Guy Favieres Movies
Max Ophüls' masterpiece stars Danielle Darrieux as the titular Madame Louise de..., who in the film's opening scenes is forced to discreetly sell a pair of earrings, a gift from her military officer husband Andre (Charles Boyer), in order to make good on her debts. After she claims the earrings to be lost, the story of their possible theft hits the newspapers, prompting the jeweler who bought them (Jean Debucourt) to secretly sell them back to Andre, who then gives him to his mistress Lola (Lia Di Leo) as she prepares to leave for a holiday in Constantinople. There, the earrings again change hands as Lola pawns them to cover her gambling losses. They are then purchased by Donati, an Italian diplomat (Vittorio de Sica) on his way to France to meet with Andre. Of course, the earrings soon find their way back to Louise. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, (more)
- 1948
Per its title, Lovers of Verona is an updated adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The film was a joint project of those felicitous collaborators, screenwriter Jacques Prevert and director Andre Cayatte. The star-crossed lovers are portrayed by Serge Reggiani and Anouk Aimee, cast respectively as the poverty-stricken son of a glassblower and the daughter of a disgraced nobleman. While playing bit roles in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet, Angelo (Reggiani) and Georgia (Aimee) are suddenly promoted to the leading parts. Predictably, hero and heroine begin acting out their characters in real life as well as on stage. Not so predictably, their romance is challenged not by modern-day counterparts to the Montagues and the Capulets, but by the lovers' own heightened sensitivities to their social differences. Following the worldwide success of Lovers of Verona (it was released in Italy in 1949, then internationally in 1951), director Andre Cayatte was given what one historian has described as "carte blanche" in the French film industry; put simply, the man could do no wrong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anouk Aimée, Serge Reggiani, (more)
- 1946
For his first French film in nearly a decade (he'd spent the war years in Hollywood), filmmaker Julien Duvivier chose to adapt Les Fiançailles de Monsieur Hire, a novel by Georges Simenon. Panique, as Duvivier's version was titled, is a twisted tale of murder, subterfuge and revenge from "Beyond." Middle-aged loner Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon) falls for his neighbor Alice (Viviane Romance) only to be framed for the murder commited by Alice's lover Alfred (Paul Bernard). The ending suggests that the actual culprits are going to get their well-deserved comeuppance, though exoneration comes a shade too late for the luckless Monsieur Hire. The Simenon book was filmed again in 1989, as the excellent Monsieur Hire, directed by Patrice Leconte, a film as bleakly pessimistic as the original, more in keeping with the style and tone of the literary source. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Viviane Romance, (more)
Even in 1945, Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise was regarded as an old-fashioned film. Set in the Parisian theatrical world of the 1840s, Jacques Prévert's screenplay concerns four men in love with the mysterious Garance (Arletty). Each loves Garance in his own fashion, but only the intentions of sensitive mime-actor Deburau (Jean-Louis Barrault) are entirely honorable; as a result, it is he who suffers most, hurdling one obstacle after another in pursuit of an evidently unattainable goal. In the stylized fashion of 19th-century French drama, many grand passions are spent during the film's totally absorbing 195 minutes. Amazingly, the film was produced over a two-year period in virtual secrecy, without the knowledge of the Nazis then occupying France, who would surely have arrested several of the cast and production staff members (including Prévert) for their activities in the Resistance. Children of Paradise has gone on to become one of the great romantic classics of international cinema. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, (more)
- 1945
Originally Goupi Mains Rogues, this was the first new French feature film to be shown in the US since the end of WW2-though "new" was a relative term, inasmuch as the film was completed in 1943. The scene is a remote, rustic inn, managed by a scruffy family of peasants known as the Goupis. Practicing their own special brand of larceny, the Goupis fancy themselves as Runyonesque rogues, going so far as to bestow colorful nicknames upon themselves. The official head of the band is "Red Hands", played by Fernand Ledoux, but even he is answerable to the Goupis' patriarch, a 106-year-old named "The Emperor" (Maurice Schulz). Nearly plotless, Goupi Mains Rogues offers an unforgettable cast of characters and an abundance of authentic Gallic atmosphere. Picked up for American distribution by MGM, the film inexplicably disappeared from view within a few months; director Jacques Becker later claimed that MGM destroyed all the prints so that the film wouldn't compete with the studio's American-made productions, though this hardly seems to be the case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernand Ledoux, Georges Rollin, (more)
- 1936
Director Jean Renoir returns to the "people of the soil" of his previous Toni in People of France! (originally La Vie est a nous, or A Life for Us). Using a cast of nonprofessionals, Renoir pontificates on the dehumanization of the capitalist system. The film opens as a group of schoolchildren come across the fact that France is controlled by 200 wealthy families. As the kids put together a scrapbook detailing the lives of these movers and shakers, Renoir cuts away to the emotional damage wrought both intentionally and unintentionally by the insensitivity of the Elite. Not surprisingly, the film concludes with a rally of the French Communist Party. People of France! was in fact financed by the communists, a fact Renoir attributed to his eagerness during this period to work with anyone who espoused an anti-Nazi viewpoint (he also effectively disowned the picture, insisting that while he physically directed it, he really had nothing to do with it creatively). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Dasté, Julien Bertheau, (more)
