french films > The Earrings of Madame de...

The Earrings of Madame de...

Earrings of Madame de...

The Earrings of Madame de...

Review score: * * * * *

cast: Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, Vittorio De Sica

year: 1953

colour: no

certificate: PG

director: Max Ophüls

runtime: 102

When, beset by debt, the titular Countess Louise (Danielle Darrieux) decides to sell a pair of earrings that were a wedding gift from her husband André (Charles Boyer), she unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will have serious consequences not only for the Parisian couple but for André’s mistress and for an Italian Baron (Vittorio De Sica) who purchases the by then much-travelled jewelry. The lightly nuanced performances, the marvellously detailed sets and the elegant artifice of the plotting never distract from the fundamental seriousness of Ophüls’ searing study of fateful passion. A film of unassuming but enduring greatness.

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