I was able to rent on Amazon Prime the magnificent 1947 French film, Devil in the Flesh, from a novel by Raymond Radignet. Claude Autant-Lara directed it superbly, with a strong concern for composition, without strict conventionality. Starring Micheline Presle and Gerard Philipe, both outstanding, it presents the disturbing affair, during World War I, of a French boy, Francois, and Marthe, a woman married to a soldier.

The shots of wounded French servicemen confirm that behind every war there is a devil in the world. What Francois and Marthe manifest is le diable au corps: the devil in the flesh. In fact, to the sometimes impudent Francois the world war doesn’t matter, and it begins not to matter to Marthe. Both are self-seeking. But “devil in the flesh” may also refer to the fatal sickness Marthe contracts—contracted in the early 20th century when death patently abounded. War may not kill you, but something else will; will kill even the self-seeking.

The screenplay by Jean Auvenche and Pierre Bost is smartly written, and Autant-Lara seems to have insisted on pictorial vividness, with much help from film editor Madeleine Gug. There is, indeed, often a rough visual poetry in this absorbing film which leaves the impression that it needed to be made.

(In French with English subtitles)

Susanne Bier did an imaginative job of directing the first episode of the HBO series, The Undoing (2020), which might prove to be a laudable show. Nicole Kidman plays a therapist who is beginning to encounter a bit of breathtaking trouble. There is a notable cliffhanger ending and a palatable cast, even if Hugh Grant‘s cynical wisecracks eventually irritate me.

Susanne Bier did an imaginative job of directing the first episode of the HBO series, The Undoing (2020), which might prove to be a laudable show. Nicole Kidman plays a therapist who is beginning to encounter a bit of breathtaking trouble. There is a notable cliffhanger ending and a palatable cast, even if Hugh Grant‘s cynical wisecracks eventually irritate me.

To gain wealth and influence, Clair (Leslie Brooks), the blonde of the movie’s title—Blonde Ice (1948)—marries, hurts and betrays various men. Indeed, she is very open about almost all of it. Strangely, the police don’t treat her as a person of interest in her first husband’s, er, suicide. The marriage lasted a week, and now Clair is back with an old flame. But for how long?

The film suggests that Clair is a sociopath. Interestingly, it shows us the workings of society’s institutions being interrupted by this sociopath. A society columnist for a newspaper, Clair can no longer contribute. She keeps a newly elected Congressman from beginning his term. Marriage is turned on its head.

Blonde Ice is a pleasing, unassuming, slightly nutty thriller directed by Jack Bernhard. Brooks, who looks a little like June Lockhart, is never sentimental or too affectionate. She knows how to play a person with ulterior motives—one who keeps inherent iciness hidden. Just as fitting is tall Robert Paige, enacting a man whom any woman, including Clair, would like. Walter Sande (as a newspaper editor) and Emory Parnell (as a police captain) are honorably true.

To gain wealth and influence, Clair (Leslie Brooks), the blonde of the movie’s title—Blonde Ice (1948)—marries, hurts and betrays various men. Indeed, she is very open about almost all of it. Strangely, the police don’t treat her as a person of interest in her first husband’s, er, suicide. The marriage lasted a week, and now Clair is back with an old flame. But for how long?

The film suggests that Clair is a sociopath. Interestingly, it shows us the workings of society’s institutions being interrupted by this sociopath. A society columnist for a newspaper, Clair can no longer contribute. She keeps a newly elected Congressman from beginning his term. Marriage is turned on its head.

Blonde Ice is a pleasing, unassuming, slightly nutty thriller directed by Jack Bernhard. Brooks, who looks a little like June Lockhart, is never sentimental or too affectionate. She knows how to play a person with ulterior motives—one who keeps inherent iciness hidden. Just as fitting is tall Robert Paige, enacting a man whom any woman, including Clair, would like. Walter Sande (as a newspaper editor) and Emory Parnell (as a police captain) are honorably true.