A Foreign Affair is a 1948 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich and John Lund.

The screenplay by Charles Brackett, Wilder and Richard L. Breen is based on a story by David Shaw adapted by Robert Harari.

Though a comedy, the film has a serious and cynical political tone, attesting to the fascination of both Wilder and American audiences with the multiple legacies of Berlin.

There she sees cabaret torch singer Erika von Schlütow, who is rumored to be the former mistress of either Hermann Göring or Joseph Goebbels.

Colonel Plummer orders John to continue seeing Erika to serve as bait for Hans Otto Birgel, a former Gestapo agent believed to be hiding in the American occupation zone.

While researching the existing situation for his screenplay, he interviewed many of the American military personnel stationed in Berlin, as well as its residents, many of whom were having difficulty dealing with the destruction of the city.

[5] Marlene Dietrich was Wilder's first choice to play Erika, and Friedrich Hollaender already had written three songs—"Black Market", "Illusions" and "The Ruins of Berlin"—for her to sing in the film.

[7] Location shooting, much of which occurred in the Soviet occupation zone, began in August 1947, and filming continued at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood between December 1947 and February 1948.

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called A Foreign Affair "a dandy entertainment which has some shrewd and realistic things to say" and wrote:Maybe you think there's nothing funny about the current situation of American troops in the ticklish area of Berlin.

[1]Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "'A Foreign Affair' can take a terrific bow for mixing politics, romance and postwar intrigue.

[10] However, in April 2007, Dietrich's estate obtained an injunction that forced Universal Pictures to withdraw the DVD set because of an alleged contract breach.

[11][12] In 2012, Universal, through TCM, released the two-DVD set Directed by Billy Wilder featuring Five Graves to Cairo and A Foreign Affair.