Dans Berlin occupée, un capitaine de l'armée est déchiré entre une chanteuse de cabaret au passé nazi et une femme membre du Congrès américain qui enquête sur celle-ci.Dans Berlin occupée, un capitaine de l'armée est déchiré entre une chanteuse de cabaret au passé nazi et une femme membre du Congrès américain qui enquête sur celle-ci.Dans Berlin occupée, un capitaine de l'armée est déchiré entre une chanteuse de cabaret au passé nazi et une femme membre du Congrès américain qui enquête sur celle-ci.
- Nommé pour 2 oscars
- 2 victoires et 3 nominations au total
- Joe
- (as Bill Murphy)
- Lt. Hornby
- (as James Larmore)
- Lieutenant Lee Thompson
- (as William Neff)
- General Finney
- (as George Carleton)
Avis en vedette
As a German my only minor quibble with "A Foreign Affair" is the German dialogue (not the occasional "Strudel" and "Gesundheit" from the American actors, but the actual German by supporting actors and extras): in most cases it sounds embarrassingly dumb, even feebleminded. Apart from one scene that has the same level of cynicism as the English dialogue (the choleric policeman asking "You live? Do you have permission?" after the "Lorelei" round-up), only Marlene Dietrich is allowed to talk normally.
Otherwise it's one of Billy Wilder's best films (which is synonymous with being one of the best films of all time). Unfortunately you don't get characters like Captain Renault ("Casablanca"), Major Calloway ("The Third Man") or Colonel Plummer ("A Foreign Affair") anymore in contemporary films. A pity!
John Lund is very good as the cynical army officer, attracted to Dietrich while repelled by her politics and prepared to romance Arthur in order to bury Dietrich's Nazi past. He has a nice way with underplayed humour e.g. "It can't be subversive to kiss a Republican!" Supporting actors, especially Millard Mitchell as Col Plummer are all good.
Berlin makes a bleak impressive backdrop, making the behaviour of the occupying troops and the Berliners easy to understand. There are some lovely vignettes e.g. the German woman pushing a pram decorated with the US flag.
Unfortunately the film was perceived as unpatriotic by many critics and did not do as much for the career of John Lund as it should.
Though we are shown houses pulverised by Allied bombing and people living amongst the ruins, there is a lighthearted aspect to it all--the usual wartime stuff of GI's trading chocolate or stockings for kisses from pretty girls. In reality, however, it was more likely that they would be traded for sex from women desperate to feed themselves and their children, by soldiers reveling in a power they never had in civilian life and oblivious to the disgust and humiliation of the women. Marlene Dietrich says that, when the Russian troops invaded Berlin, "it was hard for the women." That's the understatement of the century! The Russians raped, and gang-raped, any women they could find--women died from being literally raped to death. It is understandable that Billy Wilder did not want to make the milieu too bleak in order to dampen the comedy, but keep in mind that matters were far more brutal and squalid than portrayed here.
It is a rather dark joke that Dietrich is cast in the role of a German woman who has had Nazi lovers and still feels loyal to Hitler. In fact, Dietrich became an American citizen in 1939 and extensively toured US military bases, sometimes at great danger, to entertain the troops. This aroused rage in Germany, and even decades after the war, as the result of protests by locals who called her a traitor, the government backed down and did not name a street in her honour. Can you beat that! An amusing footnote: When Dietrich tries her wiles on an officer, he says, Don't be silly, I've just become a grandfather. I don't know whether this was coincidence or intentional, but at the time the movie was made, Dietrich became a grandmother--an event that gave her a label that was very popular, but which she hated, "world's most glamorous grandmother."
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesBilly Wilder said that John Lund "was the guy you got after you wrote the part for Cary Grant and Grant wasn't available."
- GaffesThough Phoebe, the American Congresswoman played by Jean Arthur is not married, the actress's real wedding ring is visible in many scenes especially closeups during the latter part of the film.
- Citations
Erika von Schluetow: We've all become animals with exactly one instinct left. Self-preservation. Now take me, Miss Frost. Bombed out a dozen times, everything caved in and pulled out from under me. My country, my possessions, my beliefs... yet somehow I kept going. Months and months in air raid shelters, crammed in with five thousand other people. I kept going. What do you think it was like to be a woman in this town when the Russians first swept in? I kept going.
- ConnexionsEdited into L'ami allemand (2006)
Meilleurs choix
- How long is A Foreign Affair?Propulsé par Alexa
Détails
Box-office
- Budget
- 1 500 000 $ US (estimation)
- Brut – à l'échelle mondiale
- 157 $ US
- Durée1 heure 56 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.37 : 1