• A Foreign Affair

8/19/22 (Fri)

Billy Wilder’s 1948 comedy about a prim US congresswoman whose mission to postwar Berlin to check the occupation army’s morale falters when she herself falls for a serviceman. The humor has aged somewhat: the congresswoman’s shock that soldiers should seek the company of German women is dubious even for the times, and the acting among the minor characters can be overdone. The plot itself is engaging enough. A congresswoman (Jean Arthur) is appalled to learn that a voluptuous nightclub singer (Marlene Dietrich) who once consorted with Nazi officials is having relations with a high US Army official. What she doesn’t know is that the official she’s seeking is the very captain (John Lund) whom she most trusts – and whom she unwittingly falls in love with. The captain may or may not have been stringing Dietrich along for important information; that’s never quite clear and doesn’t really matter in the course of things.

The film includes location shots of bombed-out Berlin just three years after the war. Wilder is in typical mischievous mode poking fun at US military officials for black marketing, womanizing and other misbehavior so soon after victory (though I wished he had left out the gas chamber joke), while giving a not-unsympathetic portrait of Dietrich’s character. And who would have expected the famously anti-Nazi Dietrich to play a former Nazi whose sympathies shift with whatever it takes for her to survive? Hers was the most interesting character in the film, especially as deliciously played by her. I loved her exit, where she makes it clear that she’ll come out ahead despite her nominal arrest. Arthur had a more sitcom-type role of a good girl broken down by liquor and love; this was done much better with evangelist Sarah Brown giving way to the gambler Sky Masterson just a few years later in Guys and Dolls. Still, Arthur has a great comic sense and made a good foil with Dietrich. Their teamwork trumps the script and alone makes the picture worth seeing. Lund is bland but serviceable, and others do their best. While the songs by Friedrich Hollaender, who has a cameo as a piano player at the club, are not nearly as memorable as those for his earlier Destry, they do fit the Germany cabaret setting nicely and are perfect for Dietrich. The film is of its day but enjoyable.