Brian Sisters in 1939: Love Affair
Love Affair (1939)

Love Affair is a weepie. Not everyone's cup of tea as a film overall. But the girls sing in it, and sing Wishing (Will Make It So) in perfect and pleasant harmony.

They all three sing it, but only Gwen is seen. This is considered too old for the parts, so two other, younger, actresses appear with Gwen and mime very well. Payback for Gwen being excluded from Little Miss Broadway?

You know which of the three is Gwen, don't you?

The girls liked this song enormously, and adopted it as their signature tune for many of their radio shows. It doesn't have the 'swing' of Swinging On A Star, but is has great charm. Of course, they sing it flawlessly!

In this song they phrased "The curtains of night will part" perfectly; no pause or gasp for breath after 'curtains' in the way we so often hear these days.

In this song Irene Dunne, surprisingly, correctly chords the song on her ukulele! Hooray! The only visible 'wrong' is that right at the end she plays "|G,G,G,C|G." when the accompaniment sounds as "|G,G,G,G|G.". Maybe she accompanied the girls in reality? We get very used to actors being unable to look convincing when 'pretending' to play instruments, so it is refreshing that Irene was competent. Of course, the Brian Sisters were always good at singing; they had no need to pretend – unless they were pretending to be poor singers!.

You might find Love Affair on DVD

You can also listen to the 1940 radio broadcast of Love Affair, in which The Brian Sisters sang the same song to a guitar accompaniment. Irene also sings it this time.