Its Ingrid in Paris again, this time with Charles Boyer, but it's hardly "Casablanca". Although the filmmakers may have thought they were making a romance, it's actually an anti-romance full of disillusioned, burnt-out people.
Of course it failed at the box office, although it's far from a turkey. It was made a couple of years after the war and who wanted to be reminded of all that misery in such a dirge-like fashion? But with that said, Ingrid Bergman was photographed lovingly. Her close-ups are positively sculptural, lit by a single spot with no fill at all; her face is luminescent as it emerges from the shadows.
Although much of the dialogue is straight from the novel, it was a brave attempt to film an almost unfilmable book full of detail on refugee life in Paris just before WW2, philosophical musings, medical procedures and the painful affair at its heart.
Ravic (Charles Boyer) is one of countless refugees fleeing the Nazis. He's an accomplished surgeon and operates through the goodwill of associates, When he stops Joan Madou (Ingrid Bergman) from committing suicide, he is drawn into her life, at first reluctantly and later despite himself. However she has affairs with other men and he is overwhelmed by feelings of revenge against a Nazi torturer that he accidentally learns is in Paris. Their disillusionment with life places each on the precipice of disaster.
After "All Quiet on the Western Front", director Lewis Milestone probably thought he had a handle on the works of Erich Maria Remarque. However some creative decisions worked against the film, especially opening with the bizarre torture scene, not mentioned in the novel until about 200 pages in; Remarque's novel actually opens with Ravic stopping Joan from jumping into the Seine.
Charles Laughton played Ravic's Nazi tormentor, Haake, and old Chas put in more than was needed. As Hitchcock once said, "you couldn't direct Laughton only referee him". Here with monocle and whip, topped off with zer Hollyvood German accent he'd have made a great Dr Evil.
However Milestone's mainly studio-bound version has mood to spare. Far better than the 1985 remake, which was filmed in Paris in an artless manner.
But it's the way Boyer and Bergman's characters run hot and cold with each other that is unsettling. In the film, the mood changes seem abrupt, but in the novel there is build-up to Ravic's detachment as in this passage when he sees Joan embracing another man: "No one can become more alien than the person one has loved once... there might be fluorescence as if from ghostly stars; but it was dead light."
The last scenes as Joan lies dying and then as Ravic calmly announces that she has died before moving on as the Germans invade Paris are strangely cold. The audience would not have skipped down the steps of the theatre with a sense of satisfaction after that finale. That's if they even went in the first place.
Of course it failed at the box office, although it's far from a turkey. It was made a couple of years after the war and who wanted to be reminded of all that misery in such a dirge-like fashion? But with that said, Ingrid Bergman was photographed lovingly. Her close-ups are positively sculptural, lit by a single spot with no fill at all; her face is luminescent as it emerges from the shadows.
Although much of the dialogue is straight from the novel, it was a brave attempt to film an almost unfilmable book full of detail on refugee life in Paris just before WW2, philosophical musings, medical procedures and the painful affair at its heart.
Ravic (Charles Boyer) is one of countless refugees fleeing the Nazis. He's an accomplished surgeon and operates through the goodwill of associates, When he stops Joan Madou (Ingrid Bergman) from committing suicide, he is drawn into her life, at first reluctantly and later despite himself. However she has affairs with other men and he is overwhelmed by feelings of revenge against a Nazi torturer that he accidentally learns is in Paris. Their disillusionment with life places each on the precipice of disaster.
After "All Quiet on the Western Front", director Lewis Milestone probably thought he had a handle on the works of Erich Maria Remarque. However some creative decisions worked against the film, especially opening with the bizarre torture scene, not mentioned in the novel until about 200 pages in; Remarque's novel actually opens with Ravic stopping Joan from jumping into the Seine.
Charles Laughton played Ravic's Nazi tormentor, Haake, and old Chas put in more than was needed. As Hitchcock once said, "you couldn't direct Laughton only referee him". Here with monocle and whip, topped off with zer Hollyvood German accent he'd have made a great Dr Evil.
However Milestone's mainly studio-bound version has mood to spare. Far better than the 1985 remake, which was filmed in Paris in an artless manner.
But it's the way Boyer and Bergman's characters run hot and cold with each other that is unsettling. In the film, the mood changes seem abrupt, but in the novel there is build-up to Ravic's detachment as in this passage when he sees Joan embracing another man: "No one can become more alien than the person one has loved once... there might be fluorescence as if from ghostly stars; but it was dead light."
The last scenes as Joan lies dying and then as Ravic calmly announces that she has died before moving on as the Germans invade Paris are strangely cold. The audience would not have skipped down the steps of the theatre with a sense of satisfaction after that finale. That's if they even went in the first place.