Foreign Affair, A (1948)
A Foreign Affair (1948), directed by Billy Wilder.
A no-nonsense congresswoman from Iowa joins a junket to Berlin to survey the morals of the post-war occupying forces. She acquires her own nonsense and learns quite a bit about morals.
It's been a long time since I last saw this. I'm not laughing this time. If it is a romantic comedy, it is an excessively bitter one.
Why isn't it working for me?
It needs a better leading man. John Lund is dull and forgettable. (Although: he's hardened and cynical in a non-comic way. Maybe he belongs here).
They're making comedy out of material that just isn't funny: the rubble of Berlin, women selling themselves for chocolate and stockings. This is too real.
The wisecrack observations (Millard Mitchell seems to be the MC) seems forced this time. Too much Message.
It's as if Wilder can't decide what the film is about or the best tone to take.
On the good side: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, and Charles Lang cinematography.
Filmed on location in Berlin. As for The Third Man (1949), bombed-out rubble is distressingly cinematic in black-and-white.
Edith Head costumes.
A historical note: there is a passing reference to how awful times were for women when the Russians entered the city. This a glancing allusion to something almost never spoken of; see Soviet war crimes / mass rapes.
