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. 

1959 - a very cool year

Mayniel, Brialy, Blain - LES COUSINS

Brialy, Lafont, Blain - LE BEAU SERGE

1959 continues to fascinate and reveal more riches - a pivotal year, being the end of the 1950s and just as the '60s dawned. This was really my era, being 13 then and totally into movies. 1957-1963 was that great time for cinema and happily co-incided with my teenage years and cinema-going, devouring magazines like "Films and Filming" and the various fan mags, before I arrived in London aged 18 in 1964.

We have written on 1959 quite a bit here, as per label, the big American films (from NORTH BY NORTHWEST to ANATOMY OF A MURDER, via BEN HUR, SOME LIKE IT HOT, A SUMMER PLACE, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, THE NUN'S STORY etc), to European films like EYES WITHOUT A FACE and LA LOI (French label), and the fascinating British films of the time. Now though I have finally got those two early Chabrols LE BEAU SERGE and LES COUSINS, which I had not seen since my teenage years - I should find a lot more in them now. We have been on a Chabrol jag lately, with his early items like A DOUBLE TOUR and the stunning LES GODELUREAUX  and the delicious MARIE CHANTAL from 1965 (as below), and we have also seen a lot of his great era movies at the time (LE FEMME INFIDELE, LE BOUCHER etc) and have those 2 boxsets, including ROUTE TO CORINTH, INNOCENTS WITH DIRTY HANDS, and also his later LE CEREMONIE - a must see soon.

LE BEAU SERGE was Chabrol's first feature in 1958, with the duo of Jean-Claude Brialy and Gerard Blain, with Bernadette Lafont. LES COUSINS followed in 1959 which reverses the guys roles - and Juliette Mayniel is the girl, with those stunning eyes of hers (she also played one of the victims in EYES WITHOUT A FACE that year...). 

Francois comes back to his home village in France after more than a decade. He notices that the village hasn't changed much, but the people have, especially his old friend Serge who has become a drunkard. Francois now tries to find out what happened to him and tries to help him.

Charles is a young provincial coming up to Paris to study law. He shares his cousin Paul's flat. Paul is a kind of decadent boy, a disillusioned pleasure-seeker, always dragging along with other idlers, while Charles is a plodding, naive and honest guy. He fell in love with Florence, one of Paul's acquaintances. But how will Paul react to that attempt to build a real love relationship ? 
One of the major New Wave films. Its a variation on the fable by Fontaine on the town rat and the country mouse ... and the grassopper who flits between them ... its a great Paris film too.

We will return to these two in more detail, but for now they suggest how cool movies were becoming in 1959, leading up to those great years 1960, '61 and '62 ... when French and Italian and British cinema was leading the way, as the new American cinema was taking off too ...Also in 1959 Rene Clement was filming PLEIN SOLEIL (with that other trio of Deon, Laforet, Ronet), Bolognini was directing LA NOTTE BRAVA with Brialy again and that great cast (Terzieff, Martinelli, Milian) playing Pasolini's script of hoodlums and prostitutes (below); while Antonioni was on that island creating L'AVVENTURA ... while Fellini was going to stun us with LA DOLCE VITA ...I also liked Mocky's New Wavey LES DRAGUEURS, more Paris by night in 1959, where Truffaut was filming THE 400 BLOWS, after Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD in '58 (as per French, Italian, Paris, Malle, Chabrol labels). Russia too was having its New Wave with hits like BALLAD OF A SOLDIER and THE LETTER THAT WAS SENT, while the Brazilian BLACK ORPHEUS was a revelation - more on that soon.

Ronet, Laforet, Delon - PLEIN SOLEIL

Brialy, Milian, Terzieff - LA NOTTE BRAVA

BALLAD OF A SOLDIER

Heatwave movies: Hatari!

Director Howard Hawks reteams with John Wayne, who heads a group of highly skilled professional game hunters in Africa. Only they don't use bullets - they capture the ferocious big game with strong rope and cameras for zoos and circus attractions. It is an exciting business that pits man against beast. HATARI means "danger" in Swahili, but HATARI also means a spectacular adventure film.

Well yes, though some judicious editing could have removed most of Red Buttons' annoying character, Pockets - a little of him goes a long way. Nowadays we look at animals and game hunting in a different light to what we did 50 years ago .... but this remains an amiable, good-natured film, even if at least half an hour too long, at over 150 minutes! 
We see our hunters chasing all these animals - giraffe, zebra, water buffalo etc - only with the rhino does the danger element come to the fore. What is it with these macho directors and big game hunting - John Huston was always after big game too during his forays in Africa for THE AFRICAN QUEEN, THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN etc.

Wayne faced up nicely to young Sophia Loren a few years earlier when he was Joe January in another of our favourites, LEGEND OF THE LOST - here another Italian girl Elsa Martinelli is effortlessly chic as she and Wayne play out that Hawksian courtship - as we see from all those other Hawks items like ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, RIO BRAVO, MAN'S FAVOURITE SPORT etc. This time she doesn't actually say "I'm hard to get, all you've got to do is ask" (as Dickinson and Bacall said) but its the same situation. With Hawks, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I was stunned in MAN'S FAVOURITE SPORT - essentially the same movie as BRINGING UP BABY - the same ripped dress scene replayed by Rock Hudson and Maria Perschy, while Paula Prentiss was another delicious Hawks heroine, like Jean Artur or Angie D. Elsa Martinelli's Dallas here has to become part of the group and show she is a good sport before that romantic climax - she even gets co-opted by the local native women for that dance!. 
The baby elephants are a nice touch - as Henry Mancini provides one of his best scores, with that "Baby Elephant Walk". The protracted climax as the elephants run through Nairobi (?) looking for Dallas is joyous fun too.

So, its the usual Hawks fare - the group of men doing dangerous work and their code of comeraderie - and the outsider, the smart woman who has to prove her worth. Basically HATARI is ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS set in Africa, with added humour. 
I like too the names of Hawks' characters - the girls here are Dallas and Brandy, then there is Pockets the side-kick, RIO BRAVO had Feathers and Colorado, EL DORADO young James Caan as Mississippi. There is often an attractive younger guy in the mix in Hawks films too: Dewey Martin in LAND OF THE PHAROAHS, Ricky Nelson in RIO BRAVO, Caan in EL DORADO (virtually a remake of RIO BRAVO) and here we get two of them - European actors Gerard Blain (The Frenchman) and Hardy Kruger (The German), who head off together to Paris. HATARI too has that 1962 look in spades - its nice to pour a long cool drink or three, and settle down for a couple of hours in that Hawksian universe.  I hope no baby elephants were harmed during its making. Right: BRINGING UP BABY redux?

Giovani Mariti, 1958

This is a rarity - so rare it exists only in an Italian version. Mauro Bolognini's 1958 comedy drama focuses on a group of 5 young men - not layabout as in his next one LA NOTTA BRAVA from 1959, one of my discoveries of last year, as per Italian label. It is another group of attractive young players having late nights - these here are likeable young men, students, room-mates. The title translates as YOUNG HUSBANDS though we only see 2 getting married. The usual questions arise about settling down .... the lads drive around their deserted city at night, go for late night swims, play tennis ... the girls are nice too: Antonella Lualdi, Isabelle Corey, Sylvia Koscina. 

The boys include French Gerard Blain (here with Lualdi, above right), Franco Ingerlenghi (from Antonioni's I VINTI and also in LA NOTTE BRAVA, in a long career) and Raf Mattioli, who impressed in Dassin's LA LOI (see label) another discovery a year or so ago. He looks fit here in those skimpy (for 1958) shorts, but he died 2 years later in 1960 of a heart attack at 24!  The film looks lovely and crisp with great black and white photography by Armando Nannuzzi, and again was co-scripted by Pier Paolo Pasolini, costumes by Piero Tosi.

Another of those fascinating Bolognini films then like LA NOTTE BRAVA, SENILITA and LA CORRUZIONE capturing that early 60s Italian vibe perfectly, like Lattuada's I DOLCI IGNANNI, Patroni Griffi's IL MARE; Fellini's 1953 I VITELLONI must surely be the prototype for all these (all at Italian label) - the Italian maestros like Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti, De Sica and Rossellini were getting all the kudos then, but directors like Bolognini and Monicelli were coming up on the fast track - I like their episodes in compendium films like LE BAMBOLE and LE FATE too, and Bolognini's METELLO, GRAN BOLLITO etc.

Next: off to France in the company of Gabin, Delon, Hossein, Trintignant, Romy Schneider, Deneuve.

L'Avventura again & another French flick

L’AVVENTURA – this Antonioni classic has been screened a few times lately here in the UK and although I have the dvd I keep been drawn back to it. It is indeed a masterwork and has caused considerable opinion ever since it opened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1960. Fascinating that at the same time as Hitchcock was filming PSYCHO Antonioni was also creating the story of a woman who vanishes and the people looking for her. Hitch shows us what happens in his masterwork, whereas Antonioni doesn’t, as we become involved in the story of Sandro and Claudia. Monica Vitti is indeed mesmerising here and it is a great performance, no wonder she became the face of arthouse cinema. It remains a very unsettling film, particularly those scenes on the remote island as we speculate on what happened to Lea Massari, and that bleak dawn at the hotel in Taormina at the end. One could say that this and PSYCHO really ushered in the new cinema age in 1960. Giovanni Fusco's score and those great black and white images are simply perfect for those characters in those landscapes prefiguring Antonioni's later films.

Another Julien Duvivier thriller, from 1956 this time: VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS, which it was a pleasure to see last week. With most movies even if one has not seen them already one tends to know a lot about them, but these French thrillers which one knows nothing about turn out to be marvellously gripping and entertaining, like Duvivier’s CHAIR DE POULE (HIGHWAY PICKUP) I was raving about a few weeks ago.

Here we have Jean Gabin in his element as the successful restaurant owner in Les Halles, Paris, 20 years after divorcing his grasping wife, but along comes a shy young girl to tell him the ex-wife has now died leaving her, her daughter, alone and penniless. Gabin takes her in and gives her a job, but we begin to suspect the girl (Danielle Delorme) has her own agenda – and so it proves, as we see her plotting against him and planning to take over the business. Gerard Blain is Gabin’s protégé she has to get rid of first …. His aged mother though sees through her right away [and is a dab hand with her whip] so the stage is set for some tense moments, particularly when the ex-wife reappears. Nicely worked out and great to see Gabin at his considerable peak running his kitchen, coping with his fearsome mother and falling for a schemer.