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Really Surprised!

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A rather disjointed, dull film that Charles Boyer fans may like simply because it's another film with Charles Boyer. Nothing really remarkable in it other than an odd appearance of Warner Oland playing not Charlie Chan but a Chinese diplomat and Keye Luke playing his son (again). Scenes skip from the main characters poverty, wealth, poverty with no visible explanation, other than a succinct, "Well, I've lost everything."I suppose the point of the film was a lame attempt at criticizing prejudice in a film complete with Libby Taylor as "Corona" the stereotypical black maid complete with campy attitude and down-home witticisms but who, unlike virtually anyone else in the picture, seems to speak Chinese. Warner Oland's appearance makes the ostensible point of the film even more comical.

Here's a rare Charles Boyer film I recently discovered on YouTube (through my smart TV), and I really love it. The story is about the relationship between Barbara Howard an American society girl and Dmitri Koslov a half-bred man with a secret of his parentage that is threatening.I love those love stories where prejudice often gets in the way of romance. Why "prejudice"? Watch this film and you'll know why; I don't want to get out spoilers. You know, I thought Charles Boyer and Loretta Young's performances were spot on. So anyway, I thought this film is one of the best romance films ever made, and a rare treasure for Charles Boyer fans.

Loretta Young and Charles Boyer make for an interesting pairing (though Boyer hardly seems the obvious choice for a mixed race character. However, the theme of bigotry because of race and unrequited love between two people was very well done. Also, the dialogue of how society perceives their romantic entanglement made for effective storytelling and formed the basis of this story. Both leads are really strong in this tale and Loretta is at her most beautiful both in appearance and strength of character. This was viewed online and the print was really good. Though they were not paired at the end, the meaning of why they were separated was very touching and bittersweet.This is worth a look and should have wider distribution.