Word: walbrook
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...view of the mating instinct at play in a Vienna that was turning the century without a break in its giddy stride. Director Max (Letter to an Unknown Woman) Ophuls has lovingly put together this wry ode to love, and brightened it with a galaxy of Continental stars: Anton Walbrook, Danielle Darrieux, Fernand Gravet, Simone Simon, Gerard Philipe, Simone Signoret, Isa Miranda...
...into the arms of a new partner, who flits in turn to another lover until the ironic game comes full circle. Through the cycle runs a delightful Oscar Straus waltz, signaling each consummation, helping to set a gauzily Viennese mood, and accompanying a refrain sung and spoken by Narrator Walbrook. The narrator spins a symbolic merry-go-round and manages the characters like a master puppeteer, pops up in each episode as a waiter, doorman or passerby and once, prophetically, with shears in one hand and film in the other, as the censor...
Pushkin's tale deals with a young Russian officer who is looking for the secret of success at cards. The time is the early 19th century, at the height of the great Russian faro craze. The officer, played by Anton Walbrook in this British adaptation, is a very intense young man who believes in "taking life by the throat" to get what he wants. In the process of taking life by the throat, the officer delves into black magic, frightens a mysterious old countess to death, and eventually goes...
...Walbrook's acting is suitably romantic, complete with palsied gestures and tremblings of the nether lip. However, he is addicted to the phrase, "I luff you," which sounds ludicrous in spite of the fact that Pushkin may have written it. Dame Edith Evans plays the elderly countess with great attention to realistic detail, and Yvonne Mitchell is highly attractive as Walbrook's inamorata...