Elisabeth Bergner stars as an impish Venetian waif, Gemma, who becomes the abused wife of an errant English genius. His treachery and their indigence combine to replace the childlike Gemma with an adult who retains the wisdom but none of the vivacity of the Venice gamine. "Although the name of Elisabeth Bergner has not brightened the screen for twenty years, she remains among the greatest actresses in cinema history, as legendary as Garbo. Miss Bergner's handful of screen portrayals in English (she had been a German stage and film star in the late 1920s) were produced in Britain and directed by her husband Paul Czinner. It was her performance in Escape Me Never that had critics hailing her as another Eleonora Duse. In every actress worth remembering, there is always some inscrutable, timeless look about the face and a uniquely alive manner of voice, gesture, and expression. Elisabeth Bergner had these qualities and she understood the power of the camera. She knew exactly how to throw the proper reflections into its eye, for there hasn't been such a totally visual actress on the screen since her departure. She was a gamine, unearthly, a bit amoral, but with a fabulous range of expressions and mercurial shifts in temperament that one never tired of watching." (AJ)