Fans of Robert Bresson’s spiritual minimalist masterpieces like “Pickpocket”, “Lancelot of the Lake”, and “Mouchette” are often perplexed when they see this glossy early melodrama, about love and betrayal in Parisian high society, which bears very few of the stylistic hallmarks of the better known films, beginning just two years later with “Diary of a Country Priest”. A wickedly conniving Maria Casares stars as a woman spurned by her long time lover, who tells her one day, though complacent, he no longer loves her; to get her revenge, she orchestrates for the man to meet, and instantly fall in love with a disgraced dancer (Elina Labourdette) who has fallen on hard times because of scandal due to her various love affairs. Bresson’s mixture of high studio lighting, especially on Casares, to suggest her evil plans, and outdoor location shooting is a harbinger of his later films, but everything else is purely of the classic French studio system, including the use of famous film stars, and a script with dialogue by Jean Cocteau; it may not be “Bressonian” as we know it, but it’s juicy, and beautiful, and belongs alongside better films of its kind by Renoir, Carne, Duvivier, and Becker.