Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
Writen and Directed by Preston Sturges
CAST: Rex Harrison as Sir Alfred De Carter; Linda Darnell as Daphne De Carter; Rudy Vallee as August Henshler; Barbara Lawrence as Barbara Henshler; Kurt Kreuger as Anthony Windborn; Lionel Stander as Hugo Standoff; Edgar Kennedy as Detective Sweeney; Alan Bridge as House Detective; Julius Tannen as O'Brien; Torben Meyer as Dr. Schultz.
Unfaithfully Yours
begin with Alfred, a famous orchestra conductor arriving in town from London. At the airport, Alfred meets his wife, Daphne
and her sister, Barbara and her husband, August, and Alfred’s business manager,
Hugo. We find out that August had been
looking after Daphne while Alfred was away. But August actually thought that Alfred wanted her literally followed,
so he hired a detective. This angers Alfred. August gives Alfred the detective's report which he tears to pieces. As the film continues, Alfred
keeps receiving a copy of the detective’s report. Finally, when he meets up with Detective
Sweeny, he rips up the original report so no more copies can be made. But then Sweeney tells Alfred that Daphne had been seen with Tony, suggesting an affair. Later that night, Alfred heads to the concert
hall for this performance.
Over each
number, Alfred envisions three scenarios of on how he would evoke
revenge on Daphne. The first vision is a
skit where he murders Daphne and pins the blame on Tony; the second is Alfred
forgiving Daphne and writes her a check for $100,000; and that last is Alfred
forcing himself, Tony and Daphne to a game of Russian roulette, resulting in Alfred
shooting himself. The films ends
with Alfred in a prolonged slap stick skit of trying to orchestrate Daphne’s
murder, which, of course, completely fails. But at
the end he learns that Daphne was not with Tony. Yet Daphne never finds out what was on
Alfred’s mind - the three imagined scenarios of her death.
An object
that plays an important, but subtle role throughout Unfaithfully Yours is the use of
zippers and in relation to Alfred's reluctance to read the detectives
report. During the restaurant scene,
early in the film, Alfred approaches August and asks him for the detective’s
card. The image cuts to an extreme close
up of the wallet as August unzips it and retrieves the card. Of course, Alfred
tears the card into pieces. But what is
striking about this moment is that Sturges amplifies the sound of the zipper to
draw our attention to the object, suggesting that there is something
happening in Alfred’s head that neither the spectator nor the characters are
privy to. One possibility is that Alfred has
always been insecure about his marriage to Daphne because of his age.
For example, Alfred states to Daphne before
heading to his concert, (paraphrasing) “Movies fits your culture better.” So when Sweeny tells Alfred that his wife was
with Tony, he assumes the worse, which leads to his visions of enacting revenge
on them. It is at this point in the film
Sturges “unzips” Alfred’s head so we can see his mind's eye - the three fantasy sequences.
But for Daphne and the other characters, they
are “zipped up” and, of course, not accessed to Alfred's visions. They can only hear the music, oblivious on why
Alfred acts so peculiar at the concert.
In between the numbers, Hugo approaches Alfred backstage praising his
conducting. Hugo ironically states to Alfred, “What
vision do you have in your head?” It is only at the end, when the letter
finally arrives at its destination, that Alfred learns that Daphne did not
commit adultery. All the work Alfred
put into ripping up the detectives story, Alfred finally gets the truth of
the letter, which zips the story shut.
