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.
This is the first time the film has been released on DVD, with a beautiful new transfer from pristine film materials in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The film is packaged with a lengthy booklet containing a new and exclusive essay on the film by filmmaker and critic Luc Moullet; newly translated excerpts of an interview with star Isa Miranda; and remarks by director Max Ophuls.
Film: La Signora Di Tutti
Release date: 15th November 2010
Certificate: PG
Running time: 86 mins
Director: Max Ophuls
Starring: Isa Miranda, Memo Benassi, Tatyana Pavlova, Friedrich Benfer, Franco Coop
Genre: Drama
Studio: Eureka!
Format: DVD
Country: Italy
DVD Special Features:
• A new and exclusive video essay about the film by film scholar Tag Gallagher
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