La signora di tutti - Kaikkien nainen (1934) DVD

With the Nazi terror on the ascent, master filmmaker Max Ophuls fled to Italy in 1934 and made La signora di tutti [Everybody's Lady] - an exuberant, desperate melodrama that, although arriving early in Ophuls' body of work, ranks comfortably alongside Letter from an Unknown Woman, The Earrings of Madame de..., or Lola Montès in the hierarchy of the director's achievements.

Isa Miranda, one of Italy's greatest stars, plays the role of a star (in the part that made her a star) pressed to revisit the entire history of her lovers to the present moment through an inexorable web of flashbacks... brought on by the anaesthetic following a failed suicide attempt. From the record revolving on a turntable in the picture's opening moments, Ophuls sets into motion one of those roundelays with fate that he alone could pull off with such eminent elegance.

A precursor to the romantic themes that would culminate in Lola Montès, Ophuls' vertiginous La signora di tutti serves brilliantly as both a critique of one grande dame's own powerful narcissism, and an elevation of her glacial femininity to the level of sublime fetish. 

The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present La signora di tutti [Everybody's Lady], the stunningly beautiful '30s masterpiece by famed auteur Max Ophuls (Letter from an Unknown Woman, The Reckless Moment, La ronde, The Earrings of Madame de..., Lola Montès) starring the legendary Italian actress Isa Miranda.