Dir: Ernst Lubitsch | Betty Grable, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Cesar Romero | Drama
One of the advantages of living alone is you can watch any old rubbish you like on TV without having to justify your choice of viewing to your family; a lesson I learned the hard way one afternoon in the bad old days when households only had only the one telly when I settled down to watch this film and barely ten minutes into it my sister indignantly exclaimed “What a TERRIBLE film!!” Whereupon I stormed up to my room and had to wait over twenty more years before finally getting a proper opportunity to see it.
Although historically most notable as Lubitsch’s final film – much of it actually being the work of Otto Preminger, a director not exactly noted for his light touch – on its own terms it can be enjoyed as a nostalgic return to Lubitsch’s old stamping ground of mittel-European romantic comedy with the additional embellishments of a sumptuous Technicolor production – which at $2.4 million had the largest budget Lubitsch ever commanded – immaculately photographed by Leon Shamroy. @RichardChatten