The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)
The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)
BDRip 1080p | MKV | 1448 x 1080 | x264 @ 12,3 Mbps | 1h 51mn | 10,17 Gb
Audio: English FLAC 2.0 @ ~650 Kbps | Subtitles: English (embedded)
Genre: Drama | Director: Albert Lewin
BDRip 1080p | MKV | 1448 x 1080 | x264 @ 12,3 Mbps | 1h 51mn | 10,17 Gb
Audio: English FLAC 2.0 @ ~650 Kbps | Subtitles: English (embedded)
Genre: Drama | Director: Albert Lewin
Georges (George Sanders) is a womanizer out to increase his social status. He attends a party with his friend Charles (John Carradine) and Charles' wife, Madeleine (Ann Dvorak). There, he meets Madeleine's friend Clotilde de Marelle (Angela Lansbury). Clotilde and Georges fall in love, but when Charles dies Georges marries Madeleine for her money. He then frames Madeleine for adultery, and marries Suzanne Walter (Susan Douglas), but his social climbing catches up with him after they divorce.
Albert Lewin's reputation rests almost entirely on two films, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" but his masterpiece must surely be the little known and little seen "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" from the novel by Guy De Maupassant. It is, of course, a very witty portrait of a cad, beautifully played by George Sanders, but it is also a film of considerable psychological depth and one of the most adult and intelligent American pictures of the forties with not a trace of the camp usually associated with the director.
Rather we get an incisive picture of a period and that rarefied milieu of high Parisian society, beautifully written by Lewin and superbly played by everyone. In particular Angela Lansbury is outstanding as the one woman Sanders might actually have feelings for. It's a great performance that should have made Lansbury a major Hollywood player rather than simply the great character actress she became. Even the usually wooden Warren William excels here. If any film cries out for a restoration it is this one.
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