Reunion in France

This is not one of Crawford's better known films, but I was glad I caught it on TCM recently. I think Joan's character feels very believable. She starts out as a spoiled, entitled rich French girl who isn't really concerned about the world around her. The war changes her for the better and opens her eyes. But her background as a wealthy woman makes her believable when standing up to the Nazis. In her home, for instance, she never backs down - by gosh it's her freaking house! I like her spunk and it feels real because nothing really bad has every happened to her so she's not afraid of the Nazi intruders. She's more annoyed by them.

I liked it. Crawford it always entertaining to watch.

With a storyline that feels like it was adapted from a sprawling novel, "Reunion in France" is a surprising film. Released during wartime, it details the hubris of the French nation, then the traitorous dealings of certain members of French society. The depressing storyline is contrasted with the unbreakable allegiance of Michele (Joan Crawford), a French socialite who never wavers in her love of France.

She meets an American (John Wayne) who is on the run from German authorities. Clearly, this is a predictable film of romantic intrigue set against the backdrop of Nazi occupation, not unlike "Casablanca".

But the impressive score by Franz Waxman, the fashions by Irene, and the script---with each line layered in double and triple meanings---imply something more. In the end, the film delivers a powerful message that audiences of 1942 would have embraced.

Strong performances abound in this film, including John Carradine, who slithers through every scene as a Gestapo officer. Watch for Howard Da Silva as Anton Stregel, Ava Gardner as a salesgirl, and Natalie Schafer (Gilligan's Mrs. Howell) as a self-absorbed opportunist.

I nearly stopped watching after the first fifteen minutes, but there is a reward for endurance.

Wearing a stunning array of gowns by Irene and photographed with glossy MGM care, Joan Crawford is a French woman (with a cultured American accent) who doesn't think France has to worry about the occupation of her country by Hitler's Nazis until they take over her home while she's vacationing elsewhere.

With the reality of war, comes the realization that her husband (Philip Dorn) might be collaborating with the Nazis. She loves him dearly but is beginning to despise his affiliation with so many Nazi friends. Then along comes an American pilot (John Wayne), whom she hides in her apartment until she can get him safely out of the country. That's the set-up in this basically suspenseful melodrama which, while unconvincing and full of twists and turns in the plot, is played by a competent team of actors, all of varying accents, who keep the story moving toward a not too surprising climax.

Among the good supporting players are Reginald Owen, Albert Basserman, Natalie Schaefer, John Carradine, Howard DaSilva, Henry Daniell and J. Edward Bromberg.

And yet, the whole film has the air of a minor B-film despite such extravagant settings and Crawford's never-ending wardrobe changes. It also has the air of artificiality which works against sustaining the sort of suspenseful atmosphere it seeks to gain throughout.

Philip Dorn rates special mention as Joan's true love. He gives a colorful, nuanced performance that is interesting to watch.

Reunion in France finds Joan Crawford as an upper class French woman happily engaged to industrialist Philip Dorn and confident that the French army will defend the Maginot Line and the Germans will be defeated once they make a move west. Of course history and the film both tell us it didn't work out that way.

When she arrives back in Paris because she's away in the country when the surrender happens, she finds that the Germans have taken over her house to use as office space, but they've permitted her to occupy one room on the ground level with its own entrance to the street.

That's a minor inconvenience compared to when she learns that her fiancé is collaborating with the Nazis.

Around that time a young flier with the RAF Eagle Squadron, John Wayne, accosts her in the street and gets her to take him in. He's escaped from Nazi custody and looking to get back to Great Britain.

This is a minor film in the credits of both John Wayne and Joan Crawford in there one and only film together. Crawford was being slowly eased out at MGM and she knew it. Still she was a professional if nothing else and gives the role her best. The part called for her to look chic and those Adrian gowns were in play again.

John Wayne doesn't even get into the film until almost 40 minutes into the story. When he does get in, even though he makes a play for Crawford, the Duke has some real problems as Crawford in order to help him has to play up to Dorn and his Nazi friends. It's not the John Wayne we're used to because it really isn't his film.

There's been some criticism by other reviewers that Crawford doesn't sound French. Then again neither does anyone else in the film. The rest of the cast. The cast in fact has a variety of European and American accents, Frenchmen weren't in good supply at that point in Hollywood, either that or they were otherwise committed. Surely Crawford was no more French sounding than Humphrey Bogart in Passage to Marseille.

Albert Basserman is the commanding general in Paris and the fellow who Dorn cultivates. John Carradine may be the best one in the film as the Gestapo agent who knows there's something fishy with Crawford, but can't quite prove it.

Both the Duke and Joan Crawford had better days ahead of them. Still the film is a curiosity and worth a look.

Decked out in gowns and outfits designed by Irene, Joan Crawford plays the French version of Scarlett O'Hara with her "Oh, war, war, war" grumbling until she has to duck a bomb while on vacation.

Returning to Paris, she finds her house commandeered by the Nazis. She gets only one room for herself and those gowns. In the meantime, her boyfriend, played by Philip Dorn, seems to have gone over to the dark side and is living high.

Once she realizes that, she refuses to have anything to do with him. Her patriotism for her country comes to the surface when she helps an RAF pilot on the run, played by John Wayne.

Despite some of the other comments on the film, I rather enjoy the handsome Wayne out of his spurs and boots. Because of Wayne, Crawford has to make it look like she's reuniting with her old beau, who has the power to arrange to get him out of the country.

Very entertaining.