Good idea lost in the noise

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Having watched Kirk Douglas in 'Spartacus', I wanted to learn more about his track record leading up to 1960 by watching this film. Don't waste your time on this poorly made effort. It doesn't even come close to the quality of 'A Detective Story' because it fails to provide engaging characters or a compelling plot. Kirk can be quite intense in his roles and almost neurotic at times. The close-ups in this film allows you to see the sickness in his eyes that we also see in 'The Juggler'. Both of these films are dud efforts and can't really be called movies. Fortunately, Kirk made enough popular movies to cancel out the dud efforts such as this one and 'The Juggler'.

Fresh from the acclaim he got in A Story Of Three Loves as a romantic, Kirk Douglas got a film to do the entire feature length of in Act Of Love with French Actress Dany Robin. In all our wars on foreign shores there is usually a story of American soldiers falling in love with some woman of the native population. Kirk Douglas plays your average American soldier, no heroic type by any means who falls in love with a woman who is about two steps away from selling herself just to live.It was that all over Europe after Hitler's War. This same story could and probably has been done in all the occupied countries of Europe, East and West, in Italy, in Austria, in Holland, and even in Mr. Hitler's Germany. Our army had a no fraternization policy, but boys and girls will be boys and girls. And if the real thing did come along you had an incredible amount of bureaucracy to deal with.The whole subject was dealt with a few years later in Sayonara with a racial component attached to it and a much bigger budget. I don't think Kirk Douglas has ever been more romantic on the screen than in Act Of Love. It's an unusual part for him, but he carries it off. Anatole Litvak gets good performances out of his cast and the on site location cinematography is a plus.

I discovered this one on French Television yesterday as the last of a series of Anatole Litvak films. I've probably been over-generous by giving it a 9 but admit to having some strange criteria for my annotations. It is an American film made on location in the city of Paris ( as opposed to being made in a studio ). And this is the Paris of the golden romantic age of the 1950's, not the ugly one of today - there's no comparison between the two. In addition to this we have lavish helpings of accordion playing Michel Emer's "Le Disque Usé" ( Tant qu'il y a la vie, il y a de l'espoir ....), a beautiful song made famous by Edith Piaf many years ago and indeed difficult to find on CD in an ordinary instrumental version...as they say in French .."quand j'entends cet air, je craque ....." ! Another unexpected jewel in the film was a glimpse, albeit short, of my favourite area of Paris - old Belleville and the Rue Vilin Staircase. Whilst most of the film is made in central Paris with views of the Seine etc, at one stage, Kirk Douglas is hiding out from the army authorities down a staircase. This is the famous "Escalier de la Rue Vilin" and there are various views from top and bottom of this staircase. It is exactly the same place as is used in the film 'The Red Balloon", "Les Jeux Dangereux", "Casque d'Or", " Du Rififi chez Les Hommes " and "Le Doulos". I have a book all about this area and apparently another American film was made there called "Gigot, clochard de Bellville" made by Gene Kelly and starring Jackie Gleeson as a mute. As you may imagine, there's more chance of an elephant passing through the eye of a needle than of finding that film anywhere in the world. To return to Act of Love, this is a sort of French "Waterloo Bridge", it starts out in Villefranche Sur Mer on the Côte D'Azur and flashes back to Paris in 1945. The same Michel Emer tune is heard both now and then. Kirk Douglas, as handsome as ever, wishes to stay in one particular room in a hotel, and a flashback indicates why. It is the same technique as in Waterloo Bridge with Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh. At the same time he meets another American tourist who seems to recognize him by who he himself does not recognize. The flashback helps us on this one too. At the end of the film, all fits into place but you have that same sickening and lugubrious feeling you had at the end of Waterloo Bridge. Plot-wise, the film is a little slow to get off the ground, and the love affair between Kirk Douglas and Dany RObin takes time to gather steal. That is my principal criticism. Also we see Serge Reggiani in a very aggressive role which annoyed me no end ! I didn't like the man at the best of times but in this film he was frankly a pain in the neck ! No doubt the film is unavailable anywhere on DVD - but I am at least glad to have a taped copy and will keep an eye out for any future issue. Missed "rendez-vous", be they in Act of Love, Waterloo Bridge or even Charles Boyer's "Back Street" are very difficult for me to bear whilst watching a film and leave an everlasting and indelible memory within me. The film is definitely to be recommended for nostalgics of old Paris, Kirk Douglas fans, and rare gems from the 1950's.

A low-key film with a fine cast. Unfortunately, it's so low-key as to seem nearly aimless for the first half. The pace and interest do pick up, however, toward the end.As World war II grinds slowly to a halt in Europe, an innocent French girl on the brink of prostitution and a cynical but lonely GI fall in love in the City of Lights - where, due to the war, the lights don't always work, A flaw, at least as the film plays on television, is that the French accents are sometimes hard to understand. And there are plenty of them.Though ten years too old for the role, not unusual for actors in war movies before the '70s, Douglas turns in a solid performance as Pfc. Teller, the wounded American soldier now stationed at an army headquarters in Paris. But it is the lovely Dany Robin, rarely seen in America, who deserves most of the acting credit for keeping the rather unfocused story interesting. Fernand Ledoux is adequately brooding and resentful. The eighteen-year-old Brigitte Bardot is already beautiful, but look sharp or you may miss her.The real scene-stealer here, though, is the slinky Barbara Laage, who shows herself to be a fine actress in very nearly her only American film. Too bad she breezes out of the picture a third of the way through.The on-location shots of Paris are also a plus in a film that sometimes flirts dangerously with soap opera. Not a classic or even a forgotten classic, but worth your time if bittersweet love is your cup of tea.