The Private Affairs of Bel Ami

Albert Lewin was a veteran screenwriter and respected producer of literary adaptations before stepping into the director's chair, where he continued to plumb literary classics. This 1946 feature, adapted from Guy de Maupassant's 1885 novel Bel Ami, is Lewin's third film as a director and third collaboration with George Sanders, who stars as Georges Duroy, a Paris journalist turned gossip columnist who uses his social influence to blackmail indiscreet men of wealth, and his rakish charm to seduce influential women, who he then abandons on his way up the social ladder. The latter includes the wife (Ann Dvorak) of his best friend (John Carradine), a relationship that begins as a business partnership and then turns to marriage, both of which Duroy betrays. Angela Lansbury costars as Clotilde de Marelle, the one woman Duroy truly loves, and her compassion and introspection serve as a notable contrast to his ruthlessness. Lewin's stately, handsome style leans on craftsmanship and favors dialogue over visual storytelling, and he gets a superb performance from Sanders, whose purring voice and elegant manner make him charming even at his most coldly manipulative. Benefiting from a new restoration by the UCLA Film Archive that was sponsored by Martin Scorsese's nonprofit Film Foundation (featuring the restored color insert of Max Ernst's painting The Temptation of St. Anthony), this is recommended. (S. Axmaker)