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
Luise Rainer
Louise Mauban
Paulette Goddard
Nana
Alan Marshal
Marquis Andre D'Abbencourt
Lana Turner
Mado
Genevieve Tobin
Gina Bertier
John Hubbard
Fleury
Henry Stephenson
Pasquel Sr.
Gale Sondergaard
Madame Therese Charlot
Melville Cooper
Boulin
Erik Rhodes
Georges Mounier
Virginia Grey
Simone
Ann Rutherford
Yvonne
Hans Conried
Ramy
Rand Brooks
Pasquel Jr.
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.
US
