Post by wmcclain on Jun 27, 2019 15:36:54 GMT
A Foreign Affair (1948), directed by Billy Wilder.
A no-nonsense congresswoman from Iowa joins a junket to Berlin to survey the morals of the post-war occupying forces. She acquires her own nonsense and learns quite a bit about morals.
It's been a long time since I last saw this. I'm not laughing this time. If it is a romantic comedy, it is an excessively bitter one.
Why isn't it working for me?
On the good side: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, and Charles Lang cinematography.
Filmed on location in Berlin. As for The Third Man (1949), bombed-out rubble is distressingly cinematic in black-and-white.
Edith Head costumes.
A historical note: there is a passing reference to how awful times were for women when the Russians entered the city. This a glancing allusion to something almost never spoken of; see Soviet war crimes / mass rapes.
A no-nonsense congresswoman from Iowa joins a junket to Berlin to survey the morals of the post-war occupying forces. She acquires her own nonsense and learns quite a bit about morals.
It's been a long time since I last saw this. I'm not laughing this time. If it is a romantic comedy, it is an excessively bitter one.
Why isn't it working for me?
- It needs a better leading man. John Lund is dull and forgettable. (Although: he's hardened and cynical in a non-comic way. Maybe he belongs here).
- They're making comedy out of material that just isn't funny: the rubble of Berlin, women selling themselves for chocolate and stockings. This is too real.
- The wisecrack observations (Millard Mitchell seems to be the MC) seems forced this time. Too much Message.
- It's as if Wilder can't decide what the film is about or the best tone to take.
On the good side: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, and Charles Lang cinematography.
Filmed on location in Berlin. As for The Third Man (1949), bombed-out rubble is distressingly cinematic in black-and-white.
Edith Head costumes.
A historical note: there is a passing reference to how awful times were for women when the Russians entered the city. This a glancing allusion to something almost never spoken of; see Soviet war crimes / mass rapes.