Henri Troyat Movies

Internal contradictions about the nature and quality of romantic love battle it out in this routine drama about Elizabeth (Lucile Saint-Simon) a young woman with a problem. Her parents own a hotel at a ski resort and so Elizabeth encounters more than her share of ardent, admiring young men. She consistently puts them off but then buckles under the charms of a lusty Don Juan who is not so much interested in finding a Juliet as he is in finding a passing night of pleasure. Elizabeth ends up heartbroken but unbowed and in rebellion she marries an aspiring pianist. Seemingly settled down at last, she soon finds that both appearances and a marriage contract are not enough to extinguish her old flame. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

To fully enjoy the rugged outdoors adventure The Mountain, one must accept the notion that 55-year-old Spencer Tracy and 25-year-old Robert Wagner are brothers. Tracy plays veteran mountain guide Zachary Wheeler, who is coaxed out of retirement when a passenger plane crashes on high mountain. He decides it isn't worth risking his life to recover the bodies of the passengers, but hot-headed younger brother Chris (Robert Wagner), hoping to claim the victims' valuables, talks Zachary into accompanying him to the mountaintop. After their treacherous upward journey, the brothers discover that one of the passengers, a Hindu girl (Anna Kashfi), is still alive. Zachary wants to bring her back to safety, but the greedy Chris would rather abandon her and make off with the valuables. It is, inevitable, then, that not everyone involved is going to get off the mountain alive. A worthwhile character study enhanced by superb location photography, The Mountain is compromised by its overreliance on phony-looking studio "exteriors". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fire in the Straw (Le Feu de Paille) was the final directorial effort of French filmmaker Jean Benoit-Levy before he left his wartorn native country in favor of a teaching post at the New School for Social Research. Based on Henri Troyat's award-winning novel Grandeur Nature, the film details the progress of 12-year-old Christian Vautier (Jean Keller), who rises to fame as a movie star. Christian's father Antoine (Lucien Baroux), himself a failed actor, is gratified by his son's popularity, though he knows it's only a matter of time before the boy falls out of public favor. The film paints a fairly bleak portrait of show business, which in France at least seems to be in the hands of sycophants, fly-by-night opportunists and backstabbers. Filmed in 1940, Fire in the Straw was released in the US three years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide