrace that now knows he is soon to be a father. Reality in black-and-white has fully arrived for the two young adults.

Following the climactic, near-abortion sequence, Angela and Rocky find their attitudes warming as their affection grows for one another. Rocky even proposes marriage to Angela, after receiving a black eye from Dominick’s insistence. Here, the masculine world tries to decide Angela’s fate. When asked by Angela, “Even though you don’t wanna marry…you’re still willing to do it anyway?” Rocky dejectedly responds, “Who wants to get married?” Though it would solve many problems, especially in the eyes of her family, Angela refuses Rocky’s half-hearted proposal of marriage as she “[doesn’t] wan[t] [to] spend the rest of [her] life married to a man who’s doing [her] a big favor.” It’s a triumphant decision that proves the strength of Angela’s character, one that will finally face her fear and lead an independent life away from her domineering family, even as a pregnant, unmarried woman. 

While Love with the Proper Stranger might have concluded with such a moment of determined strength from Angela, its drama is, ultimately, a setup for the romantic-comedy payoff. Natalie Wood (also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Lead Actress) reveals her skills as a multi-faceted performer through the two dates Angela goes on in the later moments of the film, neither of which go to plan. The first is with suitor Columbo at a dinner with his family. Columbo’s home situation reveals a reverse-gender reflection of her former life, just as family-dominated but only with unmarried sisters and a disapproving mother. Here, Angela ends up being the one that incites mealtime accidents, by burning her hand on a hot plate and spilling her wine all over herself. In one of the film’s best lines, Columbo’s mother (Nina Varela) remarks, “She’s not a bad-looking girl, but so clumsy.” 

The second date is with, naturally, father-to-be Rocky, who wants to see how Angela is getting along with her independent lifestyle. Bringing flowers to her apartment, fully stocked with alcohol for guests, Rocky is impressed that “[she] didn’t ask anybody for anything, and [she] didn’t sit around feeling sorry for [her]self.” The film succeeds in showing the inner struggle the two lead characters have for their growing affection for one another. Even though they already intimately know each other, Angela and Rocky are still, much like the film’s title, strangers. After making a romantic pass at Angela, Rocky is thrown out of her apartment after she proclaims her affection for him. She also proclaims him “dead” to her. Will love triumph in this romantic comedy with so, so much drama? 

The film’s final sequence—shot almost in the style of a documentary, a la cinema verite—works beautifully as Rocky proposes once again in the form of an instrumental serenade, performing with the banjo and bells that Angela scoffed at earlier in the film. Their kissing embrace in a bustling crowd of pedestrians confirms that their romance is just one love story in the sprawling metropolis of next-generation Americans. As Marshall Crenshaw once sang, the young lovers are now “Rockin’ Around in N.Y.C.”

If you enjoyed this article, please consider becoming a patron of Hyperreal Film Journal for as low as $3 a month!