The Private Affairs of Bel Ami **** (1947, George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, Frances Dee, John Carradine, Hugo Haas, Marie Wilson, Albert Bassermann) – Classic Movie Review 4,680

The weird and wonderful 1947 film The Private Affairs of Bel Ami is a witty version of Guy de Maupassant’s novel about a journalist trampling over women on the road to success. George Sanders gives career defining performance as a charming, ruthless cad. 

Unique writer-director Albert Lewin’s weird and wonderful 1947 American black-and-white drama film The Private Affairs of Bel Ami is a gloriously witty version of Guy de Maupassant’s famous 1885 novel Bel Ami about a journalist trampling over women on the road to success.

This thoroughly intelligent and enjoyable movie provides an eagerly grabbed showcase for acute playing from suave George Sanders as Bel Ami, writer Georges Duroy, the social-climbing cynic with the Oscar Wildean epigrams (‘love and marriage are entirely different subjects’, ‘all women take to men who have the appearance of wickedness’), and the pertly pretty Angela Lansbury, then only 22, as his true love, Clotilde de Marelle.

Georges rises to be one of the most successful men in Paris by manipulating a series of powerful, intelligent and wealthy mistresses.

It is Sanders’s career defining performance as a charming, ruthless cad. The Private Affairs of Bel Ami is a delicious, rare civilised pleasure.

Also in the cast are Ann Dvorak as Claire Madeleine Forestier, Frances Dee as Marie de Varenne, John Carradine as Charles Forestier, Hugo Haas as Monsieur Walter, Marie Wilson as Rachel Michot, Albert Bassermann as Jacques Rival, Warren William as Laroche-Mathieu, Susan Douglas [Susan Douglas Rubeš] as Suzanne Walter, Katherine Emery, Richard Fraser, John Good, David Bond, Leonard Mudie, Judy Cook, Karolyn Grimes, Jean Del Val, Olaf Hytten, Lumsden Hare, Betty Fairfax, C Montague Shaw, Larry Steers, Gloria Grafton, Wyndham Standing, Charles Trowbridge, Alex Pollard and Rudy Germaine.

The Private Affairs of Bel Ami is directed by Albert Lewin, runs 112 minutes, is made by David L Loew – Albert Lewin, is released by United Artists, written by Albert Lewin, shot in black and white by Russell Metty, produced by David L Loew and Ray Heinz, scored by Darius Milhaud and designed by Gordon Wiles.

It was released on 25 April 1947.

It is the last film of Warren William, whose health was deteriorating so he was unable to work for most of 1947. He died on 24 September 1948 from multiple myeloma, aged 53.

It was the film debut of Susan Douglas Rubeš (billed as Susan Douglas) who, after the film, was offered a seven-year contract by Albert Lewin of MGM, but turned it down to live in New York, and as a result had a paltry film career.

Some scenes were censored because of the strict Motion Picture Production Code restrictions, giving script problems cleaning up the classic novel for the screen.

In a similar idea to Lewin’s previous film The Picture of Dorian Gray (1944), Max Ernst’s1945 painting The Temptation of St Anthony is shown in a brief splash of colour in the otherwise black-and-white film, after winning a contest between invited artists to create a work on the theme. They were Ivan Albright, Eugene Berman, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini, Louis Guglielmi, Horace Pippin, Abraham Rattner, Stanley Spencer and Ernst. Other than Fini, who did not produce a painting, they were all paid $500 for their submissions, with an additional $2,500 prize for Ernst as the winner.

Lewin is also the director of The Moon and Sixpence, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Saadia and The Living Idol.

George Sanders and Angela Lansbury also star in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1944).

It was filmed again as Bel Ami (1955) Anne Vernon, Renée Faure and Jean Danet (shot in the Soviet-controlled Rosenhügel Studios in Vienna), and as Bel Ami (2012) with Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Christina Ricci and Holliday Grainger.

John Braine said his first and most famous novel Room at the Top (1957) was based on Bel Ami.

The cast are George Sanders as Georges Duroy, Angela Lansbury as Clotilde de Marelle, Ann Dvorak as Madeleine Forestier, John Carradine as Charles Forestier, Susan Douglas Rubeš as Suzanne Walter, Hugo Haas as Monsieur Walter, Warren William as Laroche-Mathieu, Frances Dee as Marie de Varenne, Albert Bassermann as Jacques Rival, Marie Wilson as Rachel, Katherine Emery as Madame Walter, Richard Fraser as Philippe de Cantel, John Good as Paul de Cazolles, David Bond as Norbert de Varenne, Leonard Mudie as Potin, Judy Cook as Hortense, Karolyn Grimes as Laurine, Jean Del Val as Commissioner, Olaf Hytten as Keeper of the Seals, Lumsden Hare as Mayor of Canteleu, Betty Fairfax as Louise, C Montague Shaw as Surgeon, Larry Steers as Second Surgeon, Gloria Grafton as Singer, Wyndham Standing as Count de Vaudrec, Charles Trowbridge, Alex Pollard, and Rudy Germaine.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,680

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