Crappy film

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

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.

(Spoiler warning: Please don't read this unless you have already seen this movie or don't care about spoilers.)It's an anthology of three stories. In the first one, a ballet dancer is forbidden to dance because she has health problems. But when a famous ballet director (who doesn't know about her health problems) asks her to dance for him because he seeks inspiration in order to improve his latest production, she can't resist the temptation... It's the story of a love that can't be fulfilled. I liked James Mason as the ballet director, and I was impressed by Moira Shearer's dancing, although I'm not generally a great fan of ballet dancing. And I love the music they used for the soundtrack, the 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini' by Sergei Rachmaninoff.Next in sequence there is the story of a teacher (played by Leslie Caron) who hasn't known love yet. It's in the style of a fairy tale. Young Tommy (played by Ricky Nelson), the boy she teaches, becomes an adult for a few hours (through witchcraft). He meets his teacher and they fall in love, but when his spell as an adult is over, their love has to end. But the teacher has changed, and when she later meets another man, she might find lasting love... So it's the story of a love that might be fulfilled. I liked both the story and the actors.The last story makes the sequence complete. It's the story of a love that is fulfilled. I liked Kirk Douglas very, very much; I found him very convincing as Pierre Narval, a disillusioned and retired aerial acrobat. I also liked Pier Angeli; she plays Nina Burkhardt, a woman who is so disillusioned she tries to commit suicide. But she is saved by Pierre, who later asks her to become his partner for his comeback. They are both haunted by memories of their past; Nina thinks she is responsible for the death of her husband, and Pierre probably feels he is responsible for the death of his former partner, although he says it was an accident. Pierre trains Nina. They fall in love, but then there is a very dangerous stunt they have to perform without a safety net...I liked the third story best. The others weren't as good in my opinion, but I have still given ten points because I think that somehow (forgive the worn-out phrase) the whole is more than the sum of its three parts. I think the order in which the stories are told is well chosen for a sentimental love movie.I think if you like the genre, this movie is well worth a look.

I was a college sophomore in 1953 when Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" was near the top of the charts. (Yes, believe it or not, there was a time when good music was popular!) At the time, I knew it was featured in a movie, and I probably knew the title, but I never saw it. Over the years I forgot the movie title, but "Rhapsody" was always a favorite. Occasionally I puzzled over the movie that popularized it, but I couldn't remember what it was. This morning I discovered "The Story of Three Loves" (1953) on Turner Classic Movies, and there was Moira Shearer dancing to Rachmaninoff. I didn't have time to see the movie when it was new, but at least I solved the mystery for myself, and this time I won't forget. I thought the whole thing was charming. Speaking of shades of the future, in the first scene of the aerialist segment, "Equilibrium," Pier Angeli attempted suicide but was saved by Kirk Douglas. In real life, she succeeded in killing herself with a phenobarbital overdose in 1971.