In this adaptation of Francoise Sagan’s best selling novel, Paula is a beautiful, 40-year old, highly successful businesswoman. She is deeply in love with Roger, her mature consort of five years. Roger is a very charming “gallant” who loves Paula but is too selfish to give up his freedom to be promiscuous. When Paula meets Phillip, the 24-year old, immature, lawyer son of one of her rich clients, he falls hopelessly in love with the glamorous, sympathetic older woman and insists that the age difference will be no barrier to a romance. Paula resists the young man’s persistent advances, but finally succumbs when Roger initiates yet another affair with one of his young “Maisies.” An affair begins, and society does not approve. —IMDb
Born in Kiev, Michael Anatole Litwak was a stage actor and assistant director as a teenager. He entered Soviet cinema in 1923, working in Nordkino studios as a set decorator and assistant director. He directed his first film, the 1925 release Tatiana (Hearts and Dollars), but left the Soviet Union that year for Germany, where he edited G.W. Pabst’s Die Freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street, 1925), assistant directed, and helmed the early ‘30s features Dolly Macht Karriere (1931), Nie Wieder Liebe (1932), and Das Lied Einer Nacht (1933). Fleeing the Nazis, Litvak directed films in England and France, among them the international hit Mayerling (1936). He came to Hollywood in 1937, where he helmed many handsome and polished features, specializing in crime films (The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Castle on the Hudson, Out of the Fog) and romantic dramas (The Sisters, All This and Heaven Too). He worked on several Army documentaries during World War II, and co-directed… read more
Ingrid Bergman is brilliant as always, 4 stars entirely for her and her alone-- the filmmaking and supporting characters are forgettable
