Anthony Newley and Sandy Dennis worked beautifully together. Theodore Bikel is so comforting, strong and protective. It is a tender, sad and beguiling story by Herman Raucher, every bit the equal of his"Summer of '42"and that is complimenting it indeed. A rare and heady blend of deepest emotion, of what love can do to persons, and what the terrible thrusting of the end of the world causes--the bittersweet romance, the gone away, but not in the heart ever leaving, the one special romance that aches the soul is always the finest, the most cherished.

Unabashedly bigger than life, very much an old fashioned"romantic film,"filled with happiness and passion, and captivating. I've loved Anthony Newley for most of my life. Sandy Dennis is one of my favorite actresses. It needed no remake. Keneau Reeves in the Newley role? Oh, please, no. There is just this one and only classic November. It is impossible not to weep when Charlie so desperately wants Sweet November to stay, to capture the fleeting time, and to make a calander with only that month forever on it, caught in amber.

Which is what this film has done. How can anyone not fall in love with a story in which Charlie names the sweater Sarah makes for him, because he loves it,"Rex"? New York has never been more captivating. Michel LeGrand's music is sublime. Fall and Thanksgiving and Sarah and Charlie and a most creatively sided box, and snow falling on the skylight. What more could a person wish for? The final magnificent song by Newley and Leslie Bricusse, sung in that electrifying Newley voice that will never be equaled, as the snow comes falling down around him on a park bench, his final goodbye, encompassing all the knowledge Sarah has given to him, for all hellos are goodbyes in disguise, breaks my heart every time I hear it. There can be no better, wiser"sentimental education."

Even if Sandy Dennis did not look like my first love, I would have liked her immensely--tender, sad and trembly always it seemed, a delicate rose at the beginning of Fall, all the more lyrical for that. But November can't stay; it's why autumn is so magical. Now that both actors are so sadly gone, we have this gift of love and innocence to remember them by; a study of the kind of affection that counts, that gets into the bones, and joyous memories edged with the patina of sadness. New York in autumn has always seemed the best place in the world to me. This film has proven me right.

Forever bless Anthony Newley, a giant of the musical stage, a sad sweet wise clown whose heart always seemed to be breaking; nevermore so than here. And Sandy Dennis,"mostly woman, mostly child."