Marthe Richard au service de la France

To say that Marthe Richard née Betenfeld led a colourful life would be an understatement as her potted bio on Wikipedia testifies. This film of Raymond Bernard is based upon her best-selling account of her activities as a spy in WW1 which naturally made her adored by the French and unsurprisingly detested by the Germans.

Although it is difficult to separate fact from fiction the material supplied should have been sufficent to produce a gripping film but such alas is not the case.

It has atmospheric lighting and splendid sets but takes an age to get going whilst its limited budget is evident in a climactic action sequence featuring model boats and planes. The supporting cast is adequate with Dalio as a standout and an uncredited early appearance by Noel Roquevert. Dalio had quite a few films released that year not least a little opus entitled 'La Grande Illusion'! The bizarre performance by Délia-Col as Mata Hari cannot go without mention and is a far cry from the seductive, mysterious portrayals by Garbo and Moreau.

The whole enterprise is however made bearable by the charismatic Edwige Feuillere and Erich von Stroheim. A brilliant stage actress, Mlle Feuillere's forays into film were much more frequent than those of her contemporaries Madeleine Renaud and Marie Bell but she invariably shone whatever the role and reached the pinnacle of her art as Balzac's Duchesse de Langeais, Dostoevsky's Nastasia Filipovna and Cocteau's Queen in 'Eagle has two heads'. The son of a Jewish hatter, von Stroheim created for himself an image as an Austrian aristo and played it to perfection whilst his precise, almost phonetic speaking of French is always a delight.

It is a temptation to mention Bernard's cinematic triumphs as an excuse for this minor opus but for true cinephiles that should not be necessary.

The only other review has been languishing in isolation for nigh on fifteen years so I felt it deserved some company.