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The courtesan respectueuse, as Sartre would have it, a different ideal for different men. Paris has several wonders to see, there's the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and then there's the Art Deco bordello gracefully run by the Russian Grand Duchess (Laura Hope Crews). The former protégée (Marlene Dietrich) is now a married lady, she drops by and is mistaken by the American traveler (Melvyn Douglas), their "amusing evening" grows gradually serious. She disappears in the park (the off-screen drama is reflected in an elderly flower peddler who doesn't believe in wasting merchandise) and reemerges in London for her husband the diplomat (Herbert Marshall). The interloper turns up for dinner, the men having become friends after learning of a shared woman long ago. "But, you see, I don't know what the end is going to be." The Ernst Lubitsch triangle polished beyond all eeriness, a matter of international affairs. Newspapers at the breakfast table are what the married state has to keep civilized, role-playing to rhyme with a lover who counts the seconds in the hours. Their meal together is viewed via each party's plate of veal, one is empty and the other is untouched and the third has been sliced to bits, noticed by servants who also notice the gathering storm. "Is there going to be a war?" Binoculars at the horse races gaze back at Lady Windermere's Fan and ahead to Notorious, Cavalleria rusticana is explicitly indicated. The photograph is seen and the music is heard and yet reactions are sagaciously elided, it's all in the shifts in glances and gestures, all part of Lubitsch's utmost refinement of form. "There's always the danger of one's becoming blasé." His choice and her choice, and from there to Belle de Jour is Buñuel's secret. Cinematography by Charles Lang. With Edward Everett Horton, Ernest Cossart, Herbert Mundin, Dennie Moore, and Herbert Evans. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |