Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

What an interesting, conflicting film this is. Jean Arthur plays a congresswoman visiting Germany after the war to check up on the troops stationed there. Marlene Dietrich is a cabaret singer rumored to have been a mistress of one of the top Nazis, and now carrying on an affair with an American officer (John Lund). As Arthur probes into Dietrich, Lund tries to run interference by getting involved with her romantically, thus setting up a love triangle.There are many great things about the film, starting with the footage of Berlin, which was still absolutely devastated by the war. It's sobering, and even as we think of the atrocities Hitler and the Nazis committed, it's still very sad. The film gives us an interesting window into the dynamics of post-war Germany. How does one sort out responsibility and guilt amongst the Germans? The simple question Lund asks Dietrich at one point, "How much of a Nazi were you, anyway?", without deep accusation in his voice or even too concerned with her answer, has a lot of depth to it. One of the difficult things to watch is American soldiers hunting down impoverished German women, and using material goods like chocolate to take advantage of them. It's cringe-worthy on its own, and then more so when the behavior is explained by saying the men had been pushing the entire war, and now hard to control by just putting a stop sign up in front of them. It may be an honest reflection of reality though, and I loved Arthur's criticism "In your admirable effort to civilize this country, our boys are rapidly becoming barbarians themselves." Lest you be outraged that the Allies, the true heroes of this war, may be unfairly treated, don't be alarmed - the American characters point out many sites of Nazi activity now mostly in ruins on a city tour, and allude to their atrocities. I thought the balance was good, and frankly pretty amazing considering director Billy Wilder was Jewish, and lived in Austria and Germany until leaving for Hollywood at 27 in 1933.Marlene Dietrich is iconic, and as a German-American who had to be convinced to take the part of a Nazi collaborator since the idea was so repugnant to her, her performance is filled with soul and depth. I loved the scenes with her singing in the cheap, crowded, and smoky Berlin nightclub, and the move she makes to take a puff on a cigarette before putting in into her pianist's mouth is silky smooth. There is something magical about her performances, and her world-weary, sophisticated character in general. And how ironic is the 'grandfather' comment an officer makes at the end, when Dietrich in real life was just about to become a grandmother?I was intrigued by the contrast between Jean Arthur and Dietrich in the same film, and I loved the fact that they were 48 and 47, respectively. Unfortunately, I was less of a fan of Arthur here, and it kills me to say that. I think the biggest issue was with the role itself, which has her character going from serious congresswoman to puddle of goo after the smallest overture by Lund. Suddenly she can't even dress or apply lipstick without his assistance, nor resist his advances. As an actor she ends up being caught in the middle - not serious enough to deliver a performance which would have further delved into the realities of war amidst the rubble, but not charming enough to be truly endearing. She just doesn't have chemistry with Lund, and her performance of the "Iowa Corn Song" is not great, to put it mildly. The situation she ends up in following a raid of the cabaret is contrived, though how the love triangle plays out is reasonably good, and Arthur delivers in her somber moments.Overall, a film that gives you post-war Berlin, Dietrich singing in a smoky cabaret, and some food for thought. It's flawed and feels too light, but to show more of the reality of the devastation and squalor may have been too much. Wilder gets his points in, and tells us a story on top of it. It also stuck with me.

Billy Wilder's romance-triangle comedy is set in the Allied-occupied Berlin in 1947, in the face of Hollywood's entrenched agism and sexism, A FOREIGN AFFAIR is bracingly headlined by two 40-plus female marquee players, Jean Arthur (in her penultimate picture) and Marlene Dietrich, in roles which cagily keep their real ages under wraps. Arthur plays a prudish American congresswoman Phoebe Frost of Iowa, scandalized by the dissipation she witnesses of American soldiers in the rubble strewn city, she is headstrong in making an example by finding out the American officer who is clandestinely protecting a German torch singer Erika von Schlutow (Dietrich), a woman with a Nazi past. Naturally and provincially, Captain John Pringle (an amicable and amenable Lund), another Iowan, is elected as her aide, but little does she know, John is the man she determines to uncover. So to sabatoge Phoebe's tenacious investigation, John starts to woo her and hope the flirtation can distract her, and indeed, it works (Wilder stages a fluid filibustering resistance before the pair landing their first kiss, and near the end, with a role-changing iteration), but of course, it is the bean-spilling moment that sells the tickets, when Phoebe and Erika share the same limelight, their conversation may well pass the Bechdel test, but what is at stake is a winning/losing game towards a man's love and the less glamorous Phoebe is the honorable also-run, as it seems. A looming revenge plan from one of Erika's Nazi ex-lovers, is thrown into the game in a very late stage to precipitate a switcheroo, Wilder could never allot Erika too much time in the winner's corner simply because his anti-Nazi ire, which presumably gives a certifiable license for its tepid ending. Jean Arthur, for one last time, stretches her crow's feet and psyches up for a straitlaced-to-smitten transformation, gives a fine presence but she is on a hiding to nothing in comparison with Dietrich's sultry stature and sing-song poise, especially when those ditties are written by the eminent Friedrich Hollaender (BLACK MARKET is a humdinger), Dietrich is never a singer's singer because of the discernible vocal stricture, but the combo of her contralto timbre and exterior élan is simply par excellence. While Wilder doesn't hide his personal attachment with the city in ruins, striking aerial shots bearing testimony of something its US audience may not realize at then, retrospectively A FOREIGN AFFAIR is a minor Wilder-Brackett's output because of its frothiness and a deus ex machina perhaps dished up without much deliberation.

Billy Wilder's making a farce out of this one which seems to have some jokes only he and the other writers understand. To me, the biggest value of this film is Col. Plummer's serious tour showing a lot of what bombed out Berlin was about in 1948. These parts of the film were done on location.The plot, such as it is, has John Lund (Capt Pringle) romancing Erika (Dietrich) not knowing he is being set up a a target to bring her Nazi ex-boyfriend out of hiding. Strangely enough that does not happen until late in the movie. That is because of the early plot.Congresswoman Phoebe (Jean Arthur) and a congressional group come to check out the morale of our American troops staying in Germany after the war. The investigation seems to indicate most of our troops are having affairs with German women. This makes little sense historically as the Russians had just raped most of the German women in Berlin in 1945, but because there is a shortage of German men after the war, I guess we can stretch with that.Lund and Arthur really fall into love, but Pringle (Lund) has to stay on his mission with Dietrich (Erika). Most of the movie centers around this plot, and really is not all that amusing to modern viewers. This is a good way to view a more mature Dietrich who is way past her Blue Angel days but is still able to perform. Wilder did better later as it appears his problem here is that while painting a picture of a shattered he tries to make poverty more amusing than it really is.

This is not Billy Wilder's best film, and it occurs between greater classics like The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard. At times, it seems as if the writer-director is going through the motions here, with another one of those ideas that work more like an extended gag (a two-minute joke stretched out to feature film length). But there are some silly moments in A Foreign Affair, and that makes it worth seeing. The humor resonates well.Also, the picture is fascinating to watch because of its two very different lead actresses. Perhaps no other film has such a unique mishmash of performance styles. As she exhibits in so many of her pictures, Jean Arthur has an unnatural way of delivering a natural performance. Then, there's Marlene Dietrich (and volumes have been written about her). Dietrich has a natural way of delivering a very unnatural performance.