A Foreign Affair ( 1948 )

During World War II, the American, British, and Russian forces bombed Berlin until it was a heap of concrete rubble. After the war, the US Army decided to leave some troops behind to help clean up the mess. This included capturing Nazi members who may have eluded them earlier and also aiding the Germans in getting back on their feet. Both tasks could be rather demoralizing - especially in such a battered environment as post-war Berlin. In order to see just how well the "boys" overseas were coping, Congress decided to send a committee to check up on them...or so the story goes in Billy Wilder's 1948 comedy A Foreign Affair. 

This committee, comprised of five men and one woman, is given a 3-day tour of Berlin in order to make their report to Washington. But as Congresswoman Ms. Frost ( Jean Arthur ) points out, this is a carefully crafted tour designed so that the members see only what the US Army wants them to see. 

Ms. Frost chooses to remove her blinders and what she sees surprises her! American soldiers are engaging in the black market, openly fraternizing with the frauleins, and clearly enjoying themselves. Just one chocolate bar can buy a guy a lot of favors in Berlin. 

Nightclub singer Erika von Schlütow ( Marlene Dietrich ) certainly knows how to use a soldier to her best advantage. She remembers what it was like in Berlin right after the war. 

"We've all become animals with exactly one instinct left - self-preservation....What do you think it was like to be a woman in this town when the Russians first swept in? A living hell. And then I found a man, and through that man, a roof, and a job, and food, and I'm not going to lose him."

That man is Captain Johnny Pringle ( John Lund ), an officer at the very camp that the committee is visiting. He is well aware that Erika is a hot potato, a woman who once had affiliations with Nazi party members, but he pulls a few official strings to shield her because he is enthralled by his "gorgeous booby trap". 

Ms. Frost discovers the curvaceous performer one night at the Lorelei club and overhears that she is being protected by an American officer, so she enlists the aid of fellow Iowan Captain Pringle to help her ferret out the name of this man, little realizing that it is Pringle himself that is Ms. von Schlütow's sugar daddy.

A Foreign Affair is one of director Billy Wilder's lesser-known films but it nevertheless bears his trademark style, especially in the cynical but humorous script, penned by Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Richard L. Breen. The cinematography is beautiful and the music, by Friedrich Hollander, perfectly captures the feel of post-war Germany, but what makes the film really work is the performances from its three principal actors: Jean Arthur, John Lund, and Marlene Dietrich. 

Growing up, I was familiar with Jean Arthur only from her role as Marian in the classic western Shane ( 1953 ). Then, in my teen years, I discovered all of her marvelous films from the 1930s and realized just how popular an actress she was. This decade was really the peak of her career, and she starred in such comedy classics as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ( 1936 ), You Can't Take it With You ( 1938 ) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ( 1939 ). She was Columbia Studios' top actress up until her retirement in the mid-1940s. Wilder enticed her away from college to make this picture. 

Jean gives a wonderful performance here as the stern Ms.Frost, playing her icy cool from her entrance and then peeling away layers of her personality as the film progresses. Frost is a fastidious, independent, prudish, Iowa-born-and-bred, no-nonsense kind of woman, who - living up to her namesake - is particularly cold to men after having been used by a man several years back. When Captain Pringle realizes that she is gunning down his liebling Erika - and himself - he knows he will receive no sympathy or mercy from her. So, he undertakes a really courageous task - that of wooing the unwooable woman. And boy is he in for a surprise! After a few kisses, Ms. Frost suddenly becomes "Pheobe" and before he knows it, he's polishing his shoes and whistling "Shine on Harvest Moon".

Marlene Dietrich is also alluring as Erika. Wilder had her in mind for the part as he was writing the script and there really was no other actress who could have played her part as well. She is best in the nightclub sequences, entertaining the soldiers as she so often did in real life during the war. 

John Lund also shines as Captain Pringle. Few actors could play comedy as well as Lund could, plus he was a believable "ladies' man". Cary Grant could have tackled this role with equal ease but Grant does not seem like the kind of man who would be having an affair with the former mistress of a Nazi officer. Also in the cast is that old pro, character actor Millard Mitchell as Pringle's commanding officer. 

A Foreign Affair is available on Blu-Ray DVD and via streaming through the Criterion Channel.

This post is our contribution to the Shades of Shane Blogathon being hosted by Rachel at Hamlette's Soliloquy. Be sure to visit her blog to check out other film reviews featuring actors who starred in the classic western Shane.

British Pathé - Masks

There is such a wealth of visual material to be found online and delving into it on a daily basis is as refreshing as taking a swim in a cool pool. One of the most interesting fountains in the Youtube stream of entertainment is the British Pathé Collection, an archive of 85,000 newsreel and documentary clips dating from the 1910s to the 1970s. 

Since we enjoy sharing the film/TV treasures we are continually discovering, we are going to launch a new series highlighting some of the gems to be found in the British Pathé collection. These short posts will be released on a monthly basis, but please don't let this schedule stop you from perusing these clips in your own free time. They're inexhaustible. And quite entertaining. 

With Halloween fast approaching, we're going to start the series off with Masks, an approximately 4-minute collection of three separate newsreels dating from the mid-1930s. The first briefly shows the famous Polish artist Władysław T. Benda and his wife with some of the beautiful life-like masks that he made for costume parties and theatrical shows. Benda also created the original mask for the 1932 film The Mask of Fu Manchu. In the photo above, Jean Arthur is holding up one of Benda's creations. 

The next is a short clip of Swiss people in costume for their annual springtime celebration, and lastly, we see Duncan Melvin displaying some traditional ancient masks of African, Indian, and Australian cultures for initiations, witch-doctoring, and devilry. 

Mr. Melvin was the host of a 1937 television documentary series called Masks of the World ( yes, by golly, television was around back then ). For this series, he not only showed his audiences various masks from around the world but he would also demonstrate different mask-making techniques from artists such as Oliver Messel, Angus MacBean, and Henry Moore. 

For the British Pathé series, we'll be showcasing clips that cover a wide variety of rare and unusual subjects: the history of beards, miniature model-makers, cowboy artists, legends of Scotland, convent life, English royalty, sheep-herding, wallpaper production, etc. We hope you'll follow along and enjoy the series! 

Ready to watch Masks?

British Pathé  - Masks 

Hollywood Home Tour - Jean Arthur

For this month's Silver Scenes bus tour, Al is going to take us past the home of one of the sweetest actresses in Hollywood. Take it away, Al!

512 N Beverly Dr

"Welcome back to the bus, everybody. I hope you have had a good stretch of the legs, for we're off to the far corners of Beverly Hills to take a gander at a lovely cottage, owned by a most lovely lady - Jean Arthur. 

"Jean Arthur started her career in Hollywood in 1923, debuting in the silent film Cameo Kirby, directed by John Ford. However, she really hit stardom in the 1930s when she became the everyday heroine in Frank Capra's classics You Can't Take it With You, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. During the 1940s, her and her husband, producer Frank Ross, lived in this charming home. 

"Although it looks cozy on the outside, it is deceptively large within, spanning 4,300 square feet. This Spanish stucco house has four bedrooms and three baths. I don't know much more about it, other than that, folks. Ms. Arthur no longer lives here....so please don't bother the current resident. After her final film appearance in Shane she left the limelight of Hollywood and now lives in a beautiful little cottage in Carmel overlooking the Pacific. "

Up-to-Date Note: The Carmel Point cottage Jean Arthur lived at, once known as "Driftwood", was put up on the market in 2012 for $4,295,000. Beautiful photos of the house, outside and inside, can be seen here.