Revisiting old favourites ...

I have written about these here several times, so no need to rehash them again, but its been a lot of fun revisiting QUENTIN DURWARD, JUSTINE and SANDRA ..... see labels for previous comments.

QUENTIN DURWARD from 1955 is maybe my favourite costume drama from the 50s (along with Fritz Lang's MOONFLEET, also 1955 - I enjoyed seeing them as a kid at Sunday afternoon matinees). DURWARD captures the Walter Scott world perfectly, with perfect roles for Kay Kendall and Robert Taylor and Robert Morley as the very devious King of France. 

JUSTINE is a genuine Trash Classic, started in Tunisia and then moved to Hollywood, it in 1969, it has that plush 20th Century Fox look, a great score by Jerry Goldsmith and Anouk Aimee looking stunning in those Irene Sharaff creations, plus Michael York and Dirk Bogarde as well as Anna Karina. George Cukor took over the direction, lensed by veteran Leon Shamroy, so it romps along, capturing some of Durrell's exotic Aleandria. I just like it a lot.

SANDRA in 1965 is maybe a lesser Visconti, but is still a powerful operatic melodrama with Claudia Cardinale and Jean Sorel at their peaks of stunning beauty as the incestuous brother and sister. Again, one to savour. 

Pour le weekend

Our French favourites: Deneuve, Dorleac, Adjani & Huppert, Aimee, Audran, Hardy, Laforet .... plenty on them at labels! 

For the weekend 2: Samba Saravah

We always like posting items on French legend Anouk Aimee, 85 yesterday - maybe the most glamorous and mysterious of the French stars. We love her in Lelouch's UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME in 1966, here is that yummy Samba sequence again. 

Anouk was also Demy's LOLA in 1961, JUSTINE in 1969 - a favourite cult movie here - and we like her deliciously decadent Queen Bera in Aldrich's campfest SODOM & GOMORRAH in 1962 ... she also pioneered the "sunglasses at night" look with Marcello in Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA, at the dawn of the Sixties. Lots more Anouk at label ...

Bad Movies We Love: Justine

The little-seen JUSTINE from 1969 is one of those 'literary' 20th Century Fox movies - from the Laurence Durrell book, set in Alexandria during the 1930s - that somehow ended up a Trash masterpiece, practically ignored or laughed at back in 1969 when Fox eventually released it. George Cukor somehow created a movie of great moments - well I like it anyway - theres Anouk Aimee in one of her key post-UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME movies, looking sensational as always, and her little girl voice is part of her allure here. Dirk Bogarde is in his element as Pursewarden, young Michael York and Anna Karina too. It is all very lush and colourful using some of the location footage - Cukor keeps everything swirling, like he did with India in BHOWANI JUNCTION. Bogarde and Anouk were old friends from way back (she also appeared - wildly miscast - in the TV film of his novel VOICES IN THE GARDEN), and York had been in ACCIDENT with Dirk in '67. Here's what I wrote about it previously:

JUSTINE gets a couple of rare screenings as part of the Dirk Bogarde retrospective (only his post-1960 career) at the London National Film Theatre - I shall have to amble along and savour it on the widescreen again. It has been unseen for decades but it was a treat to get a copy recently, an enjoyable 20th Century Fox version of the Durrell books set in Alexandria and rather a botched movie. It was began in Tunisia in '68 with director Philip Strick (who did ULYSSES), but the project was then recalled to the Fox lot in California, with George Cukor taking over. Cukor and Aimee had one of THE famous feuds, as they did not get on AT ALL. The fascinating international cast though has Dirk Bogarde giving another terrific performance as Pursewarden, young Michael York as Darnley the narrator who falls in love with the mysterious Justine, also Anna Karina, John Vernon, Robert Forster, Philippe Noiret and Cliff Gorman as one of those dancing girls.

I see that

I just like the look of the film, those mysterious locations and Aimee being very enigmatic, looking alluring with that little girl voice, she seems incommunicative though, as though she does not want to be there – it was silly though to use the nude body double seen in long shot for the beach scene with the horses. Leon Shamroy makes it all look terrific and there is a nice score by Jerry Goldsmith. It really has the look and texture almost of a Von Sternberg picture, and remains one of the great good bad movies. I used to have a photo of Anouk as Justine on my wall back in 1969...by the late '60s everything Moroccan and Tunisian were suddenly part of the new hippie chic, as movies like DUFFY, MAROC 7 and PERFORMANCE showed.

It just looks terrific with those Tunisian locations, Vernon and Forster are the warring brothers Nessim and Narouz, and there are masked balls, belly dancers and lots of intrigue among the expats in Alexandria where everyone seems to be hiding guilty secrets. Bogarde is ideal as Pursewarden - by this time Anouk had become a very big star indeed, having been in movies since the late 40s, those Fellinis and UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME had added to her allure, but by the time JUSTINE she just wanted to be away with her new love Albert Finney, so it seems she had no real interest in the film and didn't film again until 1976 by which time her marriage to Finney was over.

York is the young narrator describing in the voiceover how Justine seemed to move in a golden glow..."blood-sister to a thousand tyrant queens". Everyone is in thrall to the fascinating Justine, the seemingly amoral wife of a wealthy Egyptian, biding her time in 1930s Alexandria with a slew of lovers, who spends her time looking for a lost child in the brothels of Alexandria, Anna Karina is the less fortunate prostitute who innocently lets slip Justine's real political interests to Pursewarden, after her romance with York has finished.


It is a condensed version of Lawrence Durrell's brilliant literary classic "Alexandria Quartet", about the sophisticated game of international intrigue and espionage in Alexandria between the first and second world wars with subtle character portraits from a range of British and European actors at the top of their game; it is just a perfect film of its time and place, late 60s, Europe and Hollywood combining. I can't wait to see it again .....

Anouk and 1960s glamour ...

I have not featured French actress Anouk Aimee here for a while, she is certainly another favourite whom I like in so many films, particularly UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME in 1966 ... and JUSTINE and of course Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA and more, as per Anouk label. French glamour does not get more mysterious. Good to see she is still going too in her 80s now and still looks marvellous. She was LOLA for Jacques Demy and also in his MODEL SHOP in 1969, and she was married to Albert Finney too ... (below, right). 

LA DOLCE VITA, above.

We aso like her Sapphic queen in SODOM AND GOMORRAH, a treat from 1962, left.
She was also a longtime friend of Dirk Bogarde's and appeared in the TV film of his novel "Voices In The Garden".

Paris in 1957 ... magic time.

Rome in the early '60s - the LA DOLCE VITA era; London in the mid-'60s - it swung; New York in the '70s - tough and gritty .... the zeitgeist always moves on and comes full circle again ..... it was Paris in the 1890s, that Fin de Siecle era, and in that jazz age the 1920s with Hemingway and Fitzgerland and the 'Lost Generation', but in the late '50s Paris was also, it seems, the place to be. Hollywood studios must have been falling over each other there (like they were in Rome in 1962).

Fred and Audrey were doing FUNNY FACE .... with Donen creating a magical Paris, not least with Audrey being photographed Avedon-style, in all those locations ...

Fred and Cyd heading up SILK STOCKINGS .... I wonder how much of this was actually filmed in Gay Paree ?

Gene Kelly, often in Paris - got in the act with his dance troupe LES GIRLS - but this was actually filmed at MGM - Kay Kendall's only film actually made in Hollywood, but George Cukor and Heuningen Heune gave it the required French look, and with Orry Kelly's clothes, the girls were perfect. I simply love their French apartment, which seems to be on several levels ... 

Otto too had Jean Seberg driving around Paris in those moody black and white scenes in his seminal BONJOUR TRISTESSE - more Sagan - or dancing while - who else? - Juliette Greco intoned that theme song ...before Godard teamed her with Belmondo in some other French classic ...

1958 saw Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh in Paris in their comedy THE PERFECT FURLOUGH, an early Blake Edwards film. Later in 1961 Tony Perkins and Ingrid Bergman (right) were driving around Paris in Sagan's GOODBYE AGAIN - review at Bergman label - while Tony teamed again in Paris with Sophia for 1962's FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT. Hollywood was also in town for Ritt's PARIS BLUES with jazz musicians Newman and Poitier. By then the Nouvelle Vague was in full swing after Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD in 1958, and Truffaut's 400 BLOWS, Chabrol's LES COUSINS, Mocky's LES DRAGUEURS, another Paris-by-night opus, all 1959 ...

1962 saw Truffaut's JULES ET JIM in Paris, where Agnes Varda's CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, wandered around, waiting for her medical test results ... Audrey Hepburn of course practically lived in Paris with so many of hers set there ... 1957 also saw LOVERS OF MONTPARNASSE (left) about the painter Modigliani practically starving in a garret, with those quintessential Parisians Gerard Philipe and  Anouk Aimee,

Brigitte charmed us too as UNE PARISIENNE in 1957, with Henri Vidal, who was also (his last film) in her COME DANCE WITH ME (VOULEZ VOUS DANSER AVEC MOI?) in 1959 ...  more on all these at French label.

Next location: Australia and the Outback !!!

French glamour, thanks to Monsieur Demy ...

Jacques Demy's films are awash with that particular type of French glamour, as we have noted here before, see labels, where he dresses up Deneuve and Dorleac in those pastels for LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHFORT in 1967, turns Jacques Perrin into a blonde sailor in a sailor suit, gets George Chakiris and Grover Dale into tight trousers, and makes Danielle Darrieux a very glamours mother to the singing and dancing sisters. 
As per report below, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT is now on the BFI list of '10 Best Gay French Films" ....

Then there is Jeanne Moreau as a very glam blonde at the gambling tables in BAY OF ANGELS in 1963, as well as Anouk Aimee enchanting as LOLA in 1961, and later even more mysterious in MODEL SHOP in '69, as well as the dreamy teaming of Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG in 1964.

Demy's wife Agnes Varda also made her CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 where Corinne Marchand, a glamours blonde singer, wanders Paris waiting for those medical results in that fascinating 1962 drama. And of course Jean Seberg was IN THE FRENCH STYLE in 1963.

French heart-throbs? The big guys like Delon, Belmondo, Trintignant and Ronet are well represented here, as well as Brigitte Bardot, as per their labels. Here's a bit more on those thriller guys Jean Sorel and Robert Hossein - both going strong in their 80s. Back in 1963 they teamed up for Duvivier's terrific thriller CHAIR DE POULE (HIGHWAY PICKUP) as per my review on that at French/thrillers/Sorel/Hossein labels. 

Sorel & Hossein in '63

 
Classic French glamour of course with Catherine Deneuve (again, in INDOCHINE, which we liked a lot, review at French label), those VIVA MARIA girls, and of course back to the dawn of the 60s, and the PLEIN SOLEIL crew, and Belmondo and Dorleac in THAT MAN FROM RIO! We love them.