A Foreign Affair

Billy Wilder's 1948 film about the American occupation of Berlin after World War II combines romantic comedy with barbed satire. Jean Arthur stars as Phoebe Frost, a prim, professional congresswoman from Iowa and the sole female on an official delegation to inspect the occupying forces in Berlin. As the commanding Colonel (Millard Mitchell) gives them a tour through the bombed-out ruins of the war-ravaged city (the real thing, shot before the city's reconstruction), she sees American servicemen fraternizing with German frauleins and a nightlife culture of illegal nightclubs where soldiers swap cigarettes and stockings for black market alcohol. She enlists Captain John Pringle (John Lund), a war hero and fellow Iowan, to help find the man protecting nightclub singer and former Nazi party member Erika von Schlütow (Marlene Dietrich). Meanwhile, Pringle covers his affair with von Schlütow by romancing Frost. Wilder, co-writing with longtime collaborator Charles Brackett, brings a caustic wit and jaundiced view to the film as the naïve congresswoman falls for the scheming Captain. Lund is a little stiff and colorless next to both Arthur, whose driven, crisply proper attitude softens with romance and black market alcohol (she sparks to life singing her Iowa campaign song), and Dietrich, who belts out cabaret tunes for food and favors and engages in a battle of wits with Arthur's smitten congresswoman. Extras include audio commentary by film historian Joseph McBride. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)