Featured Audience Ratings

• Stella D

  
  dark comedy set against the brutal backdrop of post-war berlin. jean arthur plays a stuffy american congresswoman who becomes involved with an army officer who's trying to cover up his lover's nazi past. i like that both jean and marlene were close to 50 when this was… More
  dark comedy set against the brutal backdrop of post-war berlin. jean arthur plays a stuffy american congresswoman who becomes involved with an army officer who's trying to cover up his lover's nazi past. i like that both jean and marlene were close to 50 when this was made. the script is vintage wilder if a little predictable, with shades from ninotchka to stalag 17. john lund is okay as the male lead; don't think i've ever seen him before...not wilder's best but very entertaining.

• Walter M

  
  [font=Century Gothic]In "A Foreign Affair", Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, R-Iowa(Jean Arthur), is part of a congressional delegation sent to postwar Berlin to investigate the reportedly poor morale of the American soldier. Frost helps in this matter by personally delivering a… More
  [font=Century Gothic]In "A Foreign Affair", Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, R-Iowa(Jean Arthur), is part of a congressional delegation sent to postwar Berlin to investigate the reportedly poor morale of the American soldier. Frost helps in this matter by personally delivering a birthday cake to Capt. John Pringle(John Lund) from his girlfriend back in the states. Pringle promptly trades the cake in for a mattress at an open air black market at the Brandenburg Gate. He gives the mattress along with some nylons to Erika(Marlene Dietrich), a famous nightclub singer who was once tight with some high-ranking Nazis. Pringle is now doing his best to keep her out of a labor camp...[/font] [font=Century Gothic]"A Foreign Affair" is an entertaining comedy about the serious subject of postwar Germany, directed with style by Billy Wilder.(Only the ending does not ring true, however.) The movie is about a country trying to get back on its feet and uses Berlin's devastation to show how far it has to go. Luxury goods can only be found on the black market, where chocolate and cigarettes seem to be the main units of currency. The movie urges reconciliation with, not condemnation of, the people of Germany. And the only way to find out anything of value is to avoid the guided tour.[/font]

• Anastasia B

  
  This may not be one of Wilder's major works, however, the spirit is here, and you can feel it: the German director and his fellow German leading woman have made this film from the soul. It's more about post-war Berlin, than the love-affair (mere excuse of a plot). Jean… More
  This may not be one of Wilder's major works, however, the spirit is here, and you can feel it: the German director and his fellow German leading woman have made this film from the soul. It's more about post-war Berlin, than the love-affair (mere excuse of a plot). Jean Arthur's talent saves the day when it comes to the (sometimes) poor script, and provides the comic relief, but it's Dietrich that shines all the way through- she is simply divine. She steals the whole film, of course, and the scenes where she sings at the cabaret can be inscribed on one's memory for ever. Don't miss this classic!

• Doctor S

  
  'A Foreign Affair' Provides the Laughs, Dahling This postwar comedy with Marlene Dietrich as an acid-tongued nightclub singer with suspected Nazi ties and Jean Arthur as a visiting no-nonsense Congresswoman from Iowa both after the same army heel with a guilty conscience… More
  'A Foreign Affair' Provides the Laughs, Dahling This postwar comedy with Marlene Dietrich as an acid-tongued nightclub singer with suspected Nazi ties and Jean Arthur as a visiting no-nonsense Congresswoman from Iowa both after the same army heel with a guilty conscience starts slowly but gets in full gear when the romantic entanglements commence. Both actresses are terrific.