This isn't a very good movie, but James Wong Howe's brilliant cinematography makes it look like one. This is the sort of movie worth watching just to see how spectacular Howe was.
Outside of that, it's a little dull. The flashback within a flashback within an etc. doesn't work that well, mainly because the movie fails to make any of its threads or characters all that interesting.
Designed as war propaganda, the movie is often ostentatiously obvious, most notably in the rah-rah score and in things like the little French boy screaming Viva le France! Much of this was probably very stirring at the time, but it doesn't age well.
The film also has a lot of typical Hollywood nonsense, like the way a movie in which everyone is French has major characters speak English while minor characters speak French and accents are whatever the actors walked in with. It's not that unusual for the time but I found it distracting. It might have been better if everyone spoke French, since the dialogue is often wretched (although, as with the characters, it is stylistically inconsistent, shifting from straightforward conversation to ornate, flower speeches).
I do like this movie better than the first time I saw it when I was in college (in the 1980s), though I still don't like it much. But my god, what cinematography!
Outside of that, it's a little dull. The flashback within a flashback within an etc. doesn't work that well, mainly because the movie fails to make any of its threads or characters all that interesting.
Designed as war propaganda, the movie is often ostentatiously obvious, most notably in the rah-rah score and in things like the little French boy screaming Viva le France! Much of this was probably very stirring at the time, but it doesn't age well.
The film also has a lot of typical Hollywood nonsense, like the way a movie in which everyone is French has major characters speak English while minor characters speak French and accents are whatever the actors walked in with. It's not that unusual for the time but I found it distracting. It might have been better if everyone spoke French, since the dialogue is often wretched (although, as with the characters, it is stylistically inconsistent, shifting from straightforward conversation to ornate, flower speeches).
I do like this movie better than the first time I saw it when I was in college (in the 1980s), though I still don't like it much. But my god, what cinematography!