The Earrings of Madame de...

The Earrings of Madame de…
Publicity poster (France)
Directed by	Max Ophüls
Produced by	Ralph Baum
Screenplay by	Marcel Achard Max Ophüls Annette Wademant
Based on	Madame de... by Louise de Vilmorin
Starring	Charles Boyer Danielle Darrieux Vittorio De Sica
Music by	Oscar Straus Georges Van Parys
Cinematography	Christian Matras
Edited by	Borys Lewin
Distributed by	Gaumont (France) Arlan (US)
Release date	16 September 1953 (France)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	France / Italy
Language	French

The Earrings of Madame de… (French: Madame de… [ma.dam də]) is a 1953 drama film directed by Max Ophüls, adapted from Louise Leveque de Vilmorin's period novel by Ophüls, Marcel Archard and Annette Wadement. The film is considered a masterpiece of the 1950s French cinema. Andrew Sarris called it "the most perfect film ever made". Ophüls said the story's construction attracted him, stating "there is always the same axis around which the action continually turns like a carousel. A tiny, scarcely visible axis: a pair of earrings."

The film's different titles reflect on the fact that the surname of the Madame in question – the same as that of her husband's – is never heard nor seen onscreen. The few times in the film when it might be revealed, it is elided by noise or a camera trick.

Louise (Danielle Darrieux) is an aristocratic woman of Belle Époque Paris, married to André (Charles Boyer), both a count and a high-ranking French army general. Louise is a beautiful, but spoiled and superficial, woman who has amassed debts due to her lifestyle. She arranges to secretly sell her costly heart-shaped diamond earrings, a wedding present from her husband, to the original jeweler, Mr Rémy (Jean Debucourt). Relations between Louise and André are companionable, but they sleep in separate beds, have no children, and André has a secret mistress, of whom he has recently tired. Louise disguises the disappearance of the earrings by pretending to have lost them at the opera. The search for them eventually reaches the newspapers ("Theft at the Theatre") which in turn prompts Rémy to go to André and "discreetly" offer to sell them back. He accepts cheerfully and, rather than confront his wife, coolly gifts the earrings to his mistress, Lola (Lia Di Leo), whom he happens to be seeing off permanently to Constantinople.