This crowning work of Ophul’s Hollywood period has in recent years become an important focus of critical study. Transforming a story by Stefan Zweig, Ophuls recreates turn-of-the-century Vienna with dazzling sets and lighting and his signature mobile camera work. The film presents the life of Lisa (Fontaine), obsessed since adolescence with a charming musician (Jourdan) who hardly remembers her, despite their brief, intense affair. Lisa narrates the film through a deathbed letter to her lover—one of the most celebrated conceits of the narrative cinema. In a notable flashback sequence in the film, the couple boards one of the more curious attractions of the precinematic era: Hale’s Tours, a railway car presenting moving panoramic landscapes.