French Without Tears [Blu-ray]

From celebrated playwright Terence Rattigan and director Anthony Asquith (The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version) comes this effervescent comedy-of-manners starring the ever-charming Ray Milland (Arise My Love) and Ellen Drew (Christmas in July). Adapted from Rattigan’s 1936 play (which made Rex Harrison a star), this 1940 film version begins when Diana (Drew), the sister of a young Englishman studying at a language “cramming” school in the south of France, arrives in town to flirt with all of her brothers’ schoolmates. Alan (Milland), one of the students, tries his hardest to resist Diana’s charms—to no avail, of course! Deliciously entertaining, French Without Tears is a sly satire on the “civilized” romantic entanglements of the upper-crust milieu.