Monday, April 3, 2017
093 - The Earrings of Madame de . . ., 1953, France. Dir. Max Ophuls.
Madame de . . . is in debt.
Madame de . . . what?
Madame de . . . we do not know.
Every time someone speaks her name, her last name is drowned out by some other noise.
That Max Ophuls sure does have a sense of humor.
Or perhaps we should say Louise Leveque de Vilmorin has a sense of humor.
She is the one who wrote the novel, Madame de. . . .
Notice that Madame de Vilmorin has the pleasure of sharing her last name. She simply does not wish to share the last name of her creation.
Pretty sneaky of you, Madame de Vilmorin.
But enough about that Madame de. . . . Let us discuss our Madame de. . . .
Our Madame de . . . is in debt. So she decides to sell something. Her jewelry? Her furs? She looks around the room. Into her many closets and drawers.
She settles upon her earrings. They will fetch a nice price. They were a wedding gift from her husband, but no matter. She will come up with a ruse. She is a woman, after all.
Madame de . . . goes to the jeweler. She is known there. She seems at home there. Her home away from home there.
He escorts her up the spiral staircase. To a place of privacy. She asks for privacy. He assures her that it is what keeps him in business.
She offers to sell the earrings. He says No. She faints. He says Yes.
A handy tool, that fainting is. She uses it often to her advantage.
As he escorts her out, he shows her a figure. She accepts it. He watches her figure as she enters into her carriage.
Later that evening . . .
It is time for a night at the opera.
Madame de . . . goes out with her husband. Andre de. . . . The Count. The General.
Who looks like . . . could he be? He is! None other than Charles Boyer.
Whom you may know from Gaslight (1944). That thrilling thriller directed by George Cukor. In which Boyer plays Gregory Anton.
That doer of dastardly deeds.
Who marries Ingrid Bergman in order to steal . . . you guessed it! . . . her jewelry.
But here he is a good man. He does not want jewels. He does not steal jewels. He gives jewels. He gives generously to Madame de. . . .
He gave her the earrings.
At the opera she announces that her earrings have gone missing. He tells her that she did not wear them. She insists she did. He agrees to look for them. He looks in their box. He looks in the lobby. He looks in her friends' box. Finally, when the opera is over, an offer is made to turn it over to the police. He accepts. The police begin an investigation.
The newspaper reports it. Jewel theft at the opera!
The jeweler reads it. Uh-oh. He clips it. He takes it. He visits Andre de . . . with it. He shows him the earrings. He tells him in private that she sold them to him. Andre de . . . offers to buy them back again. In a hurry he puts them in his overcoat pocket.
The General goes to the railway station.
He is seeing off his mistress. Her name is Lola. She is not a showgirl. She is going to Constantinople to start a new life. They enter compartment 13. He calls it her lucky number. As he turns to leave he finds the earrings in his overcoat pocket. On impulse he gives them to her as a gift. A souvenir. To remember me. The second time the General has given these earrings to a woman.
Lola goes to Constantinople. She has to explain to the Turkish authorities that the earrings were a gift from a man who loved her.
Lola likes to gamble. She gambles her money. She bets it all on lucky number 13. Lucky number 13 is unlucky. She loses it all.
She cashes in the earrings. The second time a woman has sold these earrings for money.
She bets it all on lucky number 13. Lucky number 13 is unlucky. She loses it all again.
The House sells the earrings. Sells them to a Turkish bazaar. The bazaar sells the earrings. Sells them to an Italian baron.
Who looks like . . . could he be? He is! None other than Vittorio de Sica.
Who?
Vittorio de Sica. The famous Italian film director. Who directed around 37 films.
Whom you may know from Bicycle Thieves (1948). The great classic. For years it was mistranslated as The Bicycle Thief, but recently the title has been corrected.
de Sica--who shares his last name with us--is also known for directing The Children Are Watching Us (1944), Umberto D (1952), Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953), Marriage Italian Style (1964), starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, and the English-language After the Fox (1966), starring Peter Sellers and Victor Mature.
Wait.
A great Italian director is acting in a French film?
Since when did this director decide to act?
Since he was 16.
Vittorio de Sica is an actor. He acted for years before he became a director. In fact, he acted in at least 157 roles in 57 years. He directed 37 movies. He acted in 157 movies. He knows what he is doing.
And he is quite handsome and quite good.
You may even know him as Renaldi in Charles Vidor's version of A Farewell to Arms (1957), starring Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.
The Baron runs into the Madame.
Literally.
Their carriages run into one another. After their having seen one another at Customs a few weeks before.
They declare it to be fate.
They begin a friendship. A beautiful friendship.
They go to dances. They dance. He fills up her dance card with his own name. He wants all the dances.
Her husband, a trusting man, trusts the Baron. Trusts Madame de. . . .
Normally, that would be a good proposition, but this time something is different.
As the Baron begins to fall for Madame de . . ., he decides to give her a gift. He sends her flowers.
Along with a pair of earrings.
A pair of earrings he bought at a Turkish bazaar.
Uh-oh.
This love triangle is about to take off.
And it might just be, shall we say, a little bit explosive.
This is a beautiful film.
Max Ophuls pulls out all the stops. Production design. Sets. Props. Wardrobe. Music. Camera movement.
The jewelry alone!
This film makes Merchant-Ivory films look indigent. And unmannerly.
It is as graceful and lavish as anything you have ever seen.
And you will want to see it again and again.
Do you remember in Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris (2011) when Adriana (played by Marion Cotillard) longs to go to the Belle Epoque period (late 19th century) in France?
Well, this film will make you want to go there as well.
By the way, in Woody's movie, our boy Gil (played by Owen Wilson) buys Adriana a pair of earrings.
Woody Allen might just know his film history.
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