Arch of Triumph

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.

Arch of Triumph (1948)

Wow, what a difficult movie to assess, but not a difficult one to enjoy. On the one hand, it is dripping with mood and anxiety. It is about budding love and broken hearts. There is political intrigue and and incipient Nazi invasion. And it's France, Paris, center of the end of the great century of European art and culture, from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s.

On the other hand, it seems amorphous and vague.

Director Lewis Milestone makes this 1938 Paris gloomier than Sherlock Holmes's London--the rain, the darkness, the general lack of hope is part of the great drama lurking behind every scene. Charles Boyer is the main character, a refugee of uncertain origin, and the mysterious woman with both rich and poor friends and an equally uncertain origin is played in usual melodrama by Ingrid Bergman. They have no chemistry, for sure, but that just makes their love affair mysterious as well. In fact, the whole movie is about what we don't know, and can't know by watching.

This could be frustrating for some viewers, this lack of intention, and frankly lack of clear plot. But if you can just inhabit this world, enjoying a highly polished mise-en-scene (so polished it shows its Hollywood sound stage roots, at times, though darkly, darkly), if you can just soak it up and not worry, all will be well. It's a beautiful beautiful movie on those terms, photographer Russell Meety is doing that 1940s high contrast photography to perfection. Watch how often he shoots through windows, including the great phone booth shot (repeated ten minutes later) where the accident happens in the background.

The story here is based on a 1945 novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque, and Milestone directed the legendary "All Quiet on the Western Front" two decades earlier, also based on a Remarque novel. In both cases, there is an intensity of humanity against the larger military chaos and cruelty that seems so indifferent to them. The book here was actually published in English first as "The Arch of Triumph," and was a huge bestseller before going to a German version.

I don't think it's an accident that the pre-war angst here is an echo of "Casablanca," which by now (five years later) was already legendary. Bergman, of course, is carried over (though she had just finished filming "Notorious" for Hitchcock, if you want to follow her career). And Boyer is a better version of Henried (better as an actor). For more colorful secondary characters, you'll find the incomparable Louis Calhern (with a surprisingly effective accent) and Charles Laughton (whose accent is wobbly).

This was originally a more gut wrenching four hour film, and I think it might have made more logical sense at that length, but I can see it would have been too long by far. Watch what we have and just take it in for what it is. I enjoyed it on that level very very much.

This could have been a much better movie. Boyer's disenchanted, vengeful refugee doctor is excellent and Bergman's Joan, unable to commit or disengage, could have been a fascinating characterisation. But while individual scenes are very fine, the film, as a whole, is oddly disconnected, suggesting ruthless cutting. The sub-plot involving Laughton's porcine Gestapo bully is perfunctory and we get far too much of Calhern's emigre. Still, the black and white photography is impressive, and I rather went for the doom and gloom!

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...

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!