With Gone with the Wind on gen­eral re-release, the newly founded Enter­prise Studio sought to create a sweeping four-hour epic love story set against the backdrop of war, displacement, and po­litical turmoil. For the source of this am­bitious project, Lewis Milestone returned to Erich Maria Remarque’s best-selling novel Arch of Triumph and co-wrote the script with Harry Brown. The story follows an illegal refugee (Charles Boyer) in 1938 Paris, who, while being hunted by a Nazi officer (Charles Laughton), embarks on a turbulent relationship with another stateless person, a suicidal prostitute played by Ingrid Bergman.
Milestone, never particularly keen on grandeur for its own sake, had brought a major paradox into his 224-minute film: it was too pessimistic and too in­timate to be enjoyed as sheer spectacle. After a disastrous preview, Milestone drastically reduced the film to 115 min­utes, sacrificing coherence. (The UCLA Archive has since restored 18 minutes of lost footage.)
In another collaboration with art di­rector William Cameron Menzies, it is the anti-Nazi mannerism of Menzies’s own Address Unknown (1944) that informs the visual quality of the film. The stark black-and-white cinematog­raphy is so powerful, it makes wrinkles of the face part of the drama. However, Boyer’s performance fails to convincing­ly portray his character’s transformation into a hardened cynic.
With a leading character who has fought in the Spanish Civil War and gets into an argument with Francoists resid­ing in his hotel, this was not the kind of film Milestone should have been making as he received his subpoena by the House of Un-American Activities Committee in September 1947, as he was still wran­gling with the film.
In its current form, Arch of Triumph continues Milestone’s tradition of ex­ploring the casualties of war – paralysis, displacement, and unrelenting despair – before the war even begins. “The world should be executed for murder,” Boyer’s character declares and it is Milestone’s anger speaking to us. It is remarkable how oppressive and bleak the film is. Yet, it is far better than its reputation and remains significant in many ways; a film we can still admire for its ambitions.

Ehsan Khoshbakht