Throughout movie history, few genres have been more consistently disparaged, disrespected, and disdained than what might be called the cancer-crossed romance. To their cynical critics, movies such as Sweet November, Dying Young, and A Walk to Remember offer the unseemly spectacle of attractive characters navigating their romantic lives while contending with a terminal illness. Yuck.

The ne plus ultra of the genre is Love Story, starring Ali MacGraw as a cancer-stricken young woman and Ryan O’Neal as her bereft beau. Despite being a huge box-office hit, the movie was the subject of a pitiless (and slightly petty) parody in the subsequent comedy smash What’s Up, Doc?, also starring O’Neal: When Barbra Streisand mockingly quotes the famous line from the earlier film — “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” — O’Neal says what sophisticated types everywhere must have been thinking all along: “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”