24 Hours of a Woman's Life (1952)

Leo Genn is "Robert Sterling", a wealthy gent telling his friends in a café about a lady he knew once, in Monte Carlo. He was quite sweet on her - "Linda" (Merle Oberon), but she only had eyes for a dashing young man (Richard Todd) she helped out of a small cash-flow problem in the casino. Afterwards, they spent some time together, where they visited a small church and had luncheon with the local priest "Fr. Andre" (Stephen Murray) and his elderly mother, before she abandoned him once they had returned to Monaco. She couldn't make a clean break of it, though, and that night in the casino found him there, again, unable to control his addiction. There follows quite a scene as she tries to encourage him to stop, then we revert to the cafe scenario whereby the conclusion is explained. Mine wasn't the best edit of this film ever made, it seemed as if there were bits missing which really didn't help. Their rapid fire, intense, romance followed by her desertion is interesting, up to point, but there are too many holes. Why did she behave the way she did? We never really feel we get to know the characters at all. The ending is poor and the performances from all - I'm normally an huge fan of Genn - are really lacklustre. Some nice photography of the Côte D'Azur and Monegasque architecture help it out a little, but I'm afraid this is a all just a bit shallow.