Arco de triunfo

Paris, whether real or imagined, has rarely looked so spiritually and atmospherically gloomy on screen as it does in this underrated wartime romantic drama by Lewis Milestone. While the stark chiaroscuro black-and-white cinematography of the venerable Russell Metty certainly plays a hand in painting a bleak portrait of the refugee-laden French capital of the late 1930s, these conditions in the film are also derived from the fact that a good portion of it unfolds during many a rainy night. And it's under such circumstances that our protagonists—the hard-bitten, oft-deported Dr. Ravić (Charles Boyer), a victim of the Nazi regime when he was a member of the Austrian underground, and Joan Madou (Ingrid Bergman), a dispirited Italian-born cabaret singer—meet and eventually fall in love. However, this is neither the cutesy nor the heedless kind of love so often seen in lesser films. It is, rather, of the sort that takes place between two complex, multifaceted individuals who are world-weary, are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and, most importantly in this case, know that they have little to no control over their impending future. Needless to say, both actors, who earlier worked together in George Cukor's Gaslight (1944), come through with strong, authentic performances; Bergman, especially, as her character grows the most and requires her to depict various shades. To its credit, the film's low-key, matter-of-fact approach isn't merely relegated to the love story; its political intelligence is equally sober and attentive. And the same could be said for Milestone's direction—he does not get many opportunities here to showcase his trademark camera movements. Adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque, who also provided the source for Milestone's antiwar classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), this rich and engrossing film may have been ignored in its day but is bound to emerge triumphant sooner or later.

Lewis Milestone scored his greatest film success when he did the classic adaption of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front in 1931. It seemed a natural for him to do an adaption of another Remarque book, Flotsam, retitled here as Arch of Triumph. I guess that United Artists didn't want the audience to think the film was about sea refuse.

Unfortunately while All Quiet on the Western Front stayed very much on its anti-war message, Milestone opted to make one of those tragic romances that Frank Borzage was more noted for. The problem of all the refugees from all the political turmoil up to THAT time collecting in places like Paris was left very much in the background.

Charles Boyer is one of those refugees, a Czech who can't go back to his own country because of Hitler's bloodless takeover. He's a doctor who's been serving in Loyalist Spain and got run out of there. With no passport, he's an illegal alien in France in 1939 and subject to deportation which he is by the way at one point in the film.

He meets Ingrid Bergman who's also a refugee of sorts from a series of bad relationships. He saves her from suicide and a relationship develops. In fact when Boyer is deported, she does what she has to do to survive.

Louis Calhern may have the best role in the film as Boyer's friend and counselor, an exiled Russian Lieutenant Colonel of the Czar's guard who is a doorman at a swank Russian café. Charles Laughton is in here to as an S.S. officer who Boyer remembers killing his old girl friend back in Spain and who he hunts without mercy. Laughton has one of the smallest roles he ever did in a film and I wish there were more of him here.

Laughton is seen briefly at the beginning doing the torture in his best Inspector Javert manner. Later on when Boyer spots him and makes his acquaintance to lure him for the kill, he's an avuncular tourist, but clearly on some kind of mission. He's good in both sides of the same character.

It's a real downer of a film, Arch of Triumph. Good thing we know how history turned out because it sure doesn't look good for the good guys when this film ends.

Director Lewis Milestone tries - and succeeds, to some extent - to make ARCH OF TRIUMPH an interesting film. To that end, he is greatly helped by the cinematography, with beautiful chiaroscuros that heighten the oppressive atmosphere, but he is let down by a meandering script, a far cry from Remarque's original novel.

Boyer, normally a middle of the road actor, does well enough here to overshadow even the great Ingrid Bergman (they had been paired together in GASLIGHT, 1944, and she had won an Oscar for that performance). I think that happened because by this point Bergman had already met, and fallen in love with, Roberto Rosselini, and that must have distracted her no end (her character even claims to be Italian, and she speaks Italian toward the end of the film). That emotional upheaval, which was about to have serious consequences for her career, pushing her out of Hollywood for about 8 years, definitely impacted on her acting in this film, and on the latter's quality.

In the end, it is the film's dark atmosphere that stays with you - and that's not much. Still, I am glad I watched it, it is better than many supposedly politically correct movies done today.

This is certainly not Ingrid Bergman's best movie, though her performance as Joan, and Boyer's as Ravic, are terrific. But you will never see a more beautiful Ingrid than in the magnificent black and white =chiaroscuro= of Russell Metty's photography, and Ingrid is very touching as the "lost woman" hinted at but never fully realized in "Casablanca" and "Notorious." Even considering that Bergman was gorgeous on screen for almost forty years, her stunning image in this somewhat confused thriller-soap opera, is worth the price of admission; plus the dialogue is pretty good, and you get to see Charles Laughton as an evil Nazi colonel!

Not sure about this one. There's much to like; the atmosphere, the camera work, the lighting and shadows, the closeups, the acting. But something's missing, perhaps continuity, or the impression that it all somehow fits together. Taken as a series of vignettes this film is very good. Combine the vignettes to tell a subset of the original story and it could be even better. But put it all together and it succumbs under the sheer weight of all the subplots.

And yet, despite my criticism, I am pleased to have seen it. As I said there's much to like, especially the acting. Louis Calhern is always a joy and here he lends a nuanced gravitas to his part. Charles Boyer is better than usual playing a tormented refugee torn between love and revenge. Charles Laughton is the pivot about which the story revolves and without him his one dimensional character would have been but a caricature. There's even a memorable cameo by an uncredited William Conrad. His scene is no more than a minute or so but it's not one you're likely to overlook or forget. But the best reason to watch it is of course Ingrid Bergman. Her effortless ability to switch personalities simply draws you in to her performance. Here she plays an insecure wreck, an incredibly seductive, infuriatingly deceitful and mostly terrified woman. Her character's choices are not perhaps entirely honorable but with Bergman who cares...