Featuring Ophuls's legendary camerawork and extravagantly decorative sets and costumes, this favorite of the likes of Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael and Susan Sontag, is the story of a tragic love triangle during La Belle Epoque. The film traces how a single pair of earrings can lead to one woman's eventual downfall, and reveals a society of hypocrisy and betrayal. Trouble begins when the terribly wealthy Madame de... falls for a handsome, Italian diplomat, despite having an uncannily perceptive and suspicious general for a husband. "The obsessiveness of romantic love has never been rendered more brilliantly." (Andrew Sarris)
1954, b&w, 1 hour 45 minutes, France