The Earrings of Madame De (Franco-London; Arlan Pictures). Director Max Ophuls has drawn on the long European tradition, as if at a taproot through time, to nourish this dainty, completely artificial floret. It is a literary picture, plainly enough, but it is also not much less than a perfect one, a new cinema classic. Luckily, too, the classic should soon be fairly popular in the U.S., even though it is spoken in French (with English subtitles). Two of its players, Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux, are world-famed, and a third, Vittorio De Sica, is an Italian matinee idol who in middle age has become well known as one of the finest directors (Shoeshirte, The Bicycle Thief) now at work.
Secret Sweetener. The earrings of the title, a present from Count de _____ (the family name is never mentioned), a French general of the '90s (Boyer), to his wife (Darrieux), are secretly sold by the lady to the family jeweler in order to cover "certain expenses." Next night at the opera, she pretends to have lost them, and a newspaper reports that they have been stolen. Reading this, the jeweler takes alarm, and hastens with his secret to the count. Amused, the count buys his jewels back, presents them to a mistress he is just discarding, as a sort of sweetener.
The mistress goes on holiday to Constantinople, has a bad night at roulette, sells the earrings. Bought by an Italian diplomat, the widower Baron Donati (De Sica), they travel with him to his new post—at Paris, where in the course of social events he renews acquaintance with his old friend, the count, and is introduced to the countess. Later, while the count is away on maneuvers, the baron executes a few of his own. To the amazement of both parties to the little intrigue, people of the world as they think themselves to be, they fall in love.
Bitter Decline. With Stendhalian suddenness, the mood of the picture breaks. The countess, who has never had to choose between anything more serious than dancing partners, suddenly faces a cruel choice between love and loyalty. The count comes home, sees what has happened, tries hard to calm her. She takes a trip. The baron's letters follow her. She rushes back to throw herself in his arms.
Thereupon the count takes a decisive hand. He tells the baron—who by now has given the earrings to the countess—who it was that gave them to her first. Shocked at her unfeeling duplicity in accepting such a gift, the baron breaks off his suit. The countess goes into a decline, the count into a mounting rage. In the end he challenges the baron to a duel. In rushing to prevent it, the countess has a heart attack and dies.
Languid Infatuation. What Director Ophuls has made of these boudoir trivialities is a veritable Fragonard in motion. Not since Jacques Feyder's Carnival in Flanders has a picture tried so many things at once and brought them all off so well. To begin with, the wonderfully overdone upper-class interiors (designed by Jean d'Eaubonne) are photographed with a languid infatuation that moviegoers who saw La Ronde and Le Plaisir will recognize as characteristically Ophulent. And yet, at the same time, it is clear that Ophuls is unmistakably smiling at his own bad taste.