THE FLAME OF NEW ORLEANS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 122, 24 October 1941, Page 16

THE FLAME OF NEW ORLEANS

(Universal)

HOUGH in these days of Vichy it may sound strange to say it, The Flame of New Orleans is typically. and most @harmingly French.

It has that elusive quality of insouciance which has made French comedies (and René Clair’s in particular), the wWittiest in the world, and the despair of critics who have tried to analyse.them. As anyone who saw Le Million, Sous Les Toits de Paris, The Ghost Goes West, should endorse, this fellow Clair is a wizard when it comes to making bricks out of thistledown; and The Flame of New Orleans, produced by Clair in Hollywood after his flight from France last year, is just about the airiest fabrication of the lot. There is, as one says, nothing to it, and for that very reason there is, in this case, everything. To dissect the story in search for the formula gets you hardly anywhere. Indeed, told briefly, it sounds almost banal, being the tale of Claire Ledoux (Marlene Dietrich), an international courtesan, who turns up in New Orleans about the middle of last century and, having decided to marry a _ wealthy, gouty bachelor (Roland Young), for his money, changes her’ mind at the altar, and marries (?) a Roor but handsome sailor for love. This triumph of Cupid over cupidity involves a bit of gay deception by the lady, who poses as her own disreputable .cousin in order to keep both suitors nibbling at the hook until her heart makes up her mind which ‘one to land. But without René Clair’s direction, the picture would be worth no more than passing attention, and I say this with due regard to the fact that La Dietrich, Roland, Young, Bruce Cabot (the sailor-boy), and several others, all play their roles expertly. This picture, I repeat, is invested with an airy charm and gaiety which defy analysis. Easy enough to say that it has an atmosphere-bouquet would perhaps be the better word. But why? I think I have one small clue, however. It is that the director makes absolutely no excuses for the behaviour of his leading character. She is quite frankly a beautiful, successful courtesan, and you just have to accept the fact. This is truly Gallic treatment and it must, I imagine, have been slightly disturbing to the high-minded Hays Office who would probably have liked at least some proof that Mlle. Ledoux was the innocent victim of misfortune and male wickedness at an early age and ‘thereafter regretted her downward step. But no such proof is offered: on the contrary there is every evidence that she finds life most enjoyable. Admittedly she does finally redeem herself in the conventional way by eschewing riches fu: romance, but by ordinary Hollywood standards she gets off very lightly. René Clair, in faét, is quite without any sense of gravity. His light touch is on every scene and is transmitted to all the acting. He has brought out

that sense of comedy which has always been latent in Marlene Dietrich, but which Hollywood has so often obscured by heavy-handed tragedy, and he has surrounded his central portrait with vignettes by the other players which bear equally the imprint of the master. Many people, I think, will come away from The Flame of New Orleans feeling that they have been most delightfully entertained but not quite knowing why. Being fully conscious that the explanation I’ve attempted here is inadequate I can only hope that you'll go along and see for yourselves.