Aspiring actress Louise Muban attends the prestigious Paris School of Drama during the day and works at a dreary factory assembling gas meters at night. She daydreams and "acts" her way through life, and her fellow students at school begin to suspect her stories are just that - fabrications. After Louise begins to weave an actual meeting with a debonair playboy into a fantasy of club dates and romance, her classmate Nana discovers the lie when she too meets the playboy. Nana sets a trap for Louise, and the result is an end to one fantasy and the realization of another.
Acting
Rainer's luminous fragility masks steel—Oscar winner at work.
Costume
Parisian glamour vs. factory drab: visual storytelling in fabric.
Director
Robert B. Sinclair
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Lana Turner's fourth film—she's barely credited but already camera-ready. MGM knew.
Rainer filmed this during her contract battles with MGM; her real-life desperation mirrors Louise's fiction.