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. 

Hitchcock/Truffaut

That recent documentary (by Kent Jones) on Francois Truffaut's 1962 interview with Alfred Hitchcock turns out to be a real treat. I had assumed it was a filmed record of their week-long conversation - I had the book when it first came out in 1966, and later as a paperback, but of course it was not filmed, just audio recorded, and lots of still photographs taken. 

So, we get a compendium of Hitch clips, from the earliest onwards, and some Truffaut moments too - I really have to see THE 400 BLOWS again now (somehow I never liked JULES ET JIM that much, but love LE PEAU DEUCE, HISTORY OF ADELE H, L'ENFANT SAUVAGE, the Antoine Doinel films, DAY FOR NIGHT, MISSISSIPPI MERMAID etc - as per reviews, Truffaut label), and regulars will know we have done a lot on Hitchcock here, including that "Sight & Sound" list with VERTIGO now at Number One - Hitch label. 

Also fascinating at the talking heads commenting here: only Scorsese, Paul Schrader, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Olivier Assayas, and Arnaud Desplechin.

All those clips of the Hitch classics and extended comments and scenes from VERTIGO and PSYCHO only makes one want to see them all again. 

Both directors were at their peak here, Hitch died in 1980, aged 80 after completing his last, FAMILY PLOT, in 1976, hard to believe Truffaut died four years later, aged 52 in 1984. Back to those movies, then.

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.

A classic year: 1975

IMDB 's Classic Film Board has a thread on the best films of 1975. I submitted my 1975 top twenty - I didn't realise it was such a classic year! and of course in that pre-video, pre-internet world we had to see all those films at the cinema (and London still had plentiful arthouse and revival circuit chains) and read the movie magazines to keep up with them ...  I have written about several of these here, as per labels.

THE PASSENGER - Antonioni 

BARRY LYNDON - Kubrick 

LOVE AND DEATH - Woody Allen 

NASHVILLE - Altman

HISTORY OF ADELE H. - Truffaut 

FOX AND HIS FRIENDS - Fassbinder 

SEVEN BEAUTIES - Wertmuller 

DOG DAY AFTERNOON - Lumet 

THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR - Pollack 

THE STEPFORD WIVES - Forbes 

THE MAGIC FLUTE - Bergman 

INDIA SONG - Duras 

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUI DE COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES - Akerman 

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW - Sharman 

TOMMY - Russell 

ROYAL FLASH - Lester 

SHAMPOO - Ashby 

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK - Weir 

MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL - Gilliam. 

Dreadful but compulsive (for Lee Remick, Barbra Streisand fans!): HENNESSEY / FUNNY LADY. 

In the IMDB poll on 1975, JAWS topped the list, but THE PASSENGER (PROFESSIONE: REPORTER) made a respectable 7th on the top 20, with BARRY LYNDON in second place, and NASHVILLE third followed by ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and also respectable placings for ADELE H and SEVEN BEAUTIES. 

A fascinating year in the mid-70s then, CHINATOWN was the year before, and the following year 1976 had TAXI DRIVER, OBSESSION and Visconti's L'INNOCENTE to fascinate us, while 1977 and beyond took us into CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, ANNIE HALL, NEW YORK NEW YORK and the rest ... not a bad decade at all, the 70s are up there with the 50s and 60s - great to have lived through them as cinema changed and developed so much.

1975 was of course also a great year for music - on those vinyl gatefold albums, like this Joni Mitchell favourite: "The Hissing of Summer Lawns".

Other classic years here, as per labels: 1954, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1970

A French double bill, with Blain & Deneuve ...

LES AMIS, 1971. Can one truly comprehend a talky movie in a foreign language, without sub-titles?. This fascinating oddity by French actor Gerard Blain is only available it seems on YouTube in French (there is also a French only dvd). It is a languid, moody piece which one can enjoy if one gets in the rhythm of it. Is it an undiscovered gay classic or another semi-autographical film by a popular actor?  Blain (1930-2000) was in those early Chabrol films like LE BEAU SERGE and LES COUSINS, and in other films like Hawks’ HATARI!. 

Gerard Blain

His first film as director, LES AMIS (The Friends) features an attractive young man, who looks rather like Blain himself, and his relationship with an older man. We see Philippe (Philippe March) at the start having his brown shoes polished, which match his yellow socks. Then he looks at clothes in a shop window – this is a young man who appreciates the finer things in life. Then he is in an expensive restaurant with his older friend, a wealthy businessman, who is also happily married. Nicholas (Jean-Claude Dauphin) returns to his country estate, with a present for his wife ….. It seems the two men have a secret relationship which benefits them both. Philippe lives with his busy mother who is always sewing or cleaning, while Nicholas finances their holiday away at the seaside, and leaves him enough money for his horse-riding lessons and hanging out with the local rich kids, when he has to return to the office. 

From what I gather Blain himself was bisexual in his youth and also had an older protector, so maybe this is his roman a clef about that. Philippe is actually heterosexual, and Nicholas does not object or put barriers on his pursuit of an attractive blonde. This relationship is obviously benefiting Philippe, as the older man teaches him and guides him and helps him to get ahead. Some scenes though go on rather too long, like Philippe and the blonde in that car,  then next scene, he is back sharing a hotel double bedroom with Nicholas (there is nothing explicit, it is all very tasteful), and then seemingly making a good impresson on the blonde’s family, until she finds someone else ….

SPOILER AHEAD: Truffaut liked the film and gave it a good review in his THE FILMS IN MY LIFE (I must see if  I still have my copy), and maybe hommaged it in his 1973 LA NUIT AMERICAINE (DAY FOR NIGHT) with what happens to his older man, Jean-Pierre Aumont, who also turns out to have a handsome young man in tow, Aumont though is killed in a car crash, a similar fate for Nicholas here ….. Is that how the French saw gay relationships in the ‘70s? – wealthy older men keeping younger ones, but not allowed to have a happy ending ….. Whatever, Blain’s film charms and keeps our interest, and is another fascinating European oddity from the ‘70s. Having now read Truffaut's review he says the older man gives the younger "the security, comfort and tender affection he craves"! It certainly helps to be rich ...

APRES LUI, 2007. One of those solid, well-crafted French family dramas. This time Catherine Deneuve is Camille, the mother of a teenager who is killed in a car crash – his best friend Franck was driving the car and the mother now focuses all her energy and attention on him wanting him to finish his exams, and offering him a job in her bookshop. Her daughter and ex-husband are baffled by her behaviour as are her late son’s other friends, as she tries to hang out with them, going to rock shows, drinking beer etc. Anyone who has been bereaved will understand this - she wants to do what he did to keep him close to her, to almost be him. The boy (Thomas Dumerchez) seems uncommunicative and baffled by it all. Finally events go too far as they burn down the tree he crashed into and they are taken into police custody. 
Its perhaps a meditation on how people cope with grief, rather like the Italian THE SON’S ROOM by Nanno Moretti. Deneuve is a sterling presence here in another good late role for her and it is ably directed by Gael Morel, who played the lead in Techine’s LES ROSEAUX SAUVAGE (WILD REEDS) (reviewed here at gay interest label) and has directed other films too, I am looking at his THREE DANCING SLAVES soon. Morel co-wrote the script here. Its absorbing though the ending is rather inconclusive. 

Catherine Deneuve: from Indochine to Place Vendome

INDOCHINE

How good to see Catherine Deneuve still very busy filming with several items lined up after 50 years in cinema. Like Cate Blanchett (post below), she would be on my list of 10 important actresses working today. I remember as a teenager seeing those arthouse posters for her early films like VICE AND VIRTUE and SATAN LEADS THE DANCE. Then of course the hit of UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG followed by Polanski's REPULSION, and Demy's LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT - with her late sister Francoise Dorleac, whom I like as well - see reviews at French, Demy, Denueve, Dorleac labels, plus those hits with Bunuel: BELLE DE JOUR and TRISTANA, and Truffaut's LE SIRENE DE MISSISSIPPI which suited her cool personality perfectly. 
Some indifferent international films followed where she was often just a beautiful blank: THE APRIL FOOLS, HUSTLE, LE CHAMADE, BENJAMIN, MAYERLING etc. Then of course that great renaissance in the 80s and 90s and beyond - as she did lots of varied films like THE HUNGER and Von Triers' DANCER IN THE DARK with Bjork, and several with director Andre Techine. I loved her recent one POTICHE with Ozon, where she is hilarious out jogging and communicating with nature before taking over her ailing husband's role at the factory, and she is fun too in his 8 FEMMES. I now have a clutch of later Deneuves to get through, so lets start with INDOCHINE ...

INDOCHINE. This was a free dvd in one of our newspapers a few years ago, but I never bothered watching it till now. I like it a lot, it plays like a French GONE WITH THE WIND or a David Lean film with those crowd scenes and sampans sailing on marvellous landscapes .... as directed in 1992 by Regis Wargnier.

Indochina during the 1930s: One of the largest rubber-tree plantations is owned by French colonist Eliane who lives with her father and her native adopted daughter Camille (Linh Dan Pham). Elaine gets to know young French officer Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez); after a short affair she refuses to see him again, as Camille falls deeply in love with him. Elaine gets him transferred to a far island where Camille goes in search of him, despite an arranged marriage. Her saga is rivetting and engrossing, as the fates of the three leads play out, rather like a parable of France's place in Indochina and Vietnam. It looks marvellous - Deneuve is perfect in those 30s clothes, and striding around her plantation in jodhpurs. Colonial life is nicely depicted showing also the brutality meted out to the peasants (like that family Camille travels with to that island).

It is a vast, panoramic love story set in the twilight years of French Indo-China. Comparisons with David Lean are inevitable, considering director Régis Wargnier's use of the setting as a backdrop to the love-triangle between the three main characters. Catherine Deneuve gives a strong, emotionally restrained performance as Eliane, the plantation owner whose colonial paradise is slowly falling apart. Linh Dan Pham is affecting as Camille, Eliane's adopted daughter whose journey from aristocratic ancestry to Marxist induction personifies the changing face of South-East Asia in the period around World War Two. It won the Oscar for best Foreign Film of 1992, and Deneuve was nominated as Leading Actress. 

PLACE VENDOME. A 1998 French thriller with a great role for Denueve. She plays the mainly alcoholic widow of a diamond dealer who has commited suicide after a shady business deal; she finds his secret stash of 7 perfect diamonds and decides to sell them herself as she re-enters the diamond business world of Place Vendome. Nicole Garcia’s thriller is nicely paced, does not rush anything and showcases Deneuve with a great ‘look’ here, as the world-weary woman slowly putting herself back together. Jacques Dutronc and Emmanuelle Seigner co-star, and English Julian Fellows (now creator of DOWNTON ABBEY) and Larry Lamb are in there too. It’s a stylish, moody piece of Gallic chic and thrills.

THE LAST METRO. I finally saw Truffaut's big hit from 1980 yesterday, despite having the dvd for years. and to my surprise I really did not like it at all.

Paris, 1942. Lucas Steiner is a Jew and was compelled to leave the country. His wife Marion, an actress, directs the theater for him. She tries to keep the theater alive with a new play, and hires actor Bernard Granger for the leading role. But Lucas is actually hiding in the basement...

It comes across as a banal bloodless story, with no tension or suspense about the German occupation of Paris (its a world away from Melville), there is even no tension about the husband hiding in the cellar - where they cook and have the run of the theatre at night. Its a good role for Deneuve in those '40s fashions, but Depardieu was rather a blank, there is no great passion between them either, and the ending is nothing special.  Perhaps its a valentine to the theatre, like his DAY FOR NIGHT was to movies. and as for the title  - the last train at night before the curfew - it has no bearing on the film at all ! Very pedestrian Truffaut then ...

GOD LOVES CAVIAR – a Greek curiosity from 2012 which I just had to see, as it features a sedate  Denueve as Catherine the Great of Russia! Shrewd casting. It is based on the true story of Greek pirate turned businessman Ioannis Varvakis, who made his fortune selling caviar in Russia and all over the world. This epic tale moves from Greece to the court of Catherine the Great in Russia and the shores of the Caspian Sea, and to the civil war in Greece and the fight for independence, during the Revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire. It looks good as directed by Yannis Smaragdis. It reminded me of that 1959 Warner costumer JOHN PAUL JONES with that other adventurer at the court of the great Catherine (Bette Davis for the last 5 minutes).

THE HUNGER. It was nice to have another look at Tony Scott's THE HUNGER too, that popular vampire flick from 1983, capturing that early 80s look nicely. That terrific opening scene at the nightclub looks like the old Heaven club in London, as our vampires prey on urban clubbers and pick up another couple, while Bauhaus intone "Bela Lugosi's dead" on the soundtrack ..... David Bowie and Deneuve are perfect casting - Bowie though is ageing rapidly and will have to be placed with the ageless Miriam's past lovers locked away in their caskets - I liked that quick flashback to Ancient Egypt with Miriam in full vampire mode. Then there is that great scene with Susan Sarandon who asks the piano-playing Miriam if she is making a pass at her to which Miriam cooly replies "Not that I am aware of, Sarah" .... love that final shot too of the new ageless vamire looking out over her new domain ... its a glossy exercise in style of course, but it certainly satisfies the eye. Deneuve's vampire is the equal of Delphine Seyrig's countess in DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (Horror label). Sarandon was amusing in that THE CELLULOID CLOSET documentary, noting that her character had to be drunk to allow herself to be seduced by Catherine Deneuve, one of the great beauties of the movies!  Below: back to REPULSION, 1965, and ROCHEFORT, 1967.

A clutch more Deneuve movies before too long: 3 by Andre Techine: THIEVES (LES VOLEURS), MY FAVOURITE SEASON and HOTEL AMERICA, as well as APRES LUI by Gael Morel (the lead in Techine's WILD REEDS - gay interest label) in 2007, LOVE SONGS (PAROLES ET MUSIQUE) from 1984, and Raul Ruiz's 1999 TIME REGAINED. Her book "Close Up and Personal" is an interesting collection of her diaries on various locations. Deneuve is still in her 60s but turns 70 later this month; we have grown up with her in the movies, unlike her sister Francoise whose career sadly barely last 5 years, but has left a lasting legacy too; they continue to fascinate like those other French legends Anouk Aimee, Adjani, Audran, Moreau ...

Summer re-runs: La Sirene du Mississippi

"This enthralling, erotic tale of a young millionaire and his mysterious bride is bewitching, exciting and beautiful. Written and directed by legendary cinematic genius Francois Truffaut (Jules and Jim) and featuring European superstars Catherine Deneuve (Belle De Jour) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (A Bout de Souffle), MISSISSIPPI MERMAID is nothing less than breathtaking.

Beauty is by no means rare on the lush, tropical isle of Reunion. Yet when island resident and tobacco tycoon Louis Mahe (Belmondo) first meets Julie Rouselle (Deneuve) - his mail order bride - he is completely enraptured by her radiance. But it soon becomes clear that Julie is hiding a dark secret. And when she disappears without trace, Louis vows to stop at nothing to find her - a resolution that lures him into a tangled web of relentless obsession, uncontrollable passion and untimately ... cold-blooded murder!" So, the blurb has a good write-up ...

SPOILERS AHEAD, if you have yet to see the film. Truffaut fashions another drama of obsessive love in this 1969 drama from a story by Cornell Woolrich (or William Irish) who also wrote the story used in Hitch's REAR WINDOW, and Truffaut's previous THE BRIDE WORE BLACK, that hymn to Jeanne Moreau. Like that one this also has its odd plot contrivances, like where our besotted hero follows Julie, now Marion, from Reunion in the Indian Ocean to France and finds her almost right away as she is now a hostess in a nightclub (as he sees on television). She of course had cleaned out his bank accounts but money does not feature too much in his preoccupations ... The original Julie has of course been murdered in a plot by Marion and her lover Richard, who met her on the ship MISSISSIPPI to Reunion - and he has taken the money and dumped Marion. The new Julie (Marion) shows herself to be coldly manipulative and greedy for money but Mahe is so fascinated he becomes putty in her hands as they go on the run from the detective hired by Mahe to find her - he is also being paid by the original Julie's sister .... as the plot gets more complex. There is a murder of course - Michel Bouquet is his usual excellent self as the detective getting too close.

Love is Pain is Truffaut's theme here ... can Marion finally feel love? - and it is literally pain for Mahe, as there is a packet of rat poison in the hideaway cabin they are staying near the snowy Swiss border, after he returns from another visit to Reunion to cash his all his shares in his tobacco plantation ... money they have to leave behind when the cops arrive. Marion though is a girl who likes money - there is that electric scene with Mahe, pushed beyond endurance, turns on her and denouces girls like her: not bitches or adventuresses or whores exactly, but girls who live outside normal society rules; girls who don't work but sun tan a lot, hang out around airports, travel from city to city, always on the make and finding men with money ...

The two stars are at their peak here, were Belmondo and Deneuve ever better looking? (I l love Jean-Paul too with Francoise Dorleac, Catherine's late sister, in THAT MAN FROM RIO in 1964). It is a hit and miss Truffaut though, like many of his others for me. We admired THE 400 BLOWS of course but I have not seen it since its release, LE PEAU DEUCE (with Dorleac - see label) was wonderful to finally see a year or so ago, I may be one of the few though who never cared much for JULES ET JIM or his last film FINALLY SUNDAY, but I was stunned by THE HISTORY OF ADELE H when I first saw it in the cinema - but maybe that was because of Isabelle Adjani's towering performance and looks - and of course everyone loved DAY FOR NIGHT in 1973; some of the Antoine Doinel films were merely charming (BED AND BOARD, LOVE ON THE RUN), I liked THE WILD CHILD and ANNE AND MURIEL led his more personal films .... but on the whole I relate more to Demy or Malle or Chabrol or Rene Clement.

MISSISSIPPI MERMAID is for me a preposterous romantic melodrama but also a pleasingly satisfying film as we go from that tropical island to the snowy Swiss wastes with our deliriously attractive couple. L'amour fou indeed. They go to the cinema too and see JOHNNY GUITAR ! - how Truffaut is that ...

Soon: more Deneuves including another Truffaut: THE LAST METRO, as well as INDOCHINE and a brace of Andre Techine films - and I simply loved her in Ozon's 8 WOMEN and POTICHE - as per labels, and I think I now have to have another look at her '80s vampire movie THE HUNGER.

Movies I Love: THE HISTORY OF ADELE H

Francois Truffaut's 1975 L'HISTOIRE DE ADELE H is one of those movies that enthralled me so much that I came out of the cinema as it was snowing in a state of total rapture. The story is mesmerising as is Isabelle Adjani, who made her film reputation with this, after being an acclaimed stage actress. She is just so haunting and compelling and incredibly beautiful, and has been so accomoplished ever since. THE BRONTE SISTERS was more Victorian costume drama but she had less to do and it was a much lesser film, but she also scored in items like THE DRIVER, CAMILLE CLAUDEL, LE REINE MARGOT, BON VOYAGE and others. (We won't mention ISHTAR!) Here though at 19, she is the daughter of France's great writer Victor Hugo and we find her in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1863 on the trail of a French officer Lt Pinson (Bruce Robinson) whom she is madly in love with. He however does not return her obsessive love and we watch fascinated as she turns into a stalker following him and recording everyting in her diary. Joseph Blatchley is the other young man who has feelings for her, but Adele is only aware of Pinson, even giving him money for other women.

Finally, madness overwhelms her as she follows Pinson to his next post in Barbados, where she is found penniless and is returned by Madame Baa to her father in Jersey. One chilling scene has Adele in a world of her own passing Pinson in the street and not even recognising him as she is so far gone in her own world. It is a vivid stunning performance - and it is just as powerful now. I just like the look and period feel to the film, one of Truffaut's literary films, which is probably the best ever on the nature of obsessive love. [Adjani, one of France's great actresses, has had quite a tempestous life too, including relationships with Beatty, and a son by Daniel Day-Lewis].

Some French films....

4 French flicks I recently enjoyed:

DEATHWATCH or LE MORT EN DIRECT - Bertrand Tavernier's 1979 futuristic film (released in 1980) set in a (then) run-down Glasgow and other Scottish locations, as a sort of sci-fi where watching people die on television is the new craze. Its "reality tv" about 20 years before it happened ... and is a weird mix of 70s Hollywood (represented by Harvey Keitel and Harry Dean Stanton) mixed in with icons of European cinema - Romy Schneider and Max Von Sydow. Schneider is fascinating as ever and delivers a powerhouse performance as the woman told she is going to die, who is followed by Keitel with a camera implanted in his eyes to record her every move for the tv company marketing the Death Watch show - sort of an early Big Brother. She goes on the run to avoid her death being a public spectacle, but is she really ill or being deceived? At over two hours it is probably a bit too long and there are longeurs but then Von Sydow enters making the last 15 minutes enthralling. Romy died two years later in '82 and is very natural and feisty here and even de-glamourised is still so beautiful. A fascinating experiment that doesn't quite come off...

LE PEAU DOUCE (THE SOFT SKIN) - Francois Truffaut's 1964 study of an adulterous affair and its repercussions is still a charming movie from that era of lustrous black and white photography. In the hands of another director, this could be a corny melodramatic story (rather like DAY FOR NIGHT's "MEET PAMELA"); in the hands of Truffault, this little gem becomes a credible, melancholic drama - but to modern audiences now the "hero" surely comes across as a smug, self-satisfield individual, cheating on his wife and constantly eyeing up other women. No wonder his wife Franca is dissatisfied. On a routine trip away he makes a play for the air stewardess who is at the same hotel, and this quickly leads to an affair. But would Nicole the attractive hostess - Francoise Dorleac at her vibrant attractive best - really notice this average, if well-known, middle-aged man? He takes her away on another trip but everything goes wrong as his time is monopolised by the provincial people he is lecturing to, and he gets landed with a bore who wants to travel back to Paris with him. Things comes to a head with his marriage and he images he will be setting up home with the hostess, but then his wife finds the photos of their weekend away and takes matters into her own hands. He does not seem too put out about Nicole leaving him, as he sits at his usual place in the restaurant as he arranges to resume his marriage... Its another nice movie of Paris in the early '60s (like CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 or LE FEU FOLLET). Jean Desailly is effective as our hero and Dorleac creates a very modern girl. One nice moment is when they put out the breakfast tray and the cat comes in on cue - which Truffaut had fun recreating in DAY FOR NIGHT.

ANOTHER MAN ANOTHER CHANCE - Not really French, this long unseen rarity turned up courtesy of TCM here in the UK as one of their United Artists titles they are currently screening. I saw it back in '77 so pleasant to catch it again now. It is of course a western reworking by Claude Lelouch of his 1966 mega-hit UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME - as this is another man and another woman in a different time and place. Its a handsome pleasant hazy re-creation of the old west (well apart from the rape and murder of vet James Caan's wife, Jennifer Warren...). It begins in revolutionary Paris as photographer Francis Huster and wife Genevieve Bujold decide to move to the new world and travel by ship to America, then they are on a covered wagon and attacked by redskins and finally decide to settle and open their photography business. Caan also arrives in town, having sold his ranch, and deposits his baby with the underwritten part of the school-teacher - a too-little seen Susan Tyrell. Then cue the influences of Lelouch's original: some years later they visit their children at the school, she misses her stagecoach drive home, the teacher asks him to give her a drive, they slowly open up to each other, he asks to meet her husband and then we get the flashback about how he was killed .... instead of motor cars and racing tracks there are stagecoaches and horse races - and the ending is perfect as he rides on horseback to join her and the children [having brought his wife's killers to justice] as the camera pulls back to leave them as figures in a landscape with a neat voiceover as it fades to a sepia photograph in a photo-album. If you loved the '66 original, you will get a lot of pleasure out of this too, particularly with Caan and Bujold at their most pleasing, both are very likeable here. Lelouch though seems to be out of fashion now, unlike Demy, Malle, Truffaut or Chabrol...

HEAVEN FELL THAT NIGHT [Les Bijoutiers Du Clair De Lune] - Back to the '50s for Vadim's second film with Bardot after their AND GOD CREATED WOMAN sensation in 1956. This is a sunburned film noir, beautifully photographed in colour and CinemaScope utilising some extraordinary landscapes in Spain. BB is the young convent girl returning home to stay with aunt Alida Valli and her lecherous husband who is soon killed by local stud Stephen Boyd, who has been seeing Valli. A powerful scene takes place during the Count's funeral where we see Valli stopping in the village streets and removing her veil which covers her face to stare in silence, at Boyd, as she conceals her passions beneath a steely exterior. BB is sensational as ever but does not come to dominate the film until she and Boyd are on the run though those incredible landscapes. Her scenes with the animals (a donkey and a piglet) are charming - highlighting her future interests. There is also though the brutality of bull-fighting, and a very erotic scene as the lovers finally get together. This one does for Spain what AND GOD CREATED WOMAN did for St Tropez. Bardot and Boyd are perfect here and both look their best, which did not apply 10 years later in that trash western (also made in Spain) SHALAKO in '68 when they were both past their peaks.... Valli too is terrific in a role with shades of her Wanton Countess in Visconti's SENSO. Like the British THE SPANISH GARDENER it captures Spain before all the tourists arrived... though this must have been much more sensational at the time with BB in various states of undress; one can see how she affected the 50s, like James Dean did, being a true archtype, as Mylene Demongeot and others copied her hair and fashions. Just what the '50s needed! The dvd also contains a bumper selection of trailers for all those other BB titles, some long unseen.