Dreaming Lips

Dreaming Lips was lovingly assembled by filmmaker Paul Czinner as an "ideal" vehicle for his popular actress wife Elizabeth Bergner. The star plays Gabrielle, the glamorous, spoiled wife of world-famous orchestra leader Peter (Romney Brent). Left alone by her constantly touring husband, she inaugurates a romance with brilliant but reclusive violinist Miguel de Vaye (Raymond Massey).

I'm afraid that every time I saw Elizabeth Bergner ("Gaby") in this film, I wished it was Marlene Dietrich! She isn't terrible here, as the wife of a concert violinist who gradually falls for one of his friends "Miguel" (Daniel Massey), but her characterisation lacks just about everything - she is mousey and lacklustre. The story depicts her developing crisis of conscience as her husband "Peter "(Romney Brent) becomes ill and she must tread a delicate path between duty and love. It has the advantage of some Tchaikovsky and Beethoven to add a bit of richness, but essentially it is just a rather flatly produced, melodramatic, manage-à-trois that left me feeling sorry for the poor old husband who really deserved better.