Pasión fatal

This is a delightful old film with a cast of characters, from Bruce Cabot, who plays the captain and romantic interest, to Andy Devine, Frank Jenks, Mischa Auer and a whole bunch of studio character actors. Roland Young, who delighted us in the original Topper with Cary Grant, plays the befuddled count who plans to marry Die Marlene on the pretext she's an innocent young darling. The scene where the New Orleans ladies take Marlene aside to give her a little lecture on the "burden of womanhood she'll have to endure" after her marriage is priceless, with the tiny smirk that plays across Marlene's face (given her well-known history, it makes it doubly funny). While this little film isn't (and wasn't)a great shake at the box office at the time, it is delightful to see Die Marlene, always beautiful in that classic, classy European sense, at her best.