Labios soñadores

Elizabeth Berger has an affair with Raymond Massey -- he's a Spanish violinist -- but realizes she loves her husband, Romney Brent -- who reminds me a good deal of Rex Harrison (or perhaps the other way around) -- in her husband, Paul Czinner's movie version of a play by Henri Bernstein.

While Massey is surprisingly good in a romantic role, and Brent is quite good, if a tad whiny, Miss Berger is annoying. She certainly could act, but she plays her character playing with the men in her life like a six-year-old making up a story about her dolls. It's a pity, because there is a lot to admire in this film, including its brisk pace of story-telling (David Lean was the editor) and some fine lighting by Lee Garmes.

Czinner was clearly a man in love with his wife, but his attempts to make her a competitor to Greta Garbo failed, not because she was a poor actress -- she wasn't -- but because ... well, she lacked that mysterious something that makes someone a real star. American studios could manufacture stars by careful management. Those resources were not available to Czinner and Berger. So it was back to the stage for her, where she did very well.