Behind the Scenes: “In the French Style” (1963)

Jean Seberg had wormed her way back into the affections of American critics who had ridiculed  her performances in St Joan (1957) and Bonjour Tristesse (1958) by the cleverest route imaginable – via the arthouse. Critics, hoping to foist what they deemed worthwhile foreign pictures (that they weren’t made in Hollywood was often cause enough), were apt to give overseas performers an easier ride.

Breathless (1960) had been a huge arthouse hit – though not a box office breakout as we would know it today – and, in the absence of any other offers in America and as a result of falling in love with French author Romain Gary, Seberg plied her trade in France. Thanks to her on-going contract with Columbia, she was making a fairly good living, the third highest remunerated female star in France, and working with appreciative rather than derisory directors.

The success of Breathless guaranteed audience interest in her adopted country and arthouse opening in America. In 1961 she had starred in Time Out for Love, Love Play (based on a tale by Francoise Sagan) and Five Day Lover, directed by Phillipe De Broca (King of Hearts, 1966). The following year she skipped over to Italy for Congo Vivo / Eruption.

She hadn’t been producer Irwin Shaw’s first choice. Better known as a novelist (The Young Lions, filmed in 1958) and short story writer, The Girls in Their Summer Dresser and Tip on a Dead Jockey (filmed in 1957), he had set up Susanna Productions with director Robert Parrish with whom he had worked on Fire Down Below (1957). Parrish was down on his luck, not having made a picture in four years. Shaw, who had been blacklisted in Hollywood in 1951 as a Communist sympathiser, had lived in Europe for over a decade and was a dedicated Francophile.

The writer had a troubled relationship with the movie business, as detailed in Two Weeks in Another Town (filmed in 1962), and had “removed his name or tried to from several pix.” But he “recommended that more writers turn producer.” (He didn’t follow his own advice beyond this one picture and in 1968 the documentary Survival 1967.)

Given the producers, doubling as writer and director, respectively, were content to defer their salaries, the movie was not a huge financial risk for Columbia. The budget was a miserly $557,000 – B-movies cost more. And it even came in $26,000 under budget.

Shaw’s script coupled two of his unconnected Parisian short stories – A Year to Learn the Language and In the French Style, the former a love story between wannabe American artist Louise and young Frenchman Guy, the latter focusing on a world-weary journalist Walter who is rejected by occasional model Christine in favour of a safer option. Shaw spun the story so that it turned Christine into the younger artist and took her point-of-view as she rejected Walter.

Shaw was keener on Barbara Harris, the Tony-nominated actress who had yet to make a film, for the lead. But his brother David nudged him in the direction of Seberg and Shaw was swayed after viewing Five Day Lover and that the actress was familiar with Paris, having lived there for  five years.

But Seberg was nine months pregnant when Parrish visited her to discuss the role. The problem was, the father was not her husband. Aware of the calamity that befell Ingrid Bergman after her adultery with Robert Rossellini, Seberg conspired to keep her pregnancy secret, pretending to have a broken foot which necessitated keeping the limb elevated and in a cage which concealed her pregnancy. The son, Diego, was kept a secret until much later.

Parrish tapped the French theater world for Philippe Forquet (Take Her, She’s Mine, 1963). Almost in imitation of one of the short stories, the actor had to learn a language, this time English, which he managed as shooting progressed.

British actor Stanley Baker (Accident, 1966) was already looking beyond home shores to expand his career and had worked on Joseph Losey’s French-Italian co-production Eva (1962) and Robert Aldrich’s Italian-funded Biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah (1962). In the French Style  seemed an odd choice because although second-billed he was long delayed in making his entrance.

After the success of The Criminal (1961), which had opened on the ABC circuit in Britain to “exceptionally high” business, Baker was also itching to get into production. He owned the rights to two films being prepped by Magna Film Productions – of which he was a director – Marianne and Rape of the Fair Country, the former scheduled for autumn 1962 and the latter for spring 1963, and was already in negotiations with Joseph E. Levine to co-produce and star in Zulu (1964). Possibly cancellation of Marianne freed him up for In the French Style. Baker was in any case a last-minute addition to the cast, not signed until mid-September.

Filming began on August 27, 1962, and lasted eight weeks, shooting in Paris, the Riviera and Studios de Billancourt. It was essentially an American-style movie not made in Hollywood. And, for once, Seberg basked in the admiration of an American director. Instead of enduring the tantrums and temper of Otto Preminger, Seberg found her talent praised. “She’s the most professional, technically proficient actress I think I’ve ever directed,” Parrish pronounced, adding “her knowledge of what the camera kind of wants is staggering.”

There were daily rewrites and at times Shaw questioned his own material, in particular the scene in which Christine (Seberg’s character) is visited by her father. In an example of life imitating art, when her parents came over, Gary took them to a topless restaurant whereas in the film Christine’s father attended an equally dubious avant-garde party.

Shaw, in his capacity as producer, argued with a hairdresser over how Seberg’s “hair was to be combed.” But, generally, the movie  was a happy experience, almost falling into the exhilarating category considering Seberg’s previous experience of Hollywood manners.

At the post-shoot party, Seberg confessed about the broken foot. Parrish doubted that she needed to go to such lengths. But she was so determined to get the part that she had refused to divulge her secret in case Columbia, a big Hollywood studio, rejected her in the way Bergman had been sent into exile.

In the French Style was a hit with U.S. critics – “should make Seberg a popular name” opined Box Office. But The Daily Iowan, published in her home state, put the boot in, calling her “front runner for the world’s worst actress.”

Breathless had been reissued in Britain the previous year, an unusual accolade for an artie. Columbia renewed her contract, one picture a year for five years, proof of its revived faith in her talent. The first movie was Lilith (1964). And she was in line for the leading role in Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, at that time titled Phoenix.

“I don’t want to sound pompous,” commented Seberg on her rehabilitation after suffering Hollywood’s cold shoulder for so long, “but I find it gratifying.”

But she was used sparingly by Hollywood – three movies between 1964 and 1968 – until Paramount and then Universal came to her rescue with, respectively, Paint Your Wagon (1969) and Airport (1970).

Fourquet won a contract with Twentieth Century Fox, promoted as the next generation of French stars, and became engaged to another rising star Sharon Tate. When career pressure finished off that romance, he returned to Paris. Two films later Stanley Baker was a huge star, in British terms at least, following the release of Zulu (1964).

The poorly-received box office flop Three (1969) had been adapted without his involvement from another of Shaw’s short stories, but he became more famous via the small screen after his novel Rich Man, Poor Man was turned into a mini-series in 1976 and made a star out of Nick Knolte.

SOURCES:  Garry McGee, Jean Seberg: Her True Story (2018) p93-97; “The Criminal Opens to Big Business,” Kine Weekly, January 19, 1961, p6; “Stanley Baker Signed,” Hollywood Reporter, September 14, 1962, p2; “Irwin Shaw – Writer to Producer,” Variety, October 10, 1962, p13; “New Jean Seberg Deal,” Box Office, February 11, 1963, pME2; “Seberg for Phoenix,” Variety, August 21, 1963, p5; “Review,” Box Office, September 23, 1963, pA9.

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