Reviews

Act of Love (1953) is a bittersweet love story about the star-crossed relationship between a World War II GI and a young Parisian during the Allied liberation of Paris. KIRK DOUGLAS plays Robert Teller, an Army PFC who, while stationed in France toward the end of World War II, meets and falls in love with a destitute French woman, Lise Gudayec (DANY ROBIN). When Teller seeks permission to marry Lise, his condescending commanding officer (GEORGE MATHEWS) has Teller transferred because he considers the young woman to be an opportunist. The transfer has tragic consequences.

The film's ending is highly emotional when Teller visits the small French Riviera hotel that Lise told him about. At the hotel he has a bitter encounter with his former commanding officer. And it is in one of the hotel rooms that Teller, while recalling the descriptive words of Lise, fully realizes how truly beautiful was their brief love affair. Get out the hankies for this ending. The film marked the debut of French-born Robin in an English-speaking film. Robin, who began her career as a ballerina with the Paris Opera, made her screen debut in 1946 at the age of 19 in the French film Les Portes de la Nuit (Gates of the Night).

Filmed in Paris and on the French Riviera, Act of Love was one of three films that Douglas made abroad during 1952 and '53. The other two were The Juggler (1953), which was filmed in Israel, and Ulysses (1954), which was filmed in Italy. During the three-picture, near-two-year filming schedule, Douglas spent a total of just one month in the United States.

Act of Love also marked the first appearance in an English-speaking film by BRIGITTE BARDOT, who would subsequently gain fame with her pouting good looks and curvaceous figure as France's "sex kitten." In Act of Love, Bardot portrays Mimi, a friend of Lise.

Act of Love was based on the 1949 novel The Girl on the Via Flaminia by ALFRED HAYES. The film's screenplay was by German writer Joseph KESSEL and American novelist-screenwriter IRWIN SHAW. Shaw's other well-known film credits included Fire Down Below (1957) and The Young Lions (1958). Kessel also wrote the French dialogue for the version released in France, titled Un acte d'amour.

For the record: Robin retired from film-making in 1969, after completing the ALFRED HITCHCOCK spy thriller Topaz. She and her husband, British producer MICHAEL SULLIVAN, died in a fire in 1995. She was 68. Robin was known for her dislike of journalists even during the height of her career. Because of this, journalists in 1953 and '54 presented her with the annual Lemon Prize, which is given to the nastiest French actress.

Passion and disaster reign supreme in director Clarence Brown's 1939 film adaptation of Louis Bromfield's best-selling novel The Rains Came.

The 20th Century Fox film was budgeted for an incredible (in 1939) $2.5 million and spared no expense at creating an exotic locale for the soap-opera histrionics of the story line. Set in the mythical Indian province of Ranchipur, the movie concentrates on two romances. The first is the forbidden but passionate romance between Lady Edwina Esketh (Myrna Loy), the bored, restless wife of a stuffy middle-aged British businessman (Nigel Bruce), and Maj. Rama Safti (Tyrone Power), a young surgeon who is destined to lead his people. The second romance deals with Tom Ransome (George Brent), a British wastrel, who was once Lady Esketh's lover, and Fern Simon (Brenda Joyce in her film debut), the flirtatious and naive daughter of American missionaries.

Power is surprisingly convincing beneath his dark makeup, and Loy turns in a solid performance on her loan out to Fox by MGM, where she was a well-known fixture as Nick Charles' wife Nora in the successful Thin Man series.

The studio employed technical advisers, including Maj. George Remington, Charles Whittaker and Hussain Nasri, all experts on India.

One of their main jobs was to make sure that Power's clothing for his role was authentic, from the cut of his coat to the way his turban was wound to the decorations on it. It was a tedious job. For example, Power's coat, with its gold thread on the red cloth, took two months to make. Of course, it only shows up on the screen as black and white. Loy, by the way, beat out such notables as Marlene Dietrich, Rosalind Russell and Tallulah Bankhead for the role of Lady Esketh. Bankhead campaigned vigorously for the part. In supporting roles, H.B. Warner and Maria Ouspenskaya are suitable as the Maharajah and Maharani. However, one must overlook Ouspenskaya's heavy Yiddish accent, especially when the Maharani takes Lady Esketh (Loy) by the arm and says in Yiddish tones about the role of Maj. Safti (Power). "Listen, mine dear, dott is Ind-yuss most promising young doc-terr."

Joyce was a relative newcomer among veterans. She was a 21-year-old Los Angeles resident working her way through college as a photographer's model when she was discovered by Fox. She was given a big buildup by the studio for her role in The Rains Came. The real stars of the film are the dazzling special effects engineered by Fred Sersen and Edmund H. Hansen. The effects include an earthquake, a bursting dam, rampaging floodwater's and collapsing buildings. Sersen and Hansen won Oscars for an effort that surpassed David O. Selznick's spectacular Gone With the Wind.