Billy Wilder’s Berlin films: A Foreign Affair & One, Two, Three
1948, 1961
I love classic Hollywood writer/director Billy Wilder! And I’m far from the only one. Even those with only casual pop culture knowledge know many of his films: Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, Sabrina, The Apartment, The Seven Year Itch, Double Indemnity, Stalag 17, The Lost Weekend… On my journey to fill out the few gaps I have left in his filmography, I quite accidentally watched these two films back-to-back. It was amazing how much they seemed to be companion films (and I’m sure Wilder had that in mind).
A Foreign Affair is set in a rubble-strewn post-WWII Berlin. In beautiful black & white, it tells the story of a love triangle that is anything but black and white. A congressional committee arrives to investigate tales of shenanigans and fraternizations between the occupying American troops and the German citizenry. While the general conducts them on a carefully curated tour to inspire a sterling report, the officious female member of the committee makes her own observations that show the truth: the black market at the Brandenburg Gate and the lowkey prostitution of the German women are the main concerns of many of the soldiers.
This sets in motion a bittersweet story (Wilder knew no other kind) about a German cabaret singer who has grabbed on to an American colonel just as she grabbed on to a prominent Nazi during the former regime—because a woman had few other choices that led to survival and any taste of a comfortable life. Narratively, it is no surprise that this singer, her colonel, and the congresswoman are drawn into a very complicated tangle of romantic lies and secret desires. When you consider the characters themselves, however, it is a very interesting case of strange partners. The decadent singer, the rakish colonel, and the prim congresswoman make for a truly unexpected love triangle. Through gentle humor and gentle heartbreak, things head to their inevitable messy end.
One, Two, Three takes place years later, right after the construction of the Berlin Wall. The hot political spot is still the Brandenburg Gate, now the point of ingress and egress between regimes. A more straightforward comedy, this film is basically Anora in a kind of reverse. The high-strung head of Berlin’s Coca-Cola operations finds himself taking care of the boss’s teenage daughter while she is sent to Berlin to forget about an American pop star boyfriend. Before you can say “one, two, three,” she has snuck into East Berlin and married a driven Soviet communist. When her father hears through the grapevine about her marriage, he sets out to Berlin to meet (and most likely beat) his new son-in-law. It is a race against time as the local Coca-Cola head frantically tries to annul the marriage while holding his own together. Finally, in desperation, he decides to make a presentable Republican of the slogan-shouting young man in the three hours before his boss’s plane lands. It’s zany and fast-paced—a different type of film than A Foreign Affair—but it is also shot in the same pristine black and white while telling a story about live and lies that are dangerously complex. Now, Germany is rebuilt in beauty, and the same locations used in the first film are drastically different.
Together, these two movies tell something important about Billy Wilder’s homeland, Germany. Both films deal with American imperialism (military or commercial) while painting Berlin as a city caught in the crush of histories, where lies can be truth and the truth can be lies. There is something significant in the fact that Marlene Dietrich’s sultry cabaret singer is replaced in ‘61 by a bubble-headed teenage Texan debutante. It says something about Germany at each point in history, and it says something about America, too. It also hints at the metamorphosis of film between 1948—when war movies about U.S. patriotism were everywhere—and 1961—when the movies had become wacky comedy romps that were quietly critical of the United States.
Both films are great, and it’s wonderful fun to have seen them together.