Tonight's Movie: International Lady (1941) - A ClassicFlix Blu-ray Review

INTERNATIONAL LADY (1941), released this fall by ClassicFlix, proved to be a fun surprise.

George Brent and Basil Rathbone star as American and British spies on the track of suspected Nazi saboteurs who are damaging planes as they're being delivered from North America to Europe.

Ilona Massey plays singer Carla Nillson, who sends coded messages to her Nazi confederates via songs she performs on the radio. It's a clever bit of casting using the Hungarian-born singer in this role, and the music adds a fun spin to the plot.

I actually wondered a bit if this film might have helped inspire MGM's CAIRO (1942), another early WWII film featuring spies and singing, in that case from Jeanette MacDonald.

Coincidentally Massey's best-known films included the MGM musicals ROSALIE (1937), BALALAIKA (1939), and HOLIDAY IN MEXICO (1946). She also starred in a completely different genre in Universal Pictures' FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943).

INTERNATIONAL LADY provides a considerable amount of enjoyable repartee between Brent and Rathbone, and things get even more fun when Rathbone turns up at a party midway through the film in such a natural-looking disguise that, like the other characters, I didn't even recognize him at first! That sequence is very well done, successfully blending a lighthearted tone with suspense.

The movie also has some great mood and nice period touches, such as the lead characters traveling from Lisbon to New York via a Pan Am Clipper.

The good supporting cast includes Gene Lockhart, Marjorie Gateson, Selmer Jackson, George Zucco, Martin Kosleck, and the Lone Ranger himself, Clayton Moore. Familiar faces including James Millican, Sam McDaniel, Bess Flowers, Ralph Dunn, Trevor Bardette, Rita Quigley, and Lillian Yarbo also turn up.

The cinematography is by two-time Oscar-winner Hal Mohr, who famously was the only write-in candidate ever to win an Academy Award, for the shimmering black and white photography of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1935). Two years after this film was released he would win for the gorgeous Technicolor cinematography of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943).

This 102-minute movie was directed by Tim Whelan from a screenplay by Howard Estabrook, based on a story by Jack De Witt and E. Lloyd Sheldon. The movie was produced by Edward Small Productions and originally released by United Artists.

The ClassicFlix Blu-ray quality is quite good. Some scenes are a tad soft, but for the most part this is a nice crisp print in far better shape than one might expect for such a relatively obscure film.

The soundtrack is fairly solid, though I noticed a lack of sound balancing in the opening London Blitz scene meant the loud sounds of bombs falling drowned out a bit too much of the initial dialogue between Brent and Massey.

Otherwise I understood most of the dialogue, although subtitles would have been welcome to help clarify things here and there, given multiple British and Hungarian accents. It's my assumption that captioning is not provided on some ClassicFlix discs in order to keep costs down.

Along with the Blu-ray reviewed here, ClassicFlix also released INTERNATIONAL LADY on DVD. It's No. 15 in the ClassicFlix Silver Series, which is dedicated to making lesser-known titles available for home viewing.

The Blu-ray includes a gallery of trailers for five additional ClassicFlix releases.

I thought INTERNATIONAL LADY was a fun film. I really enjoy exploring ClassicFlix releases and hope 2022 will bring more interesting titles our way. In the meanwhile, look for future reviews here of the ClassicFlix releases of SILVER QUEEN (1942), BLACK BEAUTY (1946), and more!

Thanks to ClassicFlix for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

Tweet