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Affair in Trinidad was a hit of its day, but it suffers from a lukewarm reputation as a late rehash of Gilda.

The plot is reminiscent of Notorious: a girl 'with a past' infiltrates a group of wealthy and amoral expatriates who are planning a terrorist attack on the US. The girl is doing so undercover, helping the good guys following the death of her father (Notorious) or her in-name-only husband (Affair).

Glenn Ford has little to do: we always know more than he does, which is one of the plot weaknesses. Alexander Scourby is excellent as the enamored magnate (the Claude Rains role in Notorious). In smaller roles, Juanita Moore is striking as an omniscient maid with a great island wardrobe: the role is a stereotype, but Moore is magnificent. Obscure Valerie Bettis is also noticeable as a sarcastic lush (she was, in addition, the choreographer for Rita Hayworth's borderline-sleazy dance numbers).

Rita Hayworth is at the pinnacle of her beauty. There is not one angle under which she is less than gorgeous (which cannot be said of some of her earlier hits like Cover Girl, for instance). However, she is also a bit vacant, a bit sad, a bit extinguished. Her performance would appear stronger if the character had been clearly written as a complex girl (like Bergman in Notorious), instead of also making her the hootchy-kootchy queen of the local cabaret. It is a writing problem, not an acting problem. The contrast between the character's inner turmoil and her torrid dance numbers is unmanageable.

Still, this is a very enjoyable movie of its time, and probably Vincent Sherman's best alongside Nora Prentiss. Watch it if you know Notorious well (and you will also notice some similarities with the later North by Northwest towards the end).

An unusual episode. The Chief is alone in his apartment while Mark is taking a class in college (on the unreliability of witnesses), and Eve and Ed are enduring a dull evening at the opera. The Chief receives a threatening phone call, followed by many more: the brother of a young man who was executed following a bloody botched robbery wants revenge. Most of the episode consists of the Chief setting an elaborate trap for his expected assailant, using household items. The three younger police staff return just as the Chief overcomes the unhinged killer. It's all dark and tense, with good music background. Interestingly, it is reminiscent of the last minutes of the movie Rear Window... where Raymond Burr was the heavy, not the victim. The opera scenes are funny, and the college scenes are good too.

George Bernanos, the royalist French writer, prepared in 1947 a screenplay for a film that never was made, Les Carmélites. (Bernanos' screenplay was based on a 1931 historical novel by Gertrud von Lefort, Die Letzte am Schafott.) The old-fashioned word for screenplay in French is "Dialogue." This "Screenplay for The Carmelites," (Dialogue Des Carmélites) was published shortly after Bernanos' death in 1948.

Francis Poulenc wrote an opera, which premiered in 1957, using Bernanos' very words (but not all of them). Poulenc's opera is one of the most important of the XX Century, and it is an intoxicating blend of austere religion and sensuous music. The opera is mostly about fear: the fear of a young girl, Blanche, who enlists as a Carmélite novice to find a refuge from crippling anxiety, just when religious orders are threatened during the French Révolution. The opera is called Dialogues des Carmélites (plural), and it is available on DVD in many versions.

Now, back to the movie. This is NOT the aborted movie that Bernanos wrote his dialogue for. Actually, the text of this screenplay is not faithful to Bernanos' stylized words. This movie - which was shot after the opera's première - is much more realistic than Bernanos' screenplay, or than the opera. This is not a great movie. Seen on its own, it is almost dull. But it helps one appreciate the opera better. One understands more clearly than in the opera why Mother Marie does not join her sisters during the final slaughter, for instance. Where the opera is very much about Blanche, and very much about anxiety, the film is about the loss of religious freedom during political upheavals (less gripping, but interesting too). The idea of "exchanging deaths" which is capital in the opera and in Bernanos' text, is not as primordial in the film.

The movie helps us detect an unfortunate recent tendency to camp up the opera. The atmosphere of the earliest recording of the opera (Dervaux - EMI) is quite similar to that of the film: restrained, dry-eyed. Nowadays, the opera is often closer to the hysterical atmosphere of Queen of Spades, or even Elektra, if you follow me. Nowhere is it more apparent than with the character of the old prioress. In the movie, she is underplayed by sweet and poignant Madeleine Renaud. In a 3,000 seat opera house, she is often played as a hammy grotesque these days (great singer-actresses such as Helga Dernesch and Anja Silja were particularly awful this way). If I were to stage the opera, I would have the cast sit through the movie, for sure, to help them ensure balance.

Back to the movie: Madeleine Renaud is wonderful, as I said. Jeanne Moreau is compelling in the role of Mère Marie (a larger, more fleshed-out role than in the opera). Alida Valli, with her whiskey and cigarettes voice and her sensuous gaze is an odd choice for the new prioress. (Her scenes with Pierre Brasseur bring back memories of Eyes without a Face.) Pascale Audret is not as good as Blanche: too pretty, too sane.

This movie will be of great interest for those who love Poulenc's opera, and for fans of Jeanne Moreau and Alida Valli. Otherwise, it is low-key historical entertainment with a simplistic anti-revolutionary message.