La femme de Monte Carlo

Think Othello, Desdemona, and Iago. But a Desdemona with a past. This quick-paced drama of a variety of infidelities - large and small - is quite plausible. And with the commencement of World War I hostilities, this short story roils, rolls, and rocks. After all, loyalty is most important in wartime. This film is not so predictable as some would have you believe.

This is an interesting film - made in the U.S. but set in and around the French Navy of 1914, at the start of WW I. The cast includes Warren William and Walter Huston in lead roles, and talented German actress Lil Dagover.

"The Woman from Monte Carl" was released on Jan. 9, 1932, and is the only film that Dagover made in Hollywood, during a stay there in 1931. She also went to England for a year, but lived and filmed most of her life in Germany and Austria.

Dagover was fluent in English and this film is a good look at this talented actress, who performed until near her death in 1980 at 92 years of age. She stayed in Germany during WW II and averaged one movie a year during the war. She entertained German troops on the Eastern Front during the war.

The film was shot at Warner Brothers studios with some archival footage of Monte Carlo, Monaco, and the Cote d'Azur. The naval battle scenes are some of the first such wartime action put on films. While no doubt impressive for 1932, they show how crude early filming techniques were.

The plot of this film is most interesting and quite unusual. It has a very interesting and un-Hollywoodish ending. This film will be of most interest to movie buffs and aficionados. General modern audiences may find it too slow and even boring.

Fascinating German film star Lil Dagover - in her one Hollywood vehicle - plays a "woman of the world" whose stock-in-trade is an ability to see through men and she puts her heart into her work.

Dagover has poise and oomph and easy emotional range transcending the film's rather old-hat menage-a-trois intrigue. She's a pleasure to watch, an exotic glimpse of past feminine glamour and Viennese charm.

Walter Huston is good but unbudgingly stolid. Warren William is the romantic lead who later descends into delirium without ever receiving Dagover's go-ahead. The men wear splendid naval uniforms and struggle mightily with the call of duty. This is the film's antique theme: Love vs. Valor.

Director Michael Curtiz seems to enjoy filming Dagover, although he can't do for her what von Sternberg did for Dietrich: he doesn't build the film around her. He spends too much time on shipboard maneuvers and the action scenes of a naval battle. Much salt water is spewed.

The ending does have a fantastic Monte Carlo tilt, neatly dispensing with the entire melodrama we've just sat through as just another notch in the woman of the world's cigarette holder.

Either there wasn't room in Hollywood, or Dagover decided she prefered life in Germany, but she never made another film here.

Captain Corliax of the LAFAYETTE (Walter Huston) has a very attractive wife, Lottie Corliax (Lil Dagover). She has had previous relations with his executive officer Bromberg (John Wray) and a junior officer, D'Ortelles (Warren William). She wants to remain loyal too her Husband, but feels ignored being drawn back to D'Ortelles and repulsed by Bromberg. A Naval battle intrudes upon all of this and in the end there is NO happy ending for anybody. Watch and find out the details.

Strong cast supports the film. Lottie Corliax a popular German Actress is attractive and seductive, if She had stayed over here (Hollywood) might have rivaled Garbo or Dietrich. Huston and William did what needed too be done, acted like professional Naval Officers. As for John Wray, he is just as big a weasel in this film as he was as Himmelstoss in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930).

The SFX are credible done for the time and the Naval battle a fair representation of early 20th Century Sea combat. The LAYFAYETTE described in the film as a Battle-Cruiser would more correctly be called a Armored Cruiser. A type totally obsolete by 1914. In the film represented by full sized sets a large scale model and some pick up shots of ship activity from a Colorado class standard Battleship. The model taking its inspiration from the EDGAR QUINET class Armored Cruiser. Just like in the real conflict, the LAYFAYETTE showed little resistance to underwater attack and succumbed fairly quickly too her Central Powers opponent. France was very lucky She had Great Britain and its Royal Navy on Her side. Her Navy would have been no match for the powerful German Fleet.

... as this was Warner Brother's first and last attempt to replicate the oomph of Garbo with Dagover. The first problem is that the impersonation is too obvious and overdone. The second problem is that Dagover is 45 at this point, and the film is playing Dagover's character up to be in her 20s, because she and her husband, played by Walter Huston, keep going on and on about how she is half her husband's age. In fact Huston was only four years older than she.

The "woman from Monte Carlo", Lottie, is married to French naval captain Corlaix (Walter Huston). She is lonely because she hasn't been married that long and her husband is always at sea. To complicate matters, one of her husband's officers, Warren William as Lieutenant d'Ortelles, is in love with her, although neither has done anything about the attraction. Cmdr. Brambourg (John Wray), second in command to Corlaix, seems to think that because he and Lottie were in the same room one time at Monte Carlo that they are old lovers. She sets him straight. He does not appreciate it.

So the trouble starts when the ship carrying these officers docks, but they are ordered to stay on board. Instead the wives and friends of the crew are brought onboard, including Lottie. War is declared that night - I assume WWI - and all of the visitors have to go back to shore early. When Lottie becomes distraught because she may not see her husband again for years, Lieutenant d'Ortelles takes her to his cabin to calm her down. In the meantime, all of the other civilians have left and the ship has set sail for the open sea. In the words of Chester Riley - "What a revoltin' development this is!"

The captain has no idea of his officer's crush on his wife, there is no way to explain her presence in his cabin, and how will they get her back to shore without being discovered! Then an enemy ship appears and causes even more complications.

So this script is not that bad. It does seem that matters are stretched out, too much dialogue for too little plot. Plus I just don't believe these officers are French! It's not that I expect them to sound like Inspector Clouseau, because that would just be too cheesy. But John Wray sounds like a New York gangster - he often played one - and Walter Huston sounds too folksy to be a Frenchman. Warren William is smooth as always, but he just seems to be in a role that could have been played by any anonymous actor. Not nearly up to his great talent.

In summary it's pretty much a take it or leave it proposition.