Writer: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Richard L. Breen
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund
Keywords: black and white, nazi, singer, military, morals,
7.3/10
75/100
100% – Critics
78% – Audience
A Foreign Affair Storyline
A US congressional committee is in Berlin following World War II to investigate rumors of low morale amongst the American troops patrolling the American quadrant of the city. One of those on the committee is Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, a Republican from Iowa who has a singular focus on work, especially when on a mission. Once in Berlin, she believes the committee’s military liaison, Colonel Rufus J. Plummer, is providing them with a false report of the issue as she herself has witnessed firsthand what she considers the depravity occurring in the city, especially between American troops and German “fraulein”. Specifically, she is concerned about an unofficial report of Erika von Schlütow, a singer at an underground cabaret, who was a high ranking Nazi during the war and whose record is being protected and expunged by a high ranking but unknown American military man. To find out who this military man is, Phoebe enlists the help of Captain John Pringle, a fellow Iowan who she met on her travels in Berlin and who she trusts because of his Iowa heritage. She is however unaware that John is Erika’s lover and protector. John does whatever he needs to to keep this secret from Phoebe for the few days she’s in town. His measures include pretending to have a romantic interest in her himself. Phoebe comes to her own incorrect conclusion of who is protecting Erika. Erika, on the other hand, has her own agenda which she demonstrates in an encounter with Phoebe. Meanwhile, John’s secret from Phoebe may become compromised when Colonel Plummer, aware of John and Erika’s relationship, asks John to perform a military task concerning hunting down Hans Otto Birgel, a missing member of the Gestapo who was a former companion of Erika’s.
Although A Foreign Affair turned out to be a big success for all involved, biographies of Billy Wilder, Jean Arthur, and Marlene Dietrich all talk about the difficulties they had in this film. Especially Wilder and Arthur.
Paramount put up some big bucks for this film, even including sending Billy Wilder and a second unit team to film the surviving city of Berlin from World War II. It all paid off quite nicely and you can bet the footage found it’s way into films not half as good. It looks far better than the standard newsreel films that are often used as background for foreign locations.
Marlene Dietrich plays the girlfriend of former Nazi bigwig Peter Von Zerneck who is presumed dead by the public at large, but the army knows is very much alive. How to smoke him out is the problem that Colonel Millard Mitchell of the occupying forces has. He decides to use the growing relationship that Captain John Lund has with Dietrich as Von Zerneck is the jealous type.
But into the picture comes Jean Arthur, part of a group of visiting members of Congress touring occupied Berlin. Arthur departs from the group and starts conducting her own investigations and in the way Joseph Cotten was doing in occupied Vienna in The Third Man blundering his way into an investigation in the British sector there, Arthur threatens to blow up all of Mitchell’s plans. Especially since Lund is starting to switch gears and drop Marlene for Jean.
Dietrich comes out best in this film. Not only was she German, but she was born and grew up in Berlin. Marlene may have invested more of herself in her character of Erika Von Schluetow than in any other film she did. She gets three great original songs by Frederick Hollander, Black Market, Illusions, and The Ruins Of Berlin that speak not to just her character, but to the sullen character of a beaten people. By the way that’s composer Hollander himself accompanying her at the piano.
Dietrich and Wilder got along just great, both being refugees from Nazism. They got along so good that Arthur felt she was being frozen out and Wilder was favoring Dietrich.
Both Frank Capra and Cecil B. DeMille spoke of the difficulties in working with Jean Arthur and Billy Wilder also echoes what his colleagues said in their memoirs. Arthur was a terribly insecure person and it took a lot of patience to work with her. The results were usually worth it to the movie going public, but for her fellow workers on the film it could be painful. A Foreign Affair may have been good training for Wilder when he later had to get performances out of another diva, Marilyn Monroe.
Wilder came in for a lot of criticism showing our occupying forces in a less than perfect light and also making fun of a member of Congress and a Republican at that as Jean was in the film, most definitely not in real life. Millard Mitchell’s a smart and tough professional soldier, but he’s a bit of fathead as well as extols the virtue of teaching German youth baseball as a method of deNazification. As if it were that simple. But A Foreign Affair has held up very well over 60 years now and is Billy Wilder at some of his satirical and cynical best.
Reviewed by claudio_carvalho6 / 10
Cynical, but Naive and Dated
In a wrecked post-war Berlin, a congressional committee from the United States of America comes to the occupied city to investigate the moral of the American troops. The conservative republican Congresswoman Phoebe Frost (Jean Arthur) from Iowa brings a birthday cake to Captain John Pringle (John Lund) from his girlfriend also from Iowa. Later she splits from the others congressmen and decides to investigate the decadence of the military by her own, and not in accordance with the official speech and visit promoted by Colonel Rufus J. Plummer (Millard Mitchell). She meets two American privates that believe she is German and takes her to the night-club Lorelei, where the lead attraction is the singer Erika Von Schluetow (Marlene Dietrich), who is the secret mistress of Captain Pringle. Congresswoman Frost overhears that Erika belonged to the Nazi Party and is protected by a senior officer, and she enlists her fellow countryman Captain Pringle to help her in the investigation of Erika. The officer seduces Frost to protect Erika and himself from martial court, but the jealous former lover of Erika, the Nazi Hans Otto Birgel (Peter von Zerneck), is seeking revenge against his competitor.
“A Foreign Affair” is a cynical, but naive and dated romantic comedy of the great director Billy Wilder. It is sad to see the corruption, the decadence and the treatment of the “rebuilding” of Berlin sixty years ago, with abusive soldiers exploring the hunger and misery of the German people to have sex and make business with the poor civilians without any patriotism or sympathy. The politicians are also not spared; the ruins of Berlin are also extremely painful to see; but there are funny moments alternating with others dramatic and great performances of Marlene Dietrich, Jean Arthur and John Lund. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): “A Mundana” (“The Lowlife”)
A one-joke comedy…and not a very funny joke
Director Billy Wilder also co-wrote this post-WWII comedy (along with producer Charles Brackett) involving a prim, humorless Congresswoman policing American troops stationed in Occupied Berlin, finding little but celebrations and skirt-chasing from the randy soldiers. Predictably, she finds her no-nonsense nature stirred up by an army captain, though he’s currently sweet on a German chanteuse. A strictly lackluster affair; Wilder means for it to be goosey and ‘grown up’, yet the silliness of both the conception and the uninteresting characters defeats the players. Plodding John Lund would hardly seem to rate the pounding pulses he achieves here, and Jean Arthur’s spinsterish Phoebe Frost (ha ha) is an unattractive role for the actress. Only Marlene Dietrich emerges unscathed, though her song selections are poor. ** from ****
