27 Days With Billy Wilder And Me

Billy Wilder’s eighth movie, A Foreign Affair, is a comedy/drama set in Berlin post WW II starring Jean Arthur and Marlene Deitrich. It was released in 1948. Billy was 42 years old.

This movie was also written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. But it’s no Lost Weekend. It’s not even a Major and the Minor. It’s closer to an Emperor’s Waltz, which means it’s campy, blustery, and clunky.

Principle Cast:
Congresswoman Phoebe Frost………………..Jean Arthur (1900–1991)
Erika Von Schluetow……………………………..Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992)
Captain John W. Pringle………………………….John Lund (1911–1992)
Col. Rufus J. Plummer……………………………Millard Mitchell (1903–1953)

I have an admission to make. Two, actually:

1. I don’t like Jean Arthur. Her bio on IMDB says this about her:

This marvelous screen comedienne’s best asset was only muffled during her seven years’ stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating.

I perceive it. But I don’t appreciate it. She’s irritating.

2. I don’t get Marlene Dietrich. I know there are people who dig that husky-voiced cabaret act of hers. But I’m not one of them.

The plot of this movie goes something like this: Congresswoman Phoebe Frost (Arthur) arrives in Berlin just after the war to check on the morale of the troops. She’s a stuffy, repressed Republican who, once in Berlin, is offended by everything she sees going on around her. She happens to meets Captain Pringle (Lund), who, unbeknownst to her, is in a relationship with a German woman named Erika Von Schluetow (Dietrich), a reputed Nazi sympathizer that she has made it her mission to investigate.

To throw the Congresswoman off the trail of Von Schluetow, Captain Pringle pursues the Congresswoman and so carries on a relationship with both the reputed Nazi and the Congresswoman — with Von Schluetow only vaguely aware of the depth of Pringle’s involvement with the Congresswoman, and totally unaware that Pringle is acting as a sort of double agent to smoke out another man, who has promised to come to Berlin to shoot Von Schluetow and whomever is shacking up with her.

Between Arthur’s squeaky voice, and Dietrich’s heavy Germany accent — and a male cast virtually without personality — A Foreign Affair is a dud. No wonder it’s not in print on DVD in America. (The DVD I’m watching now is from Spain.)