Truly Dreadful Film

A Major Disappointment

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Being very fond of virtuoso cinematography, Max Ophüls 's filmography is very rich to me. I didn't expect much of his first movie. But it describes in some "comic" way the german cinematographic studios, with the sexual appetite of the director, screenwriter, main actor and other technician for a young and enthusiastic girl dreaming of movie star career. She is so fresh every technician believes in her future as a star, but when she plays her first scene in front of the camera, her magic beauty vanishes.In this first Ophüls movie, we already see some nice travellings and panoramics : the first shot over the mountain, the camera following the young woman when she quits her village for her future career and saying goodbye to everybody she meets. And a very fine panoramic beginning on the couple singing, then shooting all the movie crew very glad for that first shot of their beloved future star, then coming back to the couple (a real document about the german movie material). But this movie is certainly not Ophüls's "Citizen Kane".

The Company's In Love is the first feature film directed by the legendary Max Ophuls, and that is pretty much the only reason to watch it. It is doubtful that Ophuls had any control over the script because not only is it totally unlike his later movies, but it is also poorly written. The movie is a behind the scenes look at the making of a musical movie. The movie is disrupted when Gretel, a local woman, literally skies onto the set. The lead actress storms off in a huff and the crew gets the idea to replace her with the interloper. You can't expect the story of a farce to make any sense but in order for the nonsense to work, there must be laughs. Unfortunately, while there are a couple amusing bits, the movie is steadily unfunny. (Although there was a certain irony in watching this a month after the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, as nearly every male character tries to Gretel alone for "private counseling". I guess sexual harassment has been in movies from the very beginning.)However, the cast is very talented and they do what they can, and even at this early stage, Ophul's direction is very steady. After this, he would quickly show what he was capable of.

The first long-playing movie of Max Ophüls has not enough singing to be really an operetta, but both songs "Ich wär so gern richtig verliebt" and "Ist dein Herz noch ledig, schick es nach Vendig" are reprised several times. So sometime it looks like an operetta.For sound track hunters (like me) there wasn´t any real loot, because all singing parts were very short and noisy.An interesting scene was in a ´wave bath´, because I did not know that this kind of bath was already existing in 1932. (excuse my school-english)