Luise Ulrich bought to life a gallery of uncomplaining, subservient
women, exactly the type of film heroine embraced by Germany in the
mid 1930s - although sparkling Olga Tschehowa threatened to eclipse
Luise before she had even entered the movie. The very dependable Anton
Walbrook plays Frank Reynolds, an industrial magnate, who is returning
to Germany for the first time in 10 years. On the boat home he captures
the heart of sizzling Floris but after ten years of work he finds her too
capricious, she is a "charming adventure" - he is looking for a "blue
diamond".
Staying in Bavaria, Frank is taken with the guileless Regine and after a whirlwind romance they marry but she also has family secrets - a father and brother who are layabouts and see her marriage as a chance to bleed her dry of money!! Blissfully happy at first, Frank engages an old family friend to polish off her gaucheness and she enchants everyone with her freshness and honesty. Suddenly Floris reappears and under a guise of "friendship" offers to take Regine under her wing when Frank is called away on business but in reality she is a trouble maker and wants to entangle the young girl in a romantic predicament in which she almost succeeds with tragic results.
The critics of the day praised the movie but felt Ullrich was the principal reason for the movie's success. True to the feeling in Germany in the 1930s, one reviewer carped that once Regine entered high society she forgot her wholesome values (she didn't). There was some breath taking location scenes along the Rhine and through the Bavarian alps. Director Erich Waschneck had already directed an earlier version of "Regine" in 1927 (from a popular German novella) with 1920s star Lee Parry in the title role.
Very Recommended.
Staying in Bavaria, Frank is taken with the guileless Regine and after a whirlwind romance they marry but she also has family secrets - a father and brother who are layabouts and see her marriage as a chance to bleed her dry of money!! Blissfully happy at first, Frank engages an old family friend to polish off her gaucheness and she enchants everyone with her freshness and honesty. Suddenly Floris reappears and under a guise of "friendship" offers to take Regine under her wing when Frank is called away on business but in reality she is a trouble maker and wants to entangle the young girl in a romantic predicament in which she almost succeeds with tragic results.
The critics of the day praised the movie but felt Ullrich was the principal reason for the movie's success. True to the feeling in Germany in the 1930s, one reviewer carped that once Regine entered high society she forgot her wholesome values (she didn't). There was some breath taking location scenes along the Rhine and through the Bavarian alps. Director Erich Waschneck had already directed an earlier version of "Regine" in 1927 (from a popular German novella) with 1920s star Lee Parry in the title role.
Very Recommended.