"Arch of Triumph," United Artists, 1948

The Arc de Triomphe holds place of pride, naturally, in Lewis Milestone's "Arch of Triumph" (1948), an unjustly neglected romantic epic of postwar Hollywood (from a novel by Erich Maria Remarque), set in a 1939 Paris awash with refugees of the rising Nazi machine. The film glowers and broods like a noir on barbiturates -- after all, the war and the Holocaust are still to come by credits' roll. Charles Boyer is a damaged-goods doctor without papers or traceable identity trying to lay low in Paris after escaping from a concentration camp, and all is well and savvy for him in Milestone's densely evoked refugee underworld until Boyer stumbles upon Ingrid Bergman's lost girl, who's wandering in the rain because she left a dead body in a hotel room somewhere and doesn't know where to go next. They fall in doomed love, of course, but the film presses on for 133 minutes, and stretches several leagues beyond an ordinary romance, to recrimination and disenchantment and cynicism, even as the Third Reich begins its march toward Paris. Eventually, historical forces intercede, but not as you'd expect: torture, impulse killing, assassination, whoredom, much of it surprising to us but not to the characters, who turn out to be tougher and darker than we thought. What I loved as well: the movie's high degree of political literacy, referencing the quagmire of the Spanish Civil War and the alliances of Italian fascism and France's Third Republic as if audiences could be expected to know exactly what the characters were talking about. Perhaps they did then.

[Additional photo: "Place de l'Etoile" from "Paris vu par..." ("Six in Paris"), New Yorker Films, 1969]

"Paris vu par..." ("Six in Paris") (New Yorker Films) and "Arch of Triumph" (Lionsgate) are now available on DVD.

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Emmanuel Benbihy

Dear Michael,

You are absolutely right to remind people of these great classics. There is a whole tradition of omnibus films (free minded, militant, exploring different themes) and we can discuss the reasons why they have not been more successful in their time. Some of them created little cinematographic jewels, but most of them were missing cohesion, as you say: "never is the entirety of an omnibus very satisfying".

Today, it is interesting to realize that there was so little reflection about the genre, and in fact, so little desire to make this genre more cohesive and popular... This is definitely the vein of "Paris, je t'aime" and "New York, I Love You". By diminishing the length of each piece and creating transitional material involving all the characters and more, these films are an attempt to create unity with diversity.

One thing is sure, the directors involved often re-discovered a certain freedom through this kind of experience and involvement.

Overcoming the production challenge of these films, conceptualizing and structuring their specific production approaches, could lead to a new type of films... collective, collaborative, cohesive... with multiple moments, characters, visions of life illustrated by multiple directors, thus allowing a real and wider diversity inside the same feature film.

This is currently my focus as a Producer, the deep purpose of the "Cities of Love" franchise and I intend to keep exploring this format.

With best regards,
Emmanuel Benbihy

Producer of "Paris, je t'aime" and "New York, I Love You"

Arc de Triomphe Paris

I have not seen many French films, mainly because I don't speak French, but this sounds very interesting that I might have to just watch it anyway. Thanks for the review.