La Ronde

An intriguing and French little comedy, La Ronde possesses a wealth of amoral irony and a pleasantly fatalistic attitude toward love. Based on a play by Arthur Schnitzler, the film briefly traces the course of ten love affairs--between a prostitute and a soldier, the soldier and a chambermaid, the chambermaid and a student, the student and a married woman, the woman and her husband, the husband and a little cocotte, the cocotte and a poet, the poet and an actress, the actress and a count, and the count and the original prostitute. This merry-go-round of sex is attended by an aloof interlocutor who explains that he represents the audience, and it revolves to the tune of a haunting waltz by Oscar Strauss.

The humor of the inter-connected affairs is suggested through subtle shades of irony rather than by the rapier-thrust of social criticism. Although the picture takes place in the Vienna of 1900, director Max Ophuls has lifted it out of any specific time and place and has wrapped it in the mists of something resembling fantasy. His photography is excellent. Like an uninvited guest, the camera peeps out between swaying curtains to take in the soft tones of a series of lush interiors and to catch, as if by accident, the people who sport in them. As a result, an aura of perfume seems to hang over the production--seductive, but faintly corrupt.

The cast of the film reads something like an index of the modern French stage. It includes, among others, Gerard Philippe, Danielle Darrieux, Daniel Gelin, Simone Simon, Anton Walbrook, and Jean-Louis Barrault. All of these actors give fine performances, though two at least stand out from the rest: Walbrook, who plays the sophisticated master of ceremonies, and Barrault, as the poet. Few actors would have enough courage to make a declaration of love while lying on their backs on the floor, and enough talent to make the scene come off. Barrault, however, does. His work and that of Max Ophuls lift a light film above the general run of French comedies.