The Tender Enemy (1936)
Line, Annette's daughter, is about to marry a man she's not in love with. At the engagement party three ghosts revisit their disastrous relationships with Annette and decide to take action to help Line.
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How sad is this?
Crappy film
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
This is one of the rare movies in Ophuls' work were the woman is not sacrificed.The victims here are rather the two men,or rather their ghosts ...who come back on Line's wedding day.They are her father and her mother's lover, a lion tamer.It is not really a tale of fantasy though.The ghosts' role is to introduce the flashbacks .They exchange pleasant lines: "how annoying it is to feel the living passing through you!" and after realizing they were unhappy during their earthly ride,they decide to make LIne marry the man she really loves.This is an odd disconcerting film and the characters have not the substance they have in the director's other works.There's a good use of music: the popular waltz "Froufrou" (=rustle),"Aimer" sung by an opera singer and the ironic little tune "Il était un petit navire " (there was a little ship which had never sailed away).But one cannot place "Tendre Ennemie" among Ophuls' best works.