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. 

Paris la nuit avec Theo et Hugo

THEO & HUGO, 2016. Hugo (François Nambot) and Théo (Geoffrey Couët) meet, in a highly-explicit fashion, in a French sex club. After they put their clothes back on and head into the Paris night, their conversation about how their sexual encounter had a deeper meaning seems to indicates the start of romance (though one has to ask who looks for romance in a naked sex club?) But their budding affair comes under strain when the confession of a mistake by one of the young men prompts a revelation from the other. 

This is pretty much a two-hander film which both actors rise to – including having real sex with each other. Paris by night is fascinatingly depicted too – I used to know to well in the 80s – as we take in the kebab shop and the first metro. The long central hospital sequence is interesting too, as the film plays out more or less in real time.

The long twenty-minute opening sequence in the sex club may be an eye-opener for some, but once the actors get dressed and venture out into the Paris night as they tentatively get to know each other the plot develops as we take in the consequences of having unprotected sex …..a more explicit WEEKEND (2011) then.

I like directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s earlier JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY from 1998, also an Aids-related subject starring Virginie Ledoyen and Mathieu Demy, the son of Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda. This latest film of the duo Ducastel and Martineau is another major landmark in gay cinema.

A different kind of gay flick is the Hungarian LAND OF STORMS from 2014, by Adam Csaszi. It drew me in with its slow moody pace, as we follow the young footballer Szabi, who has an intense relationship with  fellow player Bernard, as he returns to his rural village to renovate a house he has inherited as he wants to give up football; he hires surly local youth Aron to help and another relationship of sorts develops, to the annoyance of Aron's ailing mother and the villagers. Bernard turns up to re-claim Szabi who has to decide what he really wants. The ending though is a nasty surprise one is not expecting, but I suppose it highlights the East European homophobic mindset (though Hungary, like the Czechs) had a booming porn industry.

Goodbye Again, again

GOODBYE AGAIN is a nice entry to those early '60s sudsers like IMITATION OF LIFE, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, A SUMMER PLACE, BACK STREET, ADA etc. this is a rather low-key one though in black and white, and again we zoom around Paris in the early 60s with rich spoilt Tony Perkins, and his rich bitch mother Jessie Royce Landis (a good role for Jessie here).

It is Ingrid Bergman's show though as 40ish Paula, a successful interior decorator, hired by Jessie and getting involved with her son Tony. Paula has been carrying on for 5 years with businessman Yves Montand who is certainly having his cake and eating it, often letting Paula down at the last minute when he picks up a new 'Maisie' (he calls them all Maisie...). Paula is used to this but longs for commitment. Tony is going to provide it in spades as he follows, woos, flatters and finally gets Paula, which of course in turn makes Montand jealous. There are nicely judged moments along the way as our stars eat, drink, dance and drive around Paris by day and night. Perkins' little boy act gets a bit tiresome actually - he has a nice drunk scene in a nightclub with singer Diahann Carroll.

Francoise Sagan's novel is nicely adapted here, though the end is amusing now - Paula sends Perkins away saying she is "too old" [Ingrid too old at 40!], when Montand decides to marry her - as his single life isn't quite so satisfying without her to return to. But once married he reverts to his old ways with a new Maisie, leaving Paula on her own again, rubbing night lotion into her face. A nice touch too is when she is driving and crying so she turns on the windscreen wipers as she thinks it is raining.

The older female does not fare too well in these Sagan stories: Kerr in BONJOUR TRISTESSE, Joan Fontaine in A CERTAIN SMILE or Bergman as Paula here. Litvak was good with actresses, viz his films with Davis, De Havilland, Kerr (THE JOURNEY) and Bergman previously in ANASTASIA. This is a nicely satisfying soap - Perkins after PSYCHO had a good run in Europe with some super ladies: Ingrid here, Mercouri (PHAEDRA), Orson's THE TRIAL with Moreau and Romy, with Loren again in FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT in '62 and Bardot in THE RAVISHING IDIOT.

Paris

We love Paris here at The Projector - see label for previous posts. I have been there at least 20 times, mainly in the 70s, 80s and 90s - in 1970 when I was 24 my friend Stanley and I walked from one end of Paris to the other, my first trip there; then plenty more when my friend Mike lived there for ten years, and then with Eurostar and that time with Rory in 1995. How we like the Marais and Port de Clignancourt areas, plus Chatelet and Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Pere Lachaise etc. Our solidarity is with the city at this time. As I said here, back in January:
We try to stay above politics and current events here at The Projector, as we focus on trivial things like movies and music and books and magazines and good old fashioned glamour, as well as Trash delights and lots of People We Like and Showpeople. 
Today though we are focused on the events in Paris - another game-changer in the ongoing new world situations we try to deal with, as we did back in London in 2005. London will now be reviewing its security - when we were dealing with the IRA bombs back in the 1970s, at least they did not want to blow themselves up as well ..... 

Image de jour: Antoine et la mer ...

A vivid memory from 1959 (I was 13) was seeing Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS at my local cinema in Ireland. That ending was astonishing as Antoine Doinel, that neglected child (about my own age) drifting into petty crime, runs away from his remand home and keeps running until he reaches the sea, as the image freeze frames ....

Jean-Pierre Leaud made his name as Truffaut's alter-ego, and returned to the role of Doinel several times as we followed the misadventures and romances of the adult Antoine, in those agreeable Truffaut films like STOLEN KISSES (BAISERS VOLES) and LOVE ON THE RUN (L'AMOUR EN FUITE). 
A year after THE 400 BLOWS he played the 15 year old living on his own in a room in Pigalle, overlooking Paris, is Duvivier's enjoyable BOULEVARD. He was also of course the spoiled movie brat star of Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT in 1973.  Other movies included LAST TANGO IN PARIS, and Truffaut's ANNE AND MURIEL  - he is still working now. 

1959 was a pretty good year for French movies: there were also Chabrol's LES COUSINS, Mocky's LES DRAGUEURS, Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, while Rene Clement was shooting PLEIN SOLEIL, and Godard was shooting BREATHLESS ... to join that new cinema world of  Hitchcock and Antonioni in 1960.

French Can-Can

FRENCH CAN-CAN is a delicious pleasure from 1954 .... a visual delight by a major storyteller. This comedy drama from Jean Renoir chronicles the revival of Paris' most notorious dance as it tells the story of a theater producer who turns a humble washerwoman into a star at the Moulin Rouge.

Henri Danglard, proprietor of the fashionable (but bankrupt) cafe 'Le Paravent Chinois' featuring his mistress, belly dancer Lola, goes slumming in Montmarte (circa 1890) where the then-old-fashioned cancan is still danced. There, he conceives the idea of reviving the cancan as the feature of a new, more popular establishment...and meets Nini, a laundress and natural dancer, whom he hopes to star in his new show. But a tangled maze of jealousies intervenes...

Jean Gabin is in his element, Maria Felix is his fiery spitfire, and Francoise Arnoul is the new dancer she is jealous of. Edith Piaf appears too for a few moments, and sings. 1890s Paris is perfectly caught here, one imagines. The Moulin Rouge of course has fascinated movie-makers: John Huston's marvellous MOULIN ROUGE in 1953 as lensed by Oswald Morris; and Baz Luhrmann's 2001 version - theres also the 1960 film from 20th Century Fox: CAN CAN without a shred of period feel as Sinatra and McLaine go through their paces, with some energetic dance numbers. 

Renoir's version is simply wonderful, particularly that long dance sequence at the end, as Gabin dances the steps too backtage. Great movies just remain timeless. We  will have to return to Renoir's THE GOLDEN COACH from 1952 with Magnani, and finally see ELENA ET LES HOMMES with Ingrid Bergman in 1956, and his THE RIVER set in India and of course his earlier 1930s classics ...

Paris, 11 January 2015

We try to stay above politics and current events here at The Projector, as we focus on trivial things like movies and music and books and magazines and good old fashioned glamour, as well as Trash delights and lots of People We Like and Showpeople. Today though, as for last several days, we have been focused on the events in Paris,  as now millions take to the streets to show their unity- another game-changer in the ongoing new world situations we try to deal with, as we did back in London in 2005. Je suis Charlie indeed. Terrible things happening in other parts of the world, as in Nigeria, do not seem to attract the same attention .... or photo-opportunities. 

Romy Horst Delon Belmondo! Fashion! Glamour !

MONPTI. Oh, to be young in Paris in 1957 – Horst Buchholz and Romy Schneider were in this romantic confection from Helmut Kautner. He is a poor Hungarian who lives in an attic and has some colourful neighbours, she appears to be a rich girl whom he meets in the park. There are some lovely romantic moments but (like Romy’s CHRISTINE the next year) there is no happy ending here. We also see a contrasting wealthy but shallow couple and wonder why we see so much of them, this is revealed at the climax, where that car accident robs our couple of happiness. It is a slight tale told to us by the older Monpti, and it all captures that 1950s Paris nicely, I imagine, as it was 1970 when I first got to the City of Light. Romy and Horst (1933-2003) though shine nicely here, he too was a European star before Hollywood beckoned.

I am indebted too to a friend (thanks Mel) who sent me a 1967 documentary on Romy which I did not know about: ROMY - PORTRAIT OF A FACE, by Hans-Jurgen Syberberg,  catching her at a good point, on a ski-ing holiday, where she talks to the camera and discusses her career and life to date, including her teen years as SISSI and working with the likes of Welles and Visconti.. Schneider was one of the most prolific international actresses of her era, with 62 titles in her 43 years (1938-1982), often averaging several a year, 
from her teenage years in Germany to being an icon of French cinema.
(I have about 40 of her titles, with maybe 10 yet to see, see Romy label for reviews).

BORSALINO, 1970. It’s a brilliant idea: take two popular French male stars, set them in a 1930s setting, spare no expense with period detail, kit them out in great suits and give them lots of stuff to do, as they initially fight – over a woman of course, faithless Catherine Rouvel (from CHAIR DE POULE), then they team up and play at gangsters in Marseilles, but their easy-going approach to crime soon changes as they end up in control of organised crime in the city. Add in Michel Bouquet and Corinne Marchand and plenty of local colour and its all a leisurely, blissful movie, which I somehow did not see at the time, despite my affection for the two leads – Belmondo and Delon. 

It was a huge hit at the time, as directed by Jacque Deray (LE PISCINE), and a fashion hit as well, covered by all the magazines, but has not been available here for a long time, but finally, a sub-titled version. It all looks terrific and is one to return to. The two leads are perfectly matched too as they guy their tough-guy images, that first fight of theirs is hilarious. It could well be this hit gave someone the idea to team another popular pair, Newman and Redford, in a similar 1930s setting ? 

Vacation time: Holiday for Lovers / Bon Voyage!

HOLIDAY FOR LOVERS. Like Disney’s BON VOYAGE (below) this 1959 20^th Century Fox family comedy  (which I remember seeing as a child) starts out fun but soon gets tedious and one ends up begging for it to stop as it seems far too over-long and we lose patience with most of the characters. Jane Wyman coasts in both films, as the understanding wife and mother, but gets nothing much to do. Here, father is Clifton Webb, a consulting psychologist in Boston, whose older daughter Meg (Jill St John) a promising sculptor if you please, goes to Sao Paulo in Brazil to study with famous architect, Paul Henreid. She seems to be getting involved so parents and other daughter Carol Lynley are soon South America bound – cue endless airplane interiors, and lots of location shooting as our cast stand in front of lots of back projections of Sao Paulo, as it is obvious they never left the back-lot. Jill indeed seems smitten with the suave Henreid, but it turns out to be his boorish, beatnik son (Nico Minardos) she is romantically involved with, while Carol inexplicably falls for army fellow Gary Crosby. After trekking around Sao Paulo endlessly, the family head off to Rio and we see some of the carnival (maybe the same one used for the film BLACK ORPHEUS, also that year), and if that wasn’t enough local colour (all that’s missing is Carmen Miranda!), then it is off to Lima in Peru for a bull-fight. Then everything stops for a flamenco number or two from Jose Greco and the misunderstandings get sorted out, as we wind up in Trinidad – don’t ask! Directed by Fox reliable Henry Levin; at least Clifton gets to do a few South American dance steps. Fascinating though to luxuriate in air travel as it was over 50 years ago, and Sao Paulo certainly looks great, if not as teeming as it is these days. We like Clifton Webb a lot here at The Projector - see label, and Jane was certainly engrossing in that Sirk classic ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. she was third choice here after Gene Tierney and then Joan Fontaine both had to drop out due to health reasons (or maybe they realised they really had nothing much to do here) - it would have been nice though to have seen Gene's LAURA re-teamed with her Waldo Lydecker! while Joan could raise those eyebrows and be more acerbic than bland Jane. 

BON VOYAGE!, 1962. Comic adventure awaits the Williard family from Terre Haute, Indiana, when Harry packs up the wife and kids and sets sail on a long-awaited “dream” vacation to romantic France. However, their trip includes some unforeseen adventures: his wife Katie is pursued by a Hungarian admirer, his daughter Amy meets a brash young playboy, and Harry himself gets hopelessly lost on a tour of the Paris sewer system (he is a plumbing contractor)! Join the Williards for a hilarious, whirlwind trip they’ll never forget!

So says the blurb, but this is Disney corn which at 132 minutes is way overlong, with terrible pacing from Disney hack James Neilson, but it looks like they really went to France on a transatlantic liner which takes up most of the first half of the film. Fred McMurray and Jane Wyman coast on autopilot, Deborah Walley (wasn’t she a GIDGET?) is a pallid daughter, while Disney kids Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran reprise their usual roles. Its all an over-long travelogue around Paris – Francoise Prevost has a good moment as the coded  working girl who tries to pick up Fred, and then his son; Ivan Desny pursues Jane, Michael Callan gets to dance a bit and finally Jessie Royce Landis has some fun as his overbearing snooty society mother (above), while British Richard Wattis also pops up, as it all finishes up on the Riviera. 

Favourite places: Mont St Michel

I was looking back at photos of friends and I at Mont St Michel in France earlier - 40 years ago this October! It has been one of my favourite places since - along with Corfu also in the '70s, and later Rhodes and Lindos. 

Mont St Michel is one of the most visited and recognisable historic sites in France, and the most magical place along the Normandy and Brittany coastline. It is actually a little island in Normandy, cut off when the tides rise. It is overrun with tourists all year now, like London and any main tourist attraction, but 40 years ago in that wintery October, four of us had it practically all to ourselves as we stayed overnight in a hotel and explored the monastery the next morning. I loved the cloisters at the very top, steeped in history and those views ..... It was magical too walking around the town that rainy night and finding an ideal restaurant. 

It was a strategic fortification since ancient times and one can imagine life there during the dark ages and in medieval times, with monks and pilgrims to its abbey. Mont St Michel and its bay are now part of UNESCO's world heritage sites and well worth a visit, even in these crowded times as millions visit it each year. 

My 1974 postcard packs

1974 was actually a great travel year for me: to Milan for a week in April, and also several trips to France, where my oldest friend was now married and living in Paris, we took a motor-caravan there and I remember making tea as we parked outside the Louvre, and then on to those marvellous places in Northern France: Chartres Cathedral, the perfect town of Honfleur, Deauville with its boadwalks right out of UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME ...

 St Malo, Dinard, and on to the Mont, stopping off for delicious meals at traditional auberges, and shopping at charcuteries, boulangeries and patissieries, and also detouring to see the Bayeux Tapestry and the Normandy beaches of WWII. Another of my oldest friends, Les - now in Hastings - was on that trip, we will have to talk about when meeting up over the weekend, and Mike, my Parisian friend, is now in San Francisco, whom I am emailing later .... There was also a terrific weekend, or two, at that delightful town Le Touquet - I remember a particuarly fantastic restaurant meal there with those langoustines and an unforgettable strawberry flan, and a late night walk on the beach, and that balcony view ....

In Corfu, I particularly liked the Achilleon, now the island's Casino, but it was a holiday home for Sissi, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and one could visit her private chapel and state rooms, and those splendid statutes of Achilles in the lush grounds. I have covered Rhodes and Lindos here before, travel label, we are planning to return there this year ...

There is a wonderful early '60s French film AMEILIE, OU LE TEMPS D'AIMER by Michel Drach, which I saw in 1964 and it seems unavailable now, a brooding Victorian romance set around the Mont and Normandy, where visiting Jean Sorel sets the local girls a flutter - Marie-Jose Nat, Sophie Daumier, Clothilde Joano.  It might turn up again sometime ...

Tony and Janet go to Paris ...

THE PERFECT FURLOUGH (or STRICTLY FOR PLEASURE as it was called here, furlough not being a word we use here) or ‘Tony and Janet Go To Paris’. This 1958 Universal-International comedy was a cherished memory of when I was about 12, but I had never re-seen it since, odd it never surfaced as its an early Blake Edwards, scripted by the master Stanley Shapiro (the Rock and Doris comedies, COME SEPTEMBER, THAT TOUCH OF MINK etc). Its still quite amusing now, on a Spanish dvd, if not laugh out loud. 

100 sex-starved men are spending a year on a project in the Artic Circle and morale is very low – they are all bachelors, as married men would not be able to cope. Army lieutenant Janet Leigh comes up with the idea of the perfect furlough – where one man wins a dream holiday the others can share vicariously. It’s a trip to Paris with movie star Sandra Roca – The Argentine Bombshell – nicely played by Linda Crystal. Smooth operator Tony Curtis makes sure he wins the contest and wants to continue his skirt-chasing ways in Paris – a typical Curtis role then – but Janet and the army brass have to keep him in line. 

Sandra turns out to be a nice girl secretly married to an accountant and in fact pregnant. Her bombastic agent Keenan Wynn tells her secretary Elaine Stritch that he holds her personally responsible! Janet decides to loosen up and the usual complications follow to the expected happy ending. A pleasant piece of fluff, Janet looks great and it looks like they really are in Paris, perhaps on their way home from THE VIKINGS in Norway. Troy Donahue pops up too.

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 !!!