LA SIGNORA Dl TUTTI Movie Review

Unavailable for many years in a subtitled print, this enchanting early work by Max Ophüls stars Isa Miranda as Gaby Doirot, “Everybody's Sweetheart,” a movie star whose professional success did not bring her happiness. Her story is told in flashback while she's hospitalized after an attempted suicide, and this structure lends a bittersweet tone to all of the events we see. This was the only film Ophüls was to make in Italy; he was forced by politics to work outside of his native Germany, a situation which would last until after World War II. In tone and visual style (lyrical and elegant camera movement throughout, always at the service of the story). La Signora di Tutti is clearly the work of a master; the themes and structure of this little jewel box of a film would be most closely echoed by his heartfelt final work, Lola Montès.

NEXT STOP … Liebelei, The Earrings of Madame de…, Lola Montes

1934 92m/B IT Isa Miranda; D: Max Ophuls. VHS CVC, FCT