Flashback, take two: here, Ophuls has the past visit the present, in the form of three ghosts, the spirits of three men who in life were tormented by their shared "tender enemy," Annette Dupont (Simone Berriau), who made each suffer for her despair at a forced marriage. Their visit is timed to coincide with the party Annette is giving as she forces her own daughter into a loveless marriage. Andrew Sarris notes that this "bittersweet boulevard drama...reveals (the German) Ophuls accommodating to the French style.... The film is festooned with ghosts walking about the sumptuous sets, but the Ophulsian technique is already subtler and more nuanced than the lightweight material deserves. It is a direct harbinger of the glories to come."