International Lady Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

International Lady Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 19, 2021

Norma Desmond, the hapless erstwhile star at the center of Sunset Boulevard, famously opined on her status as a former movie queen, "I am big, it's the pictures that got small." Not to pun too horribly, but there had been "small pictures" or at least Small Productions for some time by the time Sunset Boulevard appeared in 1950, courtesy of independent producer Edward Small, who built a rather substantial career out of working in tandem with a number of studios, notably Columbia, RKO and United Artists, the latter of whom released International Lady in 1941. Interestingly, Small left an initial earlier deal with United Artists to trek over to RKO circa 1936, where he at least gave lip service to a new kind of historical biopic, as evidenced by this quote from a contemporary Los Angeles Times article:

I intend to produce a different type of historical productions. There will be less of the awesomeness and less of the blind respect that has often marked the modern's approach to a historical character. Diamond Jim and The Story of Louis Pasteur are only the beginning. Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and Mary of Scotland, contemplated, will be great steps in the direction of honesty. We have on our schedules the filming of the stories of Beau Brummell and Jim Fisk and we are contemplating a minimum of punch-pulling. Newsreels are telling the truth about people, showing them as they are. Feature pictures are going to do the same thing; they will make men and women out of celebrities.

The mention of a film about Jim Fisk and a minimum of punch-pulling may be especially interesting for some who may have read Frances Farmer's ostensible autobiography (it was largely ghosted, and posthumously at that), where she takes Small's 1937 RKO production of The Toast of New York (about Jim Fisk) to task specifically because it pulled too many punches, especially with regard to the character Farmer was playing, Josie Mansfield. That said, I've joked for years that Small, whatever deficits some may find in some of his films, was about the only producer with enough temerity to hire Farmer twice (she returned to work for him again in the 1940 United Artists release South of Pago Pago). Perhaps due to the lackluster box office returns for a supposed historically based biographical picture like Toast of New York (which was something of a financial fiasco for RKO), Small may have intentionally changed strategies so that he didn't have to worry about any perceived "truth telling" in a historical context in terms of International Lady, though rather compellingly for a film made relatively early in the World War II era, it documents the fire bombing of London surprisingly viscerally. The rest of the film is beyond fanciful, however, offering a somewhat preposterous plot that takes the "musical code" element of The Lady Vanishes to arguably giddy new heights in its depiction of a famous singer and pianist named Carla Nillson (Ilona Massey) who may be passing secrets on to the Axis powers courtesy of her concert performances.

The fire bombing of London in fact starts International Lady off with a veritable bang (several, in fact), and it provides an opportunity for a perfect "meet cute" between Carla and her apartment house neighbor, a glad handing American named Tim Hanley (George Brent). The two wait for the all clear siren outside of their abode, and then head off to a club to celebrate survival in true "stiff upper lip" fashion, albeit given the fact that neither of them is British. Carla notices a guy following them, and in fact that guy comes right into the club after them, and a brief cutaway as he makes a phone call reveals that he's some kind of police official. Tim's obvious interest in Carla is interrupted when local music critic Reggie Oliver (Basil Rathbone) shows up, and is further complicated when Reggie insists that Tim confront the guy ostensibly following either Tim or Carla. That leads to Tim heading off to Scotland Yard, where in a rather silly expository scene it turns out that Tim is an American "diplomat" (read secret agent) and Reggie is similarly ensconced as a British spy. Both are hot on the trail of Carla, who is suspected of espionage.

While the underlying plot of International Lady is kind of unabashedly silly, the film does manage to deliver some passing suspense as well as offer some fun bantering between George Brent and Basil Rathbone, whose characters are kind of in competition to crack the spy case and bring everyone to justice. This plays out in what amounts to a cat and mouse game between the characters of Tim and Reggie with regard to their attempts to woo Carla, who seems kind of blithely unaware that she's being courted by not one, but two, spies. The film, in ultimately offering what is a more or less "traditional" romance between Tim and Carla (with Reggie as the comic foil third wheel), perhaps struggles a bit to reconcile an enduring affair with the fact that Carla may be a German agent (or at least a charter member of some Fifth Column regiment), but as some wise guru once said, love means never having to say you're sorry.

International Lady Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

International Lady is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of ClassicFlix with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.32:1. ClassicFlix hasn't included a restoration demonstration featurette on this release, and so I can't speak to what shape the element or elements used for this transfer might have been in, but this is another generally winning looking release of a lesser known film which has probably not been curated especially carefully over the years. In terms of any outright damage, there's really surprisingly little to be seen here, other than some "baked in" blemishes in some of the stock footage utilized, notably scenes of the fire bombings of London. The overall look to this transfer is certainly not razor sharp, and in fact at least some of Ilona Massey's close-ups seemed to have been filtered, and so fine detail levels can be somewhat variable, but are often quite commendable, especially in terms of things like fabrics on costumes. There are some slight flicker issues that can be spotted, and occasionally the sides of the frame can look a bit blanched. Grain can occasionally look just a bit splotchy (look at the background on the first screenshot for an example).

International Lady Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

International Lady features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono mix that has the expected boxiness of its production era's recording technologies, but which is free of any outright damage. Fidelity across rather wide frequency ranges considering Massey's vocal pyrotechnics in a couple of scenes is rather good, though the very highest frequencies can sound just a tad brash. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly for the most part, though Massey does have a bit of an accent. There are no subtitles available on this release.

International Lady Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

ClassicFlix includes a number of its own trailers for some of its other Blu-ray releases, which I personally don't consider a "scorable" supplement. One of the trailers for The Little Rascals also plays automatically at disc boot up. This lack of supplements may be what's alluded to in ClassicFlix's description on the back cover of this release of its Silver Series, touting "affordable no frill editions".

International Lady Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

International Lady probably would have benefitted from a more charismatic American lead than George Brent, but Rathbone is a lot of fun in a kind of sly comic performance, and Massey is rather elegant throughout. The supporting cast in this feature is a virtual smorgasbord of great character actors, including Gene Lockhart (as a candy magnate Fifth Columnist, no less) and George Zucco (as Lockhart's pretend butler, though he may have a bit more of a nefarious military past). This is not an undiscovered masterpiece by any stretch, but it's good old fashioned fun in its own way, and Rathbone fans in particular may find it a treat to see the actor playing it for laughs. Technical merits are generally solid, if limited by some inherent deficiencies, but with caveats noted, International Lady comes Recommended.