A Notorious Affair

in her first all-talkie film is ok but miscast as the English rose who loses her violinist husband (Basil Rathbone) to a predatory womn (Kay Francis, who steals the film). Billie Dove tries hard and her acting isn't really bad, but the accent comes and goes. At one point she mentions something as being "versa-till" which doesn't sound all that British. Kay Francis is fun as the sexual predator and looks as gorgeous as Dove. Dove's talkie career lasted only a few years and consisted of about 10 films. She's much better (in a supporting role) in 1932's "Blondie of the Follies" with pal Marion Davies.

If you like Kay Francis, this is probably a movie worth checking out. She's silky smooth as a man-eating seductress who has her sights on the husband of a rival. If there's a female equivalent to the "male gaze", she has it, and she's always in full control as she uses men and then casually discards them, including a couple of stable boys early on. It was interesting to see Basil Rathbone before he was a star and Billie Dove towards the end of her career (and in a talkie), but unfortunately the plot is overly melodramatic, and when Francis isn't lighting up the screen, the film is far less interesting.

Patricia Hanley (Billie Dove) married violinist Paul Gherardi (Basil Rathbone), despite the strong disapproval of her father and their high society friends. Dramatics ensue.

Billie Dove is the only saving grace of this movie. Her charm, beauty and engaging presence make this dull soap opera watchable. Less watchable is Basil Rathbone, who is miscast as a romantic leading man. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. or even Phillips Holmes would have been much better in the role. Kay Francis, as the other woman, acquits herself nicely, with her best films yet to come.

It should be noted that this film is one of Billie's few surviving Warner Bros./First-National talkies. For example, her four 1929 films are lost! Still, if you are a Billie Dove fan, you might enjoy this one.

Although Billie Dove is top-billed above the title and the rest of the cast, I'm with those who think Kay Francis the real reason for watching this nonsense - along with everything else in which she appeared during the first year of her contract with Paramount as a lisping 'other woman' in mannishly short hair and slinky plunging dresses. Aged only about 25 when the film was shot, but already exuding a mature sophistication that far surpassed Theda Bara, Francis makes poor Miss Dove looks positively homely by comparison.

Struggling with an incredible 'Continental' accent that increasingly slips as the film progresses, Basil Rathbone is saddled with the thankless part of a whiny violinist who Ms Francis soon tires of and abandons in the South of France the better to continue her tour of the rest of the opposite sex. Rathbone promptly succumbs to one of those mysterious debilitating illnesses so common in old movies; and the film becomes a real drag without her.

Photographed by Ernest Haller, the killer outfits Francis models and the imaginative sets are the work of Edward Stevenson and Anton Grot (both uncredited) in a surprisingly plush production to bear the name as director of veteran Warner Bros. workhorse Bacon.

English socialite Lady Patricia (Billie Dove) falls for poor Italian violinist Paul Gherardi (Basil Rathbone). They quickly marry. Her father disapproves. Man-eating Countess Olga Balakireff (Kay Francis) manipulates Paul's rise to fame and drives a wedge between the married couple.

Kay Francis is the standout performer in this movie in a vampy performance. Billie Dove is overshadowed by her antagonist and I'm not sold on her relationship with Gherardi to begin with. He has more chemistry with Kay Francis although it's more like she sees him as a meal. This love triangle has no side with rooting interest.