Dreaming Lips was lovingly assembled by filmmaker Paul Czinner as an "ideal" vehicle for his popular actress wife Elizabeth Bergner. The star plays Gabrielle, the glamorous, spoiled wife of world-famous orchestra leader Peter (Romney Brent). Left alone by her constantly touring husband, she inaugurates a romance with brilliant but reclusive violinist Miguel de Vaye (Raymond Massey).
I'm afraid that every time I saw Elizabeth Bergner ("Gaby") in this film, I wished it was Marlene Dietrich! She isn't terrible here, as the wife of a concert violinist who gradually falls for one of his friends "Miguel" (Daniel Massey), but her characterisation lacks just about everything - she is mousey and lacklustre. The story depicts her developing crisis of conscience as her husband "Peter "(Romney Brent) becomes ill and she must tread a delicate path between duty and love. It has the advantage of some Tchaikovsky and Beethoven to add a bit of richness, but essentially it is just a rather flatly produced, melodramatic, manage-à-trois that left me feeling sorry for the poor old husband who really deserved better.