How shocking! How divinely shocking!

Wilder’s first colour film (and sole for seven years before, uh, The Seven Year Itch), this 1948 musical romance is a fairly simple construction – unlikely couple relationship paired with that of the doggies which bring them together – but it is very, very sweet, and doubtlessly effective. Technicolor in stark contrast to, heh, the chiaroscuro of the director’s breakthrough films – the wonderful Five Graves to Cairo and The Lost Weekend, the seminal Double Indemnity – Wilder’s film gives us a nostalgic view of his native Austria, yodelling and all, which is interesting given the production’s specific historical context. Crosby and Fontaine, meanwhile, are gently engrossing as the love story unfolds. Delightful.