The French list .....

Continuing our Lists theme, 25 essential French flicks we love, from the Fifties to the Seventies, again two maximum from each director ... (AND, Those French Tough Guys). 

• LA RONDE (1950) / MADAME DE … (1953) - Ophuls. Classic French cinema avec Danielle Darrieux & Co. 
• M RIPOIS (KNAVE OF HEARTS) 1954 / PLEIN SOLEIL (1959) – Rene Clement: Gerard Philipe and Alain Delon both at peak perfection in Clement's perfect films. Maurice Ronet is also terrific in SOLEIL as a very unpleasant Dickie Greenleaf ,,,,
• AND GOD CREATED WOMAN / HEAVEN FELL THAT NIGHT – as was Bardot in 1956 and 1958 in these Vadim scorchers! She WAS the female James Dean.
• LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD (1958) / LE FEU FOLLET (1963) – Malle - Malle's electrifying films still dazzle now, as does Maurice Ronet and Moreau ...
• LOLA (1961) / BAY OF ANGELS (1963) – Demy - 2 gleaming monochrome classics, as good as Demy's musicals, Anouk and Moreau at their best (Of course we love Demy's 2 pastel musicals and his 2 enchanting fairy tales as well, Demy label).
• AMELIE, OU TE TEMPS D’AIMER – Michel Drach, 1961 - not seen since at the Academy in Oxford Street London in 1964 when I was 18. Jean Sorel and a Victorian romance at moody Mont St Michel (my favourite place in France). 
• UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME - Lelouch. We just love Anouk and Trintignant and that lush score and visuals. Perfectly 1966
• LA FEMME INFIDELE / INNOCENTS WITH DIRTY HANDS (1975) – Chabrol's valentines to Stephane and Romy ... (just two from my 14 disk Chabrol set)
• UNDER THE SAND / TIME TO LEAVE – Ozon. A brace of Ozon classics. TIME TO LEAVE is harrowing, Rampling is perfect UNDER THE SAND (as was Deneuve in POTICHE).
• 400 BLOWS / HISTORY OF ADELE H. – Truffaut. Isabelle Adjani mesmerises as Adele H in 1975. and the first Antoine Doinel from 1959 is New Wave personified. 
  
• LES DRAGUEURS  - Mocky. More perfect 1959 French new wave as we take in Paris by night with Anouk and Belinda Lee.
• CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 – Agnes Varda, 1962. 
• LES VALSEUSES - Blier's shocker from 1974 still packs a punch as tearaways young Depardieu and Dewaere go on the rampage, in those flaired jeans. 
• THE BEST WAY TO WALK – Miller. Claude Miller's delicious 1976 drama
• THE WILD REEDS (LES ROSEAUX SAUVAGES)  – Techine. Andre Techine's gay classic from 1994, Gael Morel shines. 
• INDOCHINE – Wargnier - A Deneuve epic from 1992, almost a French GWTW.
  
• CESAR & ROSALIE – Sautet. Romy and Montand are perfect leads. One of Schneider's 6 with Claude Sautet, each is perfect. 
• PLAYTIME -Tati. TRAFIC is fabulous too as Monsieur Hulot goes travelling, 

12 FRENCH TOUGH GUYS:

• RIFIFI – Hossein in Dassin's 1955 masterclass
• MELODIE EN SOUS SOL – Verneuil's 1963 caper with Gabin & hot shot young Delon as they rob a Cannes casino, the playoff is perfect, 
• LE SAMOURAI – Melville's masterpiece from 1967
• LE HOMME D’ RIO – De Broca. Belmondo dazzles in Rio in 1964 with Dorleac. 
• BORSALINO – Deray. Delon and Belmondo ramp up the glamour in 1970
• THE WICKED GO TO HELL - Hossein's slick 1955 thriller with his wife Marina Vlady, and Henri Vidal.
• TOI LE VENIN -  Slick Hossein thriller from 1958, "Night is not for sleep" indeed! 
  
• UNE MANCHE ET LA BELLE (KISS FOR A KILLER) - Super Verneuil 1957 thriller with Vidal and Mylene Demongeot and Isa Miranda. 
• CHAIR DE POULE – Duvivier's jet black thriller from 1963 with Sorel and Hossein (right)
• LE CIRCLE ROUGE / ARMY OF SHADOWS – Melville's downbeat wartime epic with Signoret, Ventura & Co. 

More on all these at labels, particularly PLEIN SOLEIL, MR RIPLEY etc. 

All those directors !

Following on from the lists of actors and actresses we like, here is the Directors list .... its bigger than I imagined ! 

Michelangelo Antonioni  (right)

Alfred Hitchcock 

Howard Hawks 

Ingmar Bergman
David Lean
Michael Powell
Martin Scorsese

John Huston 

William Wyler 

Billy Wilder 

Joe Mankiewicz 

George Cukor 

Vincente Minnelli 
Josef Von Sternberg 

Orson Welles 

THE REST OF THE PANTHEON: 

Frank Borzage, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, George Stevens, Fred Zinnemann, Alan J Pakula, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Charles Walters.

OF THEIR TIME ('50s/'60s): 

Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Douglas Sirk, Frank Tashlin, Otto Preminger, Nicholas Ray, Anthony Mann, Robert Rossen, Martin Ritt, Stanley Donen, John Frankenheimer, Richard Brooks, Jean Negulesco, John Sturges, Blake Edwards, Richard Quine, George Roy Hill, Robert Wise, Robert Mulligan, Richard Fleisher. 

CURRENT DIRECTORS: 

Mike Leigh, Francois Ozon, Pedro Almodovar, Nicholas Winding Refn, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, Bill Condon, Ang Lee, Paul Schrader.

BRITISH: 

John Schlesinger, Joseph Losey*, Richard Lester*, John Boorman, Nicholas Roeg, Ridley Scott, Carol Reed, Clive Donner, Desmond Davis, Tony Richardson, Basil Dearden, J. Lee Thompson, Philip Leacock, Alexander McKendrick, Lewis Gilbert, Ronald Neame [* honorary Brits]  Right: Losey directs MODESTY BLAISE.

EUROPEAN (after Antonioni): 

Federico Fellini, Vittorio de Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville, Mauro Bolognini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Max Ophuls, Luis Bunuel, Wim Wenders, Francois Truffaut, Rene Clement, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Lelouch, Roger Vadim, Claude Sautet, Julian Duviver, Robert Hossein, Henri Verneuil.
Left and right: Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy.

WORLD CINEMA:

Ozu, Mizoguchi, Ray, Kurosawa, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Wong Kar-wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Hitch & Cary

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 !!!

Terence, Federico & Toby Dammit

An Edgar Allen Poe double bill: I had forgotten about SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRES) from 1968, and I liked Roger Corman's THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH in 1964 and caught it again this week on our Horror channel.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD was the kind of art-house fodder we liked back in that crazy (it seems now) late '60s era, and the film magazines had ample spreads on its star cast: Jane Fonda with brother Peter in the first story METZENGERSTEIN directed by Roger Vadim; Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot in Louis Malle's WILLIAM WILSON and the one that generated the most interest - easy to see why once one has seen it - Terence Stamp as TOBY DAMMIT directed by Fellini. Good its on dvd now. It catches Fellini at a good period after his big '60s hits and before SATYRICON, ROMA, AMARCORD, CASANOVA etc.

These are 3 Edgar Allen Poe stories freely adapted for the cinema, from that era of portmanteau films (I liked GOLD OF NAPLES, BOCCACCIO 70, YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW, LE BAMBOLE, LE FATE and others (Italian label). We can dismiss the Vadim segment out of hand, a very silly soft-core medieval romp which wastes the talents of all involved, at least Jane Fonda was going on to her great roles; the Malle one isn't much better - Bardot is totally wasted here and wears an unbecoming black wig, one would have expected more from the teaming of her and Delon - we get two Delons though as he plays the wastrel William Wilson and the doppelganger who pursues him or is he a man who is driven to the murder of his conscience; there are some unpleasant sadistic scenes too. Then we go to Rome as wasted English actor Toby Dammit flies in ...

Everything about TOBY DAMMIT shows Fellini at his peak, this 50 minute segment is full of fabulous moments as we share Federico's vision of an airport, a tv interview, an awards show as frayed strung-out actor Toby gets more and more out if it as all the producers and movie hanger-ons latch on to him. It really makes me want to go back to FELLINI 8 1/2 now again ... Nino Rota contributes a terrific score and its deliriously shot by Giuseppe Rotunno, with production design by Fellini regular Piero Tosi.  Central to it all is that stunning performance by Stamp - one of the most attractive actors here looking a total wastrel with that frizzy blonde hair  .... 

Toby Dammit, according to Poe, was a poor, foolish young man who would bet on anything, and, because he had no money, it was his head he used as his ante. Eventually, of course, the devil collects the bet. Here Toby agrees to do an Italian film - a Catholic western - in return for a Ferrari, a long sleek red Ferrari ... and again he sees that little girl playing with a ball.  To him the devil is in fact a little girl ... after a night of demented drinking he finally flees from the movie people and screams off into the night in his low red car ...

Fellini presents a fantasmagoria, a descent into a maelstrom of grotesque settings, props and faces - is Toby embracing his own destruction? Does he know how his car ride will end ? Toby cannot bear the lights and photographers bothering him at the airport - it seems clear that stardom has taken its toll and the spotlight has drained him dry of all his life and he's just going through the motions by the bitter end .... the end is stunning as he drives his car over a gap in the motorway into a blank abyss where we see there is a wire stretched across the road with blood on it .... and the little girl with the ball picks up the dismembered head .... It could of course be a metaphor for selling your soul for 15 minutes of fame and how the bright lights can burn one out. Its surreal, beautiful, and mesmerising and Stamp is stunning here. 

Terry & Monica/Modesty = the height of '60s glamour for me

This was "the look" then

He began as that beautiful BILLY BUDD and the thug in TERM OF TRIAL both 1962, then he was THE COLLECTOR for Wyler in 1965 followed by those mid-'60s essential films, going from Losey and Monica Vitti as MODESTY BLAISE to Schlesigner and Julie Christie in FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, Loach's POOR COW and that western BLUE and then Italy called: Pasolini and TEOREMA with Silvana Mangano, (sensational at the time) and Fellini here with TOBY DAMMIT. 

I used to have the poster

Terence wrote 3 marvellous volumes of autobiography covering it all, took lots of time off, made some very adventureous choices (unlike his old friend Michael Caine)  and continues filming now. I am looking forward to seeing him and Vanessa Redgrave and Anne Reid in SONG FOR MARION coming out soon. Certainly one of the most individual actors out there. I used to see him a few times in London as I worked for 20 years in Regent Street, just as it curved down to Piccadilly and sometimes in the morning I would see Terry clutching a carton of milk, as his apartment then was at The Albany just behind where I worked, in Piccadilly. I resisted asking him what Monica or Julie were really like .... and I also saw him on stage playing DRACULA ! 

We also liked those early '60s American-International Poe adaptations by Roger Corman like THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER and THE PIT AND THE PENDELUM - that last shot of Barbara Steele! - and the 2 he made in England in 1964: MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, all starring terrific Vincent Price. Vincent of course was terrifying in Michael Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL in 1967, and later had a lot of fun as DR PHIBES and in THEATRE OF BLOOD where he met his wife Coral Brown, that very individual actress. MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH is a sheer delight with its depiction of the village, the castle and the red death plague. It has moments that suggest Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL, and has great images as lensed by Nicolas Roeg. Vincent is in his element as Prince Prospero imagining he can keep the plague from entering his castle, and we liked young Jane Asher here, David Weston, and Hammer scream queen Hazel Court who makes an unwise pact with "a friend of Prince Prospero" ... it all looks terrific. Corman of course shot cheaply and quickly, here on sets left over from BECKET.

People We Like: Maurice Ronet

I have already blogged a lot here on Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belondo and Jean Sorel (as per labels), but Maurice Ronet (1927-1983) is another fascinating French actor, and certainly the equal of Delon and Belmondo, Sorel probably being the most lightweight.

I first encountered Ronet in 1960 as Dickie Greenleaf in one of the first European films I saw back then, Rene Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL, from Highsmith's book which is one of my favourites. Delon had the more showy role, but Ronet captured Greenleaf perfectly. He had already done Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD in 1958 (see below) and appeared in other films like CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE being in films since the early '50s.

Ronet brought a complexity and depth to his roles, and an easy charm, even when featured as the lover in Chabrol's LA FEMME INFIDELE in 1968 - another one where he gets killed off, coming into close contact with a blunt object. Then there was that fatal re-union with Delon in LA PISCINE, Jacques Deray's glossy thriller from 1969, also with Romy Schneider, whom Ronet starred with in QUI? IN 1970 - a so-so thriller but with good roles for them. He was perfect with Jean Seberg in Chabrol's sunlit comedy thriller THE ROUTE TO CORINTH in 1967, and with Monica Vitti in THE SCARLET LADY in 1969 (as per my reviews on those, Vitti, Seberg, Schneider labels). He also featured in other international movies like Carl Foreman's THE VICTORS in 1963 and the all-star BLOODLINE (with Schneider again) in 1979, and part of Vadim's LA RONDE remake in 1964.



His best role though has to be in Malle's LE FEU FOLLET in 1963 as the recovering alcoholic Alain Leroy who is trying to find a reason to go on living. Its a profound, moving, complex masterwork - reviewed below. Ronet had quite a prolific career (as detailed on his profile at IMDB) and did a lot of routine films, as most actors do, but at his best he was supreme. He died in 1983 aged 55.

A Louis Malle double feature

Two of Louis Malle's early features, from that good box set [Vol 1] which also includes LES AMANTS and ZAZIE DANS LE METRO. Malle (who died in 1995 aged 63) began filming in the mid '50s with underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, their first documentary being the well-received LE MONDE DU SILENCE in '56.

LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD – (or ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS to give it it’s American title). Louis Malle’s 1958 thriller ASCENSEUR POUR L'ÉCHAFAUD is still a fascinating experience as the plot spirals off in different directions. We have Jeanne Moreau endlessly wandering around Paris by night and in the rain looking for her missing lover (Maurice Ronet) who was supposed to kill her wealthy industrialist husband and join her, but he get trapped in the lift/elevator when the power is turned off, after the murder which he fakes to look like suicide. Can he escape? Meanwhile, his car is stolen by a teenage delinquent and his girl, who speed off and get involved with a German couple. We wonder why we are spending so much time with them, but this too leads to murder as the stories converge …. The spare Miles Davis soundtrack is cool beyond belief and Paris in 1958 looks the place to be. For me Malle (like Demy) is the most interesting of the New Wave directors [he was just 25 when directing this] and it is still a fascinating movie with Moreau and Ronet in their early prime. Marvellous black and white photography too by Henri Decae.



LE FEU FOLLET (THE FIRE WITHIN). This made such a big impression on me when I saw it aged 18 in 1964 that I did not need to see it again until now. It is surely Malle's most outstanding work, adapted from the Drieu La Rochelle story, with an Erik Satie soundtrack (so appropriate) and those luminous images by Ghislain Cloquet and with an astounding performance by Maurice Ronet. This and Bogarde's role in THE SERVANT are surely the outstanding performances of 1963. Ronet captures every facet as Alain Leroy, a playboy drying out at a private clinic who really finds nothing to live for once he is "cured". His alcoholic playboy is also a terminally depressed and finds life hollow and meaningless. Even the visiting friend of his ex-wife, whom he sleeps with and who writes him a cheque, cannot rouse him. He likes the routine at the clinic as we observe him in his room - notice the picture of Marilyn Monroe (a supposed recent suicide) and other newspaper features on death clipped to the wall... and the date scrawled on the mirror - the next day's date.


He decides on a whim to return to his old haunts in Paris to see if any of his old friends can be of any help in giving him a reason to go on living. Paris again in the early 60s looks marvellous as we linger at the Cafe Flore and the Brasserie Lipp. But Alain seems a shadow of his former jolly self to the barman and hotel staff he used to know. His best friend has settled into domesticity with a wife and child and is writing a book, he meets Jeanne Moreau, and Alexandra Stewart and her high society friends, and he starts drinking again. There is also that group of homosexuals who notice Alain and comment on how he has changed as one comments that a friend of theirs had been in love with him. It sounds depressing but it isn't really, and is a mesmerising film about suicide as a rational way out for a hollow man who is all used up and cannot see any point in continuing.... it is inevitable when back at his room to see him pack up his belongings and his life.



Malle went on to lots more varied films from the jollity of VIVA MARIA and the dramatic LACOMBE LUCIEN to those American classics like ATLANTIC CITY - LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD is a young man's film exploring what cinema can do, but LE FEU FOLLET remains a personal favourite that simply endures. A key '60s film too, comparable to THE SERVANT or BLOW-UP or BELLE DE JOUR.