‘A Secret Love’ shows how love finds a way to withstand the test of time

Posted on June 12, 2020

By MARK VIOLA

Back in 2015, “Carol” made my Top 10 list in what I still refer to as the best year for top-tier films in the nearly 14 years I’ve been reviewing movies. Set in the 1950s, it follows the romance between two women in a time when that simply was not accepted. That fictional story was based on a novel written by Patrician Highsmith, who penned “Strangers on a Train” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” but who used a pen name to publish “Carol” in 1952.

Since then, I have wondered what it would have been like for an actual couple in that time to be gay and in love with persecution and fear around every corner.

We get a glimpse of that in the new Netflix documentary, “A Secret Love,” which follows the nearly 70-year love story between Pat Henschel and pro baseball player Terry Donahue, who played in the women’s baseball league in the 1940s later made famous by the film, “A League of Their Own.”

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