312 - Unfaithfully Yours, United States, 1948. Dir. Preston Sturges.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

312 - Unfaithfully Yours, United States, 1948.  Dir. Preston Sturges.

Put on the purple one.  With the plumes on the hips.

Sir Alfred De Carter is madly in love with his wife Daphne.

Sir Alfred is a great symphony conductor.

"All I do is wave a little wand a little, and out comes the music."

His wife agrees.

"A little magic wand, Darling, dipped in a little stardust."

She is madly in love with him.

They engage in romance and passion in front of others, including her sister and brother-in-law and their retinue of servants.

He spoils her with cut roses and new dresses, which she does not even desire, and with lunches and nights on the town.

If only his stuffy brother-in-law August Henshler had not misunderstood him when he asked August to keep an eye on Daphne while Alfred travelled out of the country.

August kept an eye on her, all right.  He hired a private detective agency, and they watched her twenty-four hours a day.  They watched her as she walked down the hotel hallway in a negligee at 1:30 in the morning, entered room 2604, the room of Alfred's young, handsome secretary Tony, and stayed for 38 minutes.

Alfred trusts her so much that he is insulted that August hired a detective firm and refuses to read the detective's report.  The first time it is offered, he rips it into shreds, drops it in the wastepaper basket, and kicks the basket into the hallway.  The second time it is offered, when the hotel dick, or detective, finds it, glues it back together, and brings it to him, he sets it on fire.  In fact, he sets the drapes on fire, and very nearly sets the entire hotel on fire.  The fire department comes.  The authorities come.  But Sir Alfred is rich and famous and important, and he will not get into trouble.

The film shows the symphony orchestra rehearsing during the day, with each section meticulously covered, especially whenever their instruments take the foreground.

It also shows the big night out, when he conducts the overtures to two operas and a third piece, each brilliantly matching his own inner mood at that moment so that his conducting becomes a conduit for his passions.  It also affords us the opportunity to enter into his mind, through his left eye, as he harbors three distinct fantasies, each one underscored by the matching music in a brilliant stroke of writing and directing.

SPOILERS

In one fantasy Sir Alfred imagines revenge by committing the perfect murder and pinning it on his nemesis.

In the next he imagines forgiveness and self-martyrdom.

And in the third he imagines his challenging of his nemesis to a duel of Russian roulette.

The live music is playing throughout each fantasy, with Sir Alfred and the other players and the audience all feeling the intense passions he is pouring into the music.

When the concert is over, what will he do?

Will he attempt to put one or more of his fantasies into reality?

How will he deal with the anguish he feels?

In 1948 Preston Sturges was the most famous film director in America, and the third highest paid person.  Even Hitchcock and Lubitsch were not as well known as he.

He wrote the screenplay years before, but it was turned down by all of the studios to which he sent it.  Now that he was powerful, he could make it.

And it is outstanding.

There are moments where the slapstick gets corny.

But the music plays throughout.  Intelligently composed or selected to emphasize the moment.

Preston Sturges is at the top of his game.

A thousand poets dreamed a thousand years.
Then you were born,
My Dear.