The Flame of New Orleans

French director, Rene Clair, went to Hollywood to direct German Marlene Dietrich in this role where she played a con-artist known as the Countess and/or Lili. The story is set in New Orleans in the 1800s and has a fabulous art direction with costumes and set designs that are first rate. The problem with this film is really in the writing. It never holds up to me. While I love the cast, Dietrich is supported by a first rate cast and crew of Hollywood's golden age of cinema where even character parts were done brilliantly. I enjoyed the relationship between the Countess and her African American maid, Clementine, in the film as her friend and confidante. The countess has too many suitors much like any Marlene Dietrich film. The one suitor is a poor sailor with a pet monkey and the other is Giraud, an older, wealthy but unattractive man. In this film, the Countess is expected to get married like all women are expected to do in this day and age. The film begins with a mystery of a wedding dress found in the Mississippi River. There are plenty of light hearted moments as well. Still, this film is fine to watch.

Marlene D plays a dual role. As the Countess, she dresses like an ostrich and is a trickster who gets her way by fainting so she can bag a wealthy suitor. In her other role, she looks exactly the same yet seems to fool the rest of the cast. There you go, it can't be a good film. A Dietrich vehicle that has some amusing scenes at the beginning with potential suitor Bruce Cabot (Catour) resembling a Clark Gable type.

As always, Dietrich just glows star quality. Roland Young (Giraud) plays his part well as a wealthy, interested party and I also thought Anne Revere (Giraud's sister) and Melville Cooper (Giraud's brother-in-law) put in amusing, convincing performances.

As for the other characters, unfortunately, we get comedy sailors that include Andy "clear your throat" Devine (1st Sailor). Not funny. The better comedy comes from a surprising source – Mischa Auer (Zolotov). For a change, Mischa Auer doesn't miss the mark – he's funny in his role (the only time I can remember him successfully doing this) and Franklin Pangborn (Bellows) as Auer's European companion has that kind of face that screams comedy. He reminds me of one of my Portuguese cousins – she looks just like him.

It's a fluffy film that is completely unbelievable but entertains while it is going. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's OK - nothing too gripping going on.

Darling film starring Marlene Dietrich from 1941.

Flame of New Orleans takes place in -- right, New Orleans, in 1840, where Claire Ledoux, engaged to a banker, Giraud (Roland Young). Unfortunately for Claire, at a party, while she is up on stage singing, a man who knew her in Europe shows up. What he has to say is whispered in people's ears. By the time the song is through, so is Claire.

She gets out of it by telling her fiancée that they're talking about her cousin, who looks like her.

A sea captain, Robert LaTour (Bruce Cabot) owes Giraud money, so Giraud tells him that he will forgive the loan if LaTour can get this cousin removed and out to sea before the wedding.

Lots of great people in this, including Mischa Auer, Andy Devine, Laura Hope Crews, Franklin Pangborn, Theresa Harris, and Anne Revere.

Much of the movie takes place with a background derived from Donizetti's Lucia, the love duet in the beginning of the opera - in fact, there's a heavenly choir singing it at the end.

Marlene's clothes are beyond magnificent. Absolutely bedazzling with huge full skirts, sparkles, feathers - amazing. A must see for the costumes alone.

The whole cast is great, and Marlene is stunning as usual as she plays both her slutty cousin and the flirtatious Clare. Wait for the scene where Laura Hope Crews gives her a lecture on what she'll have to "endure" during marriage. Dietrich's face there is classic. And she was a class act all the way.

Well directed by Rene Clair.

This is a delightful old film with a cast of characters, from Bruce Cabot, who plays the captain and romantic interest, to Andy Devine, Frank Jenks, Mischa Auer and a whole bunch of studio character actors. Roland Young, who delighted us in the original Topper with Cary Grant, plays the befuddled count who plans to marry Die Marlene on the pretext she's an innocent young darling. The scene where the New Orleans ladies take Marlene aside to give her a little lecture on the "burden of womanhood she'll have to endure" after her marriage is priceless, with the tiny smirk that plays across Marlene's face (given her well-known history, it makes it doubly funny). While this little film isn't (and wasn't)a great shake at the box office at the time, it is delightful to see Die Marlene, always beautiful in that classic, classy European sense, at her best.

You see a wedding dress floating in the ocean, and the story begins of how it came to be there. Marlene Dietrich lives basically upon the kindness and generosity of men. She sets her sights on Roland Young (from "Topper"), who has scads of money. She also has a particular habit of fainting, which she uses to her advantage, whenever it serves her purpose or whenever she doesn't know else to get out of a particular situation. Roland starts to pursue her, but doesn't realize he was already picked from the beginning. She tries to be hard to get, but just enough to get what she wants.

Enter Bruce Cabot who of course meets her in such a way as to antagonize her without them actually seeing each other. When her plans get mixed up with Roland and her reputation gets compromised by a rumor, she resorts to drastic measures.

I had never seen this and loved it, obviously by my rating. Marlene and Bruce's chemistry, its use of time and place, the imagery and colors of the clothes of the time, and its expressive grand music made for the most perfect 80 minutes spent on a movie in a long time.

Featuring a slew of recognizable faces including Mischa Auer, Andy Devine, Franklin Pangborn, Melville Cooper, Laura Hope Crews ("Aunt Pittypat" from "Gone with the Wind"), Anne Revere (Oscar winner for "National Velvet" as the mother), and Eddie Quillan, this is one movie not to be missed.

Eddie Quillan? You don't know him? Sure, you do. You've seen him. You just didn't know it. He was a prolific supporting actor in movies in bit parts like this one and also made memorable appearances in 50s and 60s TV shows, like "The Addams Family." His most famous role was probably that in "The Grapes of Wrath."

Directed by Rene Clair who also made "Le Million", which I reviewed, and "A Nous La Liberte," (some say that is his masterpiece, but I have yet to see, but will) this is yet another example of Dietrich at her sexiest, and all Dietrich fans and film lovers should buy the Marlene Dietrich DVD collection with this on it and sit back and see one of the greatest screen icons ever!