Serge Reggiani Movies

An exercise in style, La Ronde was one of the few films of the 1950s to contain overtly sexual themes. The story is a series of character vignettes, set in Vienna in the early 1900s and held together by a narrator (Anton Walbrook). As the title implies, both the story and the film's visual motifs are circular. Director Max Ophuls uses an old-fashioned merry-go-round to foreshadow the film's events, in which each segment introduces a new character, who has an affair with a character from the previous scene. The film demands that the audience pay attention to the structure, to the interplay among the characters, and to the opulent visual elements; and the effect is synergistic delight, in which the viewer is engaged both visually and intellectually. Because it was filmed in black-and-white, La Ronde does not have the garish look of some of Ophuls' other films, notably Lola Montès. La Ronde is among the few foreign language films to receive multiple Oscar nominations, for Black & White Art Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide

Four top French filmmakers were involved in the "omnibus" feature Retour a la Vie. The film offers four separate stories, each involving a liberated prisoner of war. The first episode, directed by Andre Cayatte, finds a wealthy old woman (O. Revinsky), unhinged by her prison-camp experiences, trying to cope with greedy relatives who voraciously wait for her to die. The second story, directed by Jean Dreville, stars Francois Perrier as a bartender who goes to work in a hotel for American military women. Director Henri-Georges Clouzot helmed the third episode, in which a crippled, half-crazed ex-inmate (Louis Jouvet) has a tense confrontation with a former Gestapo chief. The last installment, directed by Georges Lampin, is the comic tale of a nebbishy returnee (Noel Noel) who causes an uproar when he brings his German war bride home. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

Etoile Sans Lumiere (Star Without Light) represents a rare screen appearance by French singing sensation Edith Piaf. The plot is something of a predecessor to Hollywood's Singin' in the Rain (1952), albeit with a less happy denouement. Piaf plays an aspiring singer who tries to break into films during the early talkie era. She is hired to dub the singing and speaking voice of a silent-movie favorite (Mila Parely). Sworn to secrecy, the fill-in must stand by in silence as the star receives all the praises and plaudits. When the truth is revealed, the result is disastrous for everyone concerned. Etoile Sans Lumiere is chiefly memorable as the screen debut of Edith Piaf's protégé Yves Montand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marcel Carne's 1946 production La Porte de la Nuit was released in the U.S. four years later as Gates of the Night. Scripted by Carne's longtime collaborator Jacques Prevert, the film is set in Paris just after its liberation from the Nazis. The script points out that this was not only a time for rejoicing, but a period of guilt and remorse, especially for those who cooperated with the Nazis, overtly or otherwise. In one of his first starring roles, Yves Montand plays a former member of the French underground who carries on a furtive romance with the wife (Nathalie Nattier) of a wealthy man. Others essential to the action are Sergi Reggiani as a snivelly informer and Christian Simon as a ubiquitous (and obviously symbolic) street musician. A box-office disappointment in France, Gates of the Night did somewhat better abroad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

French director Leo Joannon, the man who made such a mess of the valedictory Laurel & Hardy vehicle Atoll K, proved that he could direct after all in Children of Chaos. Essentially a Gallic variation on Boys Town, the film concentrates on a boy's reformatory. Jean-Victor (Rene Darcy), himself a reform-school alumnus, is put in charge of a rehabilitation center. It is Jean-Victor's hope that he can give his charges the breaks he never received. His toughest reclamation job is Jorisse (Serge Reggiani), a seemingly ungovernable delinquent. When distributed in the U.S., Children of Chaos was marred by several censorial deletions which wreaked havoc on the film's continuity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide