old love story (one)

Told as a flashback, this is an uncomplicated love story between two star-crossed lovers-students, Harvard pre-law hockey player Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O'Neal) and Radcliffe music student Jenny Cavalleri (Ali MacGraw). Oliver narrates the opening line of the film, looking back:

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?

Their love triumphs over different economic-class backgrounds (he is a "preppie millionaire," she a smart-mouthed "social zero" from a blue-collar Italian/American family). Their main obstacle to romance is that his rich, powerful and snobbish father, Oliver Barrett III (Ray Milland) objects and threatens to cut off funding: "Oliver, if you marry her now, I'll not give you the time of day." To which the younger, bull-headed Oliver defiantly asks: "What offends you more, Father, that she's Catholic, or poor?" He ultimately responds: "Father, you don't know the time of day."
There are a number of touching, oft-remembered kissing scenes in this tearjerker romance, including the major scene of the star-crossed couple walking across the Harvard campus and talking about their relationship. Oliver delivers a harsh ultimatum to Jenny:

Look, Cavalleri, I know your game, and I'm tired of playing it. You are the supreme Radcliffe smart-ass - the best - you can put down anything in pants. But verbal volleyball is not my idea of a relationship. And if that's what you think it's all about, why don't you just go back to your music wonks, and good luck. See, I think you're scared. You put up a big glass wall to keep from getting hurt. But it also keeps you from getting touched. It's a risk, isn't it, Jenny? At least I had the guts to admit what I felt. Someday, you're gonna have to come up with the courage to admit you care.

They stop walking as she replies - simply: "I care" before they kiss. The scene dissolves into their nude embracing and kissing during love-making in his dormitory room. Shortly later in the film, in a snowy montage, they end up playing in the snow, throwing snowballs and tossing a football at each other, and wrestling together - as they kiss with flecks of snow on their faces. The two young lovers marry and first move into a small apartment in Cambridge before Oliver is hired by a New York law firm and they move to the city.
After meeting many obstacles and making sacrifices, including her turning down a trip to Paris to marry him, she is diagnosed as terminally ill ("very sick") when she is tested for pregnancy and fertility ("She's dying"). In a lengthy deathbed conversation with Oliver at the Mount Sinai Hospital in a tear-inducing closing, she tells him: "It doesn't hurt, Ollie, really it doesn't. It's like falling off a cliff in slow-motion, you know. Only after a while, you wish you'd hit the ground already, you know." He states he fell off a cliff when he met her. Then, she tries to bring up his spirits:

Now you've gotta stop being sick...that guilty look on your face, it's sick. Would you stop blaming yourself, you god-damn stupid preppy. It's nobody's fault. It's not your fault. That's the only thing I'm gonna ask you. Otherwise, I know you're gonna be OK. (pause) Screw Paris!...Screw Paris and music and all that stuff you thought you stole from me. I don't care, don't you believe that? (He shook his head no) Then get the hell out of here. I don't want you at my god-damn deathbed.

He finally admits: "I believe you. I really do." She responds with a last request: "That's better. Would you please do something for me, Ollie? (He kisses her hand) Would you please hold me? (He half-heartedly hugs her) No, I mean really hold me. Next to me." He reclines next to her on the bed.
Afterwards, in the hallway, Oliver speaks to Jenny's father Philip (John Marley), who says with a choked-up voice: "I wish I hadn't promised Jenny to be strong for you." As he leaves the hospital, he runs into his father, who asks: "Why didn't you tell me? I made a couple of calls, and as soon as I found out, I jumped right in the car. Oliver, I want to help." His son simply replies: "Jenny's dead." When his father begins to reply: "I'm sorry...", Oliver interrupts him and quotes his late wife's earlier remark:

Love, love means never having to say you're sorry - the last line of film dialogue.

For the remaining three minutes in the touching finale, Oliver walks across the street to snow-covered Central Park as the poignant, award-winning "Love Story" theme music builds and he contemplates what life might have been like with Jenny, while sitting on a bench. The camera pulls away from him, shot from behind, before the closing credits.