Madame de… [The Earrings of Madame de…] ***** (1953, Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, Vittorio De Sica) – Classic Movie Review 6035

Co-writer/ director Max Ophüls brings all his sharp wit and visual elegance to bear on this enchanting 1953 French romantic melodrama, based on a novel by Louise de Vilmorin, which revolves around various adulterous love affairs in Paris at the turn of the last century. To be clear, it is the late 19th century.

Charles Boyer plays a French aristocrat Général André, who gives his faithless wife Comtesse Louise (Danielle Darrieux) earrings as a wedding present, and buys them back when she pawns them to cover her debts. He passes them on to his mistress Lola (Lia di Léo), who gambles them away, and Italian diplomat Baron Fabrizio Donati (Vittorio De Sica) acquires them for his lover, Louise.

The irresistible La Ronde-style story in which the earrings change hands repeatedly, the exquisite acting of the appealing, graceful performers, and the breathtaking camerawork add up to a worthy successor to the same director’s international success La Ronde (1950).

It runs 105 minutes, cut from the original 192 minutes running time.

Danielle Darrieux in 2008.

Also in the cast are Jean Debucourt, Jean Galland, Mireille Perrey, Paul Azaïs, Josselin, Hubert Noël, Claire Duhamel, Guy Favières, Serge Lecombe, Colette Régis, Georges Vitray and Léon Walther.

It is written by Max Ophüls, Marcel Achard and Annette Wademant, based on the novel by Louise de Vilmorin, shot in black and white by Christian Matras, produced by Ralph Baum, scored by Oscar Straus and George Van Parys, and designed by Jean d’Eaubonne.

RIP lovely Danielle Darrieux, one of France’s great movie stars, who turned 100 on 1 May 2017 and died on 17 October 2017. Her film career spanned eight decades, among the longest in film history.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6035

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Danielle Darrieux, one of France’s great movie stars.