A Foreign Affair

Billy Wilder pulls together a great script and two engaging performances from Jean Arthur and Marlene Dietrich in this entertaining story of a US Congresswoman who visits post-war Berlin to check up on the morals of the American troops. She falls for one of them who just happens to be already spoken for. There ensues a bit of a tug-of-war between the two women over the rather charmless John Lund. Millard Mitchell is good value as the war-weary colonel; there are enough Dietrich songs to keep her fans content and we even get a twist at the end. There may well have been some murmurings Stateside once this film was released. It doesn't exactly show the Yanks in a great light as they party and black-market their way through a bomb wrecked Berlin but it does demonstrate the need for a "release" for so many from the years of war and deprivation with style and occasionally, some humour.