The Private Affairs of Bel Ami

1947
Approved
1h 52m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Angela Lansbury in The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)

In 1880, in Paris, chance brought together two former comrades-in-arms - Charles Forestier, who had become a journalist for "La Vie française" - and Georges Duroy, idle since leaving the six... Read allIn 1880, in Paris, chance brought together two former comrades-in-arms - Charles Forestier, who had become a journalist for "La Vie française" - and Georges Duroy, idle since leaving the sixth regiment of hussars.In 1880, in Paris, chance brought together two former comrades-in-arms - Charles Forestier, who had become a journalist for "La Vie française" - and Georges Duroy, idle since leaving the sixth regiment of hussars.

Director
- Albert Lewin
Writers
- Albert Lewin
- Guy de Maupassant
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

863

YOUR RATING

Director
- Albert Lewin
Writers
- Albert Lewin
- Guy de Maupassant
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos38

+ 30

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The producers held a contest for artists to create a painting about the temptation of Saint Anthony for use in this movie. The artists were paid five hundred dollars each and got to keep their paintings after the pictures toured the U.S. and Britain during 1946 and 1947. Although Max Ernst won the contest (receiving an extra two thousand five hundred dollars) and got his painting on-screen, Salvador Dalí's contribution (featuring a parade of spider-legged elephants tormenting the saint) became better known. The other artists who submitted paintings are Leonora Carrington, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, Stanley Spencer, Eugene Berman, Paul Delvaux, Louis Guglielmi, Horace Pippin and Abraham Rattner. Artist Leonor Fini was also invited to contribute, but she didn't produce a painting.

Goofs
At 9', a piano player and a violin player are doing a number. We hear a vibrato on the violin, but the left fingers of the player are not moving at all.

Quotes
Georges Duroy: [dying] I have been scratched by an old cat.

Crazy credits
Opening credits: "This is the history of a scoundrel. The time is 1880 and the place is Paris."

Connections
Referenced in Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Soundtracks
My Bel Ami
by Jack Lawrence and Irving Drutman

User reviews26

Featured review

7/10

De Maupassant and the Code

The movie is is faithful to the novel for about 3/4 of its running time. A handsome, amoral rake cuts his way through the vain, naive, foppish,self centered denizens of Parisian society in the 1880s He is not that smart, but he is shrewd enough to get the money and affection he craves. We don't know where his appetites came from. De Maupassant created him primarily to show the appalling psychological weaknesses of French upper class society "Prety Boy", as he is called, wins and wins big.

Well, the morals code of 1947 would not permit this. A scoundrel thriving is as bad was a naked woman on screen in the 1940s. You couldn't show it! Thus, the entire last section of this movie is made to comply with the code, and it plays out a story of how "Pretty Boy"'s primary victim thwarts his schemes and gets even. She gets even Big.

While I am happy to see the rat get his, this ending undermines the main point of the novel. It also doesn't fit the first three quarters. Characters suddenly behave differently than they did previously with no description of how and why they changed.

Still, it is a literate and intelligent movie. Not many of this kind of movie was made then, and even fewer are made today It is well played. George Sanders is the perfect cad. All the female actors do very well. Even since I first saw Ann Dvorak when I was six or seven, I have had a crush on her all these many decades, so it was good to see her.

Well worth the time for intelligent viewers...and those seniors who love Ann Dvorak!!