Possibly the most obscure feature by independent horror specialist George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear) is this pungent little romantic comedy from 1972, also known as The Affair, about an antiestablishment type (Ray Laine) getting involved with a woman who acts in TV commercials (Judith Streiner). One of the few Romero films written by someone else (Rudolph J. Ricci), it has a good eye for the kind of unglamorous middle-class life seldom seen in American movies (occasionally it even recalls John Cassavetes’s Faces, released four years earlier), and it’s highly evocative of the early 70s. It may not be an unqualified success, but I prefer it to the subsequent Knightriders, another personal effort in which Romero stepped outside the horror genre. (Interestingly enough, the only scene here reflecting Romero’s horror-movie orientationas well as his Catholic backgroundinvolves the heroine’s trip to an abortionist.) 91 min. (JR)