Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 4, 2023 18:39:22 GMT -8
The Earrings of Madame De...
A 1954 French flick, with Charles Boyer, that I think ultimately doesn't deliver the goods. Still, it's a serious period-piece showing the (of course) foibles of the upper crust.
Boyer is a general in the French army. His wife is...well...a little bored and self-indulgent. She becomes involved (in a very PG way) with a French ambassador, Baron Fabrizio Donati.
The acting is all good. But you have to ask yourself, Where is all this going? And is the schtick about the necklace any more than a vague MacGuffin?
The melodrama is a bit lukewarm, though stuffed inside respectable characters, with all (or most) actors doing respectable jobs of portraying them. But there's not a lot of sizzle.
The only boiling point that is reached is when (for whatever the hell reason) the Général, who had seemingly allowed his wife to engage in at least light flirtation, begins to bear down on his wife's affair. This turn of events doesn't make all that much sense. But Boyer (not his wife...the actress, frankly, plays the wife rather dully) makes it interesting with his riveting performance – even given the lukewarm material.
There's an interesting bit of trivia about this movie at IMDB that I think is revealing:
A 1954 French flick, with Charles Boyer, that I think ultimately doesn't deliver the goods. Still, it's a serious period-piece showing the (of course) foibles of the upper crust.
Boyer is a general in the French army. His wife is...well...a little bored and self-indulgent. She becomes involved (in a very PG way) with a French ambassador, Baron Fabrizio Donati.
The acting is all good. But you have to ask yourself, Where is all this going? And is the schtick about the necklace any more than a vague MacGuffin?
The melodrama is a bit lukewarm, though stuffed inside respectable characters, with all (or most) actors doing respectable jobs of portraying them. But there's not a lot of sizzle.
The only boiling point that is reached is when (for whatever the hell reason) the Général, who had seemingly allowed his wife to engage in at least light flirtation, begins to bear down on his wife's affair. This turn of events doesn't make all that much sense. But Boyer (not his wife...the actress, frankly, plays the wife rather dully) makes it interesting with his riveting performance – even given the lukewarm material.
There's an interesting bit of trivia about this movie at IMDB that I think is revealing:
Charles Boyer often fought with Max Ophüls about his character's motives. Ophüls one day during rehearsal broke down and said "Enough! His motives are he is written that way!" Boyer never asked him again and decided to play his character as being omnipotent in all his scenes.
Boyer clearly noticed some of the wishy-washy and unrealized elements of the story. Still, the movie is an old treasure of sorts to be enjoyed for what it is...or was.
Note that many think the movie is masterful. And it's certainly highly-rated at IMDB. I found the first 60% of it fairly compelling. And then the inherent weaknesses of the plot did not allow, at least for me, a particularly satisfying or logical conclusion.