Hedonism gets a reality check but not before it’s done a pretty good job of marketing Ibiza as an idyllic setting and just the place to accommodate anyone wanting to get high on drugs. Despite being the directorial debut of French producer Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune, 1990), the movie’s better known for the soundtrack created by Pink Floyd.
Which is a shame because despite the focus on the beautiful people living in an exotic world, and plugging, it has to be said, the delights of marijuana as the drug du jour, and not wandering down any cinematic cul de sac like visually exploring in subjective fashion the effects of an LSD trip, it fairly captures the free love counter culture paradise of the time where you could chill out in the sun and you didn’t need to be a biker to do it.
Estelle (Mimsy Farmer) is the lissom siren who hooks the far from innocent Stefan (Klaus Grunberg) – an ex-student, he has indulged in a bit of burglary – and introduces him to pot, Ibiza and heroin in that order. He finds his own way to other indulgences like a menage a trois. There’s an older drug dealer (Heinz Engelmann) in the background and some pals, Charlie (Michael Chanderli) and Cathy (Louise Wink), fleetingly hover into vision, but mostly it’s a two-hander, and there’s none of the despair and nihilism of drug addiction nor the moralistic overtones of a Hollywood picture too frightened of even the more enlightened censor to dare suggest you can have your cake and eat it.
There’s not much story, just the pair falling in love and hanging out, and Stefan wanting to experience the “more” that has made Estelle so impervious to life’s downturns. When he discovers her secret is heroin he wants to turn on in similar fashion and loving lover that she is she obliges. He can’t handle it the way she can and he’s the one that goes over the edge and dies of an overdose. But the director doesn’t resort to any moralizing at the end, this is no wake up call for Estelle, and there’s no sense of guilt, he’s just another handsome ship passing in the night.
The film’s best at exhibiting the easy living, the relaxed lifestyle, of the drug community where ownership is forbidden and life is cheap. It’s filmed as a romance, glorious settings made more glorious by the cinematography of Nestor Almendros (Days of Heaven, 1978).
Mimsy Farmer (Spencer’s Mountain, 1963) is the standout, making the jump into adult roles with ease, presenting an amoral character whose main aim in life to find the deepest sensory experiences. Klaus Grunberg, on his debut, is really just swept along like some flotsam in her attractive wake. Even when Farmer is stoned and really out of it she captures the camera, and while her character is essentially unattractive, it takes some pretty good acting to keep the audience from coming to that conclusion.
The act of shooting up was innovative for the time – and censored in some countries – but it’s not presented as anything but an extension of freedom, liberation of self a la LSD, and even Stefan’s death, the grittiest scene, comes over as mere collateral damage.
That it works is mostly due to Farmer’s performance and Schroeder’s lack of prurience. While there’s abundant nudity, and Estelle makes out with a gal and then enjoys a threesome, there’s no sense of sexploitation, which creates quite a different atmosphere to the more sensational movies of the time. Best of all, in deliberately moving away from heightened drama and turgid instincts that might focus instead on such elements like jealousy or guilt, the director allows the audience to make up its collective mind.
And if you get bored, there’s always the soundtrack and scenery.
You’d have thought by now leading men would be running shy of Debbie Reynolds, aware just how easily she would steal the picture out from under the top-billed star (witness Goodbye Charlie, 1964). But she had producers clamouring for the fizz she brought. Her comic skills, and willingness to entertain slapstick, were matched only by Doris Day. Especially helpful when she’s saddled with a convoluted plot that’s one-third generation gap comedy, one-third If It’s Tuesday It Must Be Belgium and one-third the kind of creative thinking that determines that somehow or other the female star must end up in a brothel. Throw in some flower power, split-screen, stills montage and slow-mo and you’ve covered all the bases.
In this hit-and-miss line-up, by far the most amusing element is that it’s the adults – photographer Grif (James Garner) and wife Jenny (Debbie Reynolds) – who are sex-obsessed, sneaking away at every opportunity for a bit of hanky-panky, trying to avoid the disapproving eyes of their virginal teenage son Davey (Donald Losby).
An odd example of creative license here. Poster designers had decided that red was the color no matter what. In the last section of the movie Debbie Reynolds parades in a blue – not red – bikini and the book on which it is based is called “The Girl in the Turqoise Bikini.” I’m not sure the color of the bikini is that much of a plot point unless it’s to hook readers of the original novel, but it’s mighty strange for the poster people just to change the color.
The narrative determines that Davey joins girlfriend Bootsie (Hilarie Thomson) and her lithe gal pals on a tour of Europe accompanied by Grif who has been commissioned to photograph the trip. Much to Grif’s horror, Jenny decides she’s going to follow them and hires out a swanky pad where the grown-up lovebirds can make a nest at some undetermined point.
The picture quickly loses interest in Grif and the girls, beyond an attractive tour guide making a pass at Grif and of course their bus getting stuck in the mud. Not only is the Jenny segment more intriguing – turns out she’s been conned by Gilbert Tilly (Terry-Thomas) into handing over a thousand bucks for a chalet he’s not entitled to hire out – because she gets romanced in high French style (champagne and flowers in case you’re bursting to know) by legal lothario Philippe (Maurice Ronet) and every now and then finds herself wearing little more than a bikini and sometimes nothing at all.
Takes a heck of a long time for the two stories to dovetail so that Grif can flounce off in a huff, punch the living daylights out of the Frenchman, and give the screenwriter the excuse to plonk Jenny down in a brothel (that part, I have to admit, is neatly done). There’s also some unusual class comedy at the chateau, Philippe initially being mistaken for a butler, then having to bunk down with his servant because (guess what) this mansion has only one main bedroom.
For no apparent reason there’s an odd section at the start. Instead of flying to Europe, they take the ship and for no apparent reason they’re stuck on C-deck with a lip-pursing purser (Paul Lynde) who insists males and females must sleep apart and share cabins with strangers. Slot into the miss department the opening with the old trope of the husband coming home to find his wife in bed with another man, except it’s Davey and the parental lovers are enjoying some afternoon delight, though quite how you can stretch that to Davey taking a carving knife up the stairs beats me.
James Garner is no more convincing a photographer than he was in The Pink Jungle (1968) and he hardly gives Debbie Reynolds a run for her money, as if he doesn’t know how to bring this character to life. Except for excelling at the risqué, and she a willing accomplice, he’s coming over like the straight man to her comedienne. Debbie Reynolds is superb, reactions honed to the bone, throwing herself into the part, undergoing whatever humiliation will snare a laugh.
Garner briefly resurrected his career with Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) before he hit the slide (see the previous Behind the Scenes article) and to my astonishment this signalled pretty much the end of Reynolds’ screen career, nothing for the next decades except What’s the Matter with Helen (1971) and a bit part (as herself) in The Bodyguard (1992). You can hardly blame her for screenwriters not coming up with the right material to take advantage of her supreme comedic gifts. Alexandra Hay (The Model Shop, 1969) is wasted, you might just as well have dabbed her role “the sexy blonde.”
Director Jerry Paris (Never a Dull Moment, 1968) throws everything he can at the screen without much success. Future director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman, 1990) and producer Jerry Belson (Fun with Dick and Jane, 1977) in his movie debut formulated the screenplay from the bestseller by Muriel Resnik.
Far from the last comedy hurrah you would have wished for the actress, but all you’re going to get.
Hollywood isn’t known for its sensitivity, and this is one of those major misjudgements. An incredibly rich family, ripe with entitlement, find World War Two tough going, in the main because as in Counterpoint (1968), they consider themselves exempt. Being Argentinians, they are neutral.
Unfortunately, it just so happens, with that wealthy person’s penchant for flaunting their wealth in the world’s richest cities, they end up in Paris on the eve of war, ignoring the warning of family patriarch (Lee J. Cobb) who is convinced the titular “four horsemen of the apocalypse” (war, conquest, death and pestilence, in case you don’t know your Bible) are on the march. Not that we see much of that in the French capital, except in newsreel, details of the war delivered in snippets of dialog (“haven’t you heard about Dunkirk?”), and street-loads of refugees.
Because, don’t you know it, our major players, the Desnoyers and Laurient families, are largely immune. Man-about-town and Argentinian art connoisseur Julio Desnoyers (Glenn Ford) – ignoring the entreaties of his father Marcelo (Charles Boyer) to scarper – is making a move on married Frenchwoman Marguerite Laurient (Ingrid Thulin), bored by newspaper editor husband Etienne (Paul Heinreid) who spends way too much time worrying about impending war.
Julio is so rich that even after the German invasion sends the poor of the city – and its Jewish population – racing about terrified for their lives, he can swan around, enjoying fine food in top-class restaurants much as before and even has the temerity to tell a high-ranking German General von Kleig (George Dolenz) that his wealth makes him immune. The general reckons that his rank gives him any woman he wants. “She’s mine,” is Julio’s rather misogynistic retort when the general attempts to appropriate Marguerite.
Meanwhile, though Julio is still slow to catch on, his sister Chi Chi (Yvette Mimieux) has only gone and joined the Resistance and Etienne has also upset the new masters, so Julio has to go begging cousin Heinrich (Carl Boehm), who has exploited his German origins to achieve military high rank, to provide them with a get-out of-jail-free card.
When Etienne is released, Marguerite is initially inclined to stick with Julio until guilt gets the upper hand. Julio, with no lover to keep him happy, eventually throws his lot in with the Resistance, but there’s no happy ending for anyone.
Director Vincente Minnelli (Two Weeks in Another Town, 1962) is terrific at marshalling his set pieces, using widescreen to excellent advantage, cramming extra bodies in at the edges, but since these sequences tend to be little more than extended talk-fests – the activities that got Chi Chi and Etienne imprisoned are ignored – no amount of directorial skill in the world is going to salvage a movie so weighted down with dead wood.
Glenn Ford (Rage, 1966) does his very best to give the viewer something to hold onto. He avoids every shade of angst in his determination to have as much as fun as possible regardless of any situation. He’s scarcely had the chance to be so carefree on screen and he is at his charming best, and he does lift what is otherwise a somber encounter.
Ingrid Thulin (Return from the Ashes, 1965) has her moments, especially when her diplomatic skills prevent a party being ruined, and she enjoys some flighty repartee with Ford, but once the romance gets heavy her personality undergoes a U-turn and she’s holding onto angst for dear life. And there’s a twist in her character that makes no sense. When Etienne emerges from prison a broken man, she gives him both barrels, and declares her love for Julio only for shortly after to recant and dump Julio. Seems mighty insensitive and bordering on cruelty to deal her husband such a blow when he has been tortured by the Nazis. Though she might not have been so forgiving had she worked out just why Etienne was freed and Chi Chi not.
After the colossal success of Ben-Hur (1959), which set the roadshow ball rolling, MGM was on a remake crusade. As well as Ben-Hur, it had remade Cimarron (1960) – the original 1931 version an Oscar-winner and hot box office. The fact that that flopped didn’t deter the studio. The silent version of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), set against the background of World War I, transformed Rudolph Valentino into a superstar and netted MGM a fortune. The new version sank like a stone, perhaps because it was too wordy for roadshow, or perhaps, more likely, Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) had taken a bolder look at World War Two.
A mis-hit.
REVIEWED PREVIOUSLY IN THE BLOG: Glenn Ford in Experiment in Terror (1962), Love Is a Ball (1963), Advance to the Rear / Company of Cowards (1964), Fate Is the Hunter (1964), The Money Trap (1965), Is Paris Burning? (1966), Rage (1966), The LastChallenge / The Pistolero of Red River (1967), A Time for Killing (1967), Day of the Evil Gun (1968), Heaven with a Gun (1969; Ingrid Thulin in Return from the Ashes (1965); Yvette Mimieux in The Time Machine (1960), TheWonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), Diamond Head (1962), Joy in the Morning (1965), The Reward (1965), The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967), Dark of the Sun (1968), The Picasso Summer (1969); VincenteMinnelli directed Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) and Goodbye Charlie (1964).
Cherchez la femme, as they say in French. Here, because everyone is doubling up (or doubling down, I never get that right, and it is of course a sequel), the narrative has our heroes (and these being four musketeers if you include D’Artagnan and not three) chasing all over France in pursuit of two women.
If you recall from episode one (and it doesn’t matter if you don’t because this starts with a neat re-cap), D’Artagnan’s (Francois Civil) girlfriend Constance (Lyna Khoudri) has been abducted after overhearing details of a plot to kill King Louis XIII (Louis Garrel), so he’s trying to find her. Meanwhile, everyone’s after Milady (Eva Green), the double-crosser’s double-crosser. In fact, to complicate matters, the movie begins with her being rescued by D’Artagnan.
As it turns out, that’s one of the easiest complications because unless you’ve got a PhD in French history, you won’t have a clue what’s going on, what with imminent English invasion, traitors inside the palace, eternal bad guy Cardinal Richelieu (Eric Ruf) and the French laying siege to their own port of La Rochelle. I’m guessing, because it’s not exactly plain, that the background is Catholic vs Protestant enmity.
I’d forgotten of course that our heroes are called musketeers for a reason and it’s not because they are swashbucklers, though they are pretty nifty with the sword, but the name indicates a certain dexterity with muskets. So, there’s rather a lot more guns being fired and buckles being swashed.
The 1932 version.
And you could be forgiven for thinking this is some kind of riposte to Downton Abbey because everywhere our heroes go there is sure to be some fabulous chateau or castle and all kinds of pomp and circumstance. It’s a tad overladen with characters and not all stand out enough. D’Artagnan doesn’t quite command the screen and of other trio it’s lusty Porthos (Pio Marmai) who steals the show, always ready with a chat-up line or falling down unconscious from alcoholic intake.
Milady is by the far the most interesting character, tying all the males in knots, escaping every type of peril, dodging the hangman’s noose and an inferno and setting up Part III with a clever climax. Although the period wasn’t rife with feminism, she is the poster girl, not just adept with any weapon (including teeth), but detailing what it’s like to be eternally molested by men.
Constance, on the other hand, is as dumb as they come. The scene that allows D’Artagnan to wallow in pathos, you can’t help howling with laughter because the stupid girl has brought on herself a pitiless fate.
Sets quite a pace, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the politics and who is romancing who, and why someone who has been helpful in the past now has to be bumped off.
I hope this has earned its big budget back in France because I doubt if it will do well anywhere else.
Feels like director Martin Bourboulon (Eiffel, 2021) has bitten off more than anybody can chew.
Godzilla Minus One
Not just a remake but, as it turns out, a prequel. It’s nipped in early, ahead of the next vehicle in the recycle business Kong vs Godzilla due out next year.
In this Japanese version, made by Toho Studios which was responsible for the 1954 original, the timeline is 1945-1947. It kicks off at the end of World War Two with cowardly Japanese kamikaze pilot Skikishima (Ryonusuke Kamiki) unable to pull the trigger as the monster emerges from the depths. Fast forward to U.S. nuclear tests on the Bikini Atholl, and the creature now mutates with devastating impact on the mainland.
By this point, Skikishima has acquired an orphaned baby and takes on a job on a minesweeper (his trigger finger now put to good use) destroying the thousands of mines left behind after the war so he’s in the front line when the monster re-emerges with an atomic heat-ray in its arsenal, never find those stomping feet and destructive tail.
There’s some clever scientific ruses to destroy Godzilla involving Freon tanks (whatever they are) and some jiggery-pokery to lower the water’s buoyancy (what now?) but basically as you might expect it’s mostly our favorite monster decimating cities and taking on every warship and airplane that the country can throw at it.
It’s pretty good fun but you might find it hard to sympathize with a kamikaze pilot.
Politics didn’t usually play a part in war films in the 1960s but’s it’s an essential ingredient to Rene Clement’s underrated documentary-style picture. Paris had no strategic importance and after the Normandy landings the Allies intended to bypass the French capital and head straight for Berlin.
Meanwhile, Hitler, in particular vengeful mood after the attempt on his life, ordered the city destroyed. Resistance groups were splintered, out-numbered and lacking the weaponry to achieve an uprising. Followers of General De Gaulle, the French leader in exile, wanted to wait until the Allies sent in the troops, the Communists planned to seize control before British and American soldiers could arrive.
When the Communists begin the fight, seizing public buildings, the Germans plant explosives on the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and other famous buildings and all the bridges across the River Seine. The German commandant Von Choltitz (Gert Frobe), no stranger to slaughter having overseen the destruction of Rotterdam, holds off obeying his orders because he believes Hitler is insane and the war already lost.
The Gaullists despatch a messenger to persuade General Omar Bradley (Glenn Ford) to change his mind and send troops to relieve the city. Sorry for the plot-spoiler but as everyone knows the Germans did not destroy the city and the liberation of Paris provided famous newsreel and photographic footage.
Director Clement (Rider on the Rain, 1970) was also aware he could not extract much tension from the question of whether von Choltitz will press the destruct button, so he takes another route and documents in meticulous detail the political in-fighting and the actual street battles that ensued, German tanks and artillery against Molotov cocktails and mostly old-fashioned weaponry. The wide Parisian boulevards provide a fabulous backdrop for the fighting.
Shooting much of the action from above allows Clement to capture the action in vivid cinematic strokes. Like The Longest Day (1962), the film does not follow one individual but is in essence a vast tapestry. Scenes of the utmost brutality – resistance fighters thrown out of a lorry to be machine-gunned, the public are strafed when they venture out to welcome the Americans – contrast with moments of such gentleness they could almost be parody: a shepherd taking a herd through the fighting, an old lady covered in falling plaster watching as soldiers drop home-made bombs on tanks.
This is not a film about heroism but the sheer raw energy required to carry out dangerous duty and many times a character we just saw winning one sally against the enemy is shot the next. The French have to fight street-by-street, enemy-emplacement-by-enemy-emplacement, tank-by-tank.
And Clement allows as much time for humanity. Francophile Sgt Warren (Anthony Perkins), as an American grunt, spends all his time in the middle of the battle trying to determine the location of the sights he longs to see – before he is abruptly killed. An unnamed café owner (Simone Signoret) helps soldiers phone their loved ones.
Like The Longest Day and In Harm’s Way (1965), the film was shot in black-and-white, but not, as with those movies for the simple reason of incorporating newsreel footage, but because De Gaulle, now the French president, objected to the sight of red swastika. Even so, it permitted the inclusion of newsreel footage, which on the small screen (where most people these days will watch it) appears seamless.
By Hollywood standards this was not an all-star cast, Glenn Ford (as Bradley), Kirk Douglas (General Patton) and Robert Stack (General Sibert) making fleeting glimpses.
But by French standards it was the all-star cast to beat all-star casts – Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, 1960), Alain Delon (Lost Command, 1966), Yves Montand (Grand Prix, 1966), Charles Boyer (Gaslight, 1944), Leslie Caron (Gigi, 1958), Michel Piccoli (Masquerade, 1965), Simone Signoret (Room at the Top, 1959) and Jean-Louis Trintignant (A Man and a Woman, 1966). Orson Welles, in subdued form, appeared as the Swedish ambassador.
Gore Vidal (The Best Man, 1964) and Francis Coppola (The Godfather, 1962) devised the screenplay based on the bestseller by Larry Collins and Dominic Lapierre
At $6 million, it was the most expensive French film ever made. It had a six-month shooting schedule and was shot on the streets of the city including famous locations like Etoile, Madeleine and the Louvre. It was a big hit in France but flopped in the United States, its box office so poor that Paramount refused to disclose it.
Purportedly, Frenchman Abel Gance got the idea for his film while walking down Broadway in New York in 1921. At that point he envisaged what we would these days term a “Napoleon Universe,” a series of six interlinked films (although early U.S. reports promised eight films) tracking the Emperor from his student days to exile in St Helena. Gance was a successful director, from La Droit a la Vie in 1917 to J’Accuse two years later each successive film had out-grossed the last. His La Roue / The Wheel (1923) was so lauded that French critics put it on a par with the later Citizen Kane.
He conceived each film to run about 5,500 feet for domestic release with a reduced version for the United States market. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending – he could not contain his ambition. The film, eventually restricted to just the early part of Napoleon’s career, took two years to make, beginning in 1925. But his innovations included dolly shots, handheld camera, overhead camera, footage shot from the back of a horse, tracking, rapid editing and split screen. It’s worth remembering just why cameras were so static during that period – moving them was extremely laborious and time-consuming, which meant it cost too much money to do. And when it did move, the unsteady camera attracted too much attention. Gance wanted movement to be discreet, not just for its own sake.
He also invented an extremely wide-angle lens and then the camera employed for the triptych. Anticipating the arrival of sound, and although they could not be heard, he made his actors speak dialog, which facilitated later dubbing. And if that wasn’t enough, he conducted tests in 3D – used in the battle scenes it was discarded for distracting the eye. Rock salt substituted for hail and filming proved so dangerous there were 220 insurance claims.
Gance took another swipe at the legend in 1960 with an all-star cast but no better results at the box office.
It cost $500,000 – equivalent to $8.7 million today – a hefty sum for those days but nothing compared to MGM’s Ben-Hur which cost eight times as much. However, Gance had anticipated box office returns of $4.4 million. As well as his technical skills, Gance was a whiz at salesmanship and eventually secured the bulk of his funding from Russian entrepreneur Vladimir Wengeroff who had previously invested in German films. Wengeroff had earmarked Gance as a potential director for a projected movie version of War and Peace.
But with little finance from the major French studios, Gance retained control. Initially, he promised the first part would be completed by the end of 1924 with the rest two years later. In the end, part one was as far as he got. Initially, he planned to use four actors to play the Emperor at different stages of his life. Oddly perhaps from the modern perspective, he placed more emphasis on physical resemblance to Napoleon than acting ability and screen-tested over a dozen actors. In fact, the actor who won the part of the adult Napoleon was a “rank outsider,” considered too old and too fat. When tested Albert Dieudonne “looked rather like an old woman.” But when Gance’s original choice rejected the role, he returned to Dieudonne who had transformed himself into a slimmer person after undertaking an extreme diet.
The first of the innovative multi-screen images – nine in total – occurs early in the picture, in the snowball fight. Later, as many as 16 images would be superimposed. All this was achieved through technical drudgery, repeating shots endlessly until they fitted into a pattern, and Gance likened the effect to listening to an orchestra, not necessarily taking in each instrument but enjoying the accumulated effect. The snowballs were actually made from cotton wool so didn’t fly far. To achieve authenticity, the sequence took place in winter, parents outraged that their children in the conditions risked flu or bronchitis.
The chase scene filmed in Corsica employed camera cars, with other shots from cameras placed in pits, while extreme long shots over the hills and the use of wide angle lens enhanced the experience. But there were three cameras on the one car, one facing back, one sideways and another fixed to the running board. He also filmed from the back of a horse devising his own means of working the camera.
Ambition cost money. And soon the movie was in financial trouble, filming put on hold while the director sought new backers. Eventually, funding came from a new source. Despite its name, the Societe Generale du Films, originally set up to develop film itself, was actually owned by a Russian. The SGF funding came with a proviso – that if necessary it was entitled to edit the film to bring it down to the contractual length.
Gance’s boldest innovation was without doubt the triptych (more easily explained as film projected on three screens simultaneously in the manner, a quarter of a century later, of Cinerama). “I felt in certain scenes I lacked space,” he said, “That the picture was too small for me. Even a big picture was too small…I had the idea of stretching the screen. I didn’t know how. I vaguely thought if I put one camera on the right, one in front and one on the left I would have an enormous panorama.” To achieve this effect – his name is on the patent – he intended to mount three cameras on top of each other, in a pyramid linked by a motor.
There was no time to test the new equipment, manufactured by Debrie. It was completed just in time for the filming of the battle scene on 11 August 1926. When shooting ended in October 26 (though editing and post-production would continue into the following year), the producers had cause for celebration, the signing of a distribution deal with MGM, which promoted it in Variety as a “celebrated world epic.”
The version that premiered in Paris ran for 210 minutes although the following month the trade press were treated to a longer version. But it proved a flop. Even in France where audiences had been reared on the myth of Napoleon, and revered him, it was too long. Though MGM purchased it for American consumption, and some critics enthused (Variety deemed it an “extremely impressive job”) they cut it down (Variety was in agreement – noting “it would have to be sliced” while conceding “no picture producer can picture Napoleon in 70 minutes”) and it was given a very restricted number of showings. It was expected to attract most attention from the “sure-seaters” (i.e. arthouses).
Response was poor. Although shown in New York, it didn’t warrant information on the box office, suggesting it had been such a disappointment the figures were not revealed. At the 600-seat Arcadia in Philadelphia box office was “very bad.” However, returns at the 3,200-seat Loews in Montreal the returns were “above average.” That could possibly explained by Canadian affinity with France except that in Toronto the 2,300-seat Loews “took one in the jaw” at the box office. In Baltimore audiences “let it alone.” In Havana, exhibitors complained of Napoleon overload, this being the third film on the subject in as many months.
Although most U.S. exhibitors contended that interest from “the horde” in Napoleon was extremely limited that didn’t stop studios from churning out rivals. Films that may have got in its way included Frank Lloyd’s The Eagle of the Sea (1926), Napoleon (1927) with Lionel Atwill, Glorious Betsy (1928) with Dolores Costello, the German Queen Louise and Napoleon (1928) and Napoleon’s Barber (1928), one of the first talkie shorts.
In Britain, while critics doubted the effect of the triple screen, it was shown to “great success” at the Tivoli in London’s West End. But the promised general release failed to materialize.
The cost of creating “a new alphabet for the cinema” proved excessive. That the film sank into the vaults, quickly forgotten, ensured that when critics came to assess foreign silent pictures inevitably they alighted instead on Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Metropolis (1927). To all intents and purposes, Abel Gance’s Napoleon was gone – but it turned out not to be quite so forgotten and its resurrection ushered in a new experience in cinema-going.
SOURCES: Kevin Brownlow, Napoleon, Abel Gance’s Classic Film (Threefold Music, 2009); “French Napoleon,” Billboard, March 21, 1925, p85; Review, Variety, April 27, 1927, p20; Advertisement, Variety, October 26, 1927, p14; “Napoleon,” Kinematograph Weekly, December 15, 1927, p59; “Napoleon,” Variety, March 7, 1928, p50; Review, Kinematograph Weekly, July 5, 1928, p41; “Scenes From,” Kinematograph Weekly, July 26, 1928, p4; “Theatre Atmosphere,” Kinematograph Weekly, August 2, 1928, p50; “Too Many Napoleons,” Variety, October 24, 1928, p2; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, November 14, 1928, p9; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, December 5, 1928, p10; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, January 9, 1929, p7; “The Empire 13,” Kinematograph Weekly, January 17, 1929, p34; “Advertising Cost Biz for Stanleys,” Variety, February 6, 1929, p9.
Behind the Scenes: Napoleon (1927)
Purportedly, Frenchman Abel Gance got the idea for his film while walking down Broadway in New York in 1921. At that point he envisaged what we would these days term a “Napoleon Universe,” a series of six interlinked films (although early U.S. reports promised eight films) tracking the Emperor from his student days to exile in St Helena. Gance was a successful director, from La Droit a la Vie in 1917 to J’Accuse two years later each successive film had out-grossed the last. His La Roue / The Wheel (1923) was so lauded that French critics put it on a par with the later Citizen Kane.
He conceived each film to run about 5,500 feet for domestic release with a reduced version for the United States market. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending – he could not contain his ambition. The film, eventually restricted to just the early part of Napoleon’s career, took two years to make, beginning in 1925. But his innovations included dolly shots, handheld camera, overhead camera, footage shot from the back of a horse, tracking, rapid editing and split screen. It’s worth remembering just why cameras were so static during that period – moving them was extremely laborious and time-consuming, which meant it cost too much money to do. And when it did move, the unsteady camera attracted too much attention. Gance wanted movement to be discreet, not just for its own sake.
He also invented an extremely wide-angle lens and then the camera employed for the triptych. Anticipating the arrival of sound, and although they could not be heard, he made his actors speak dialog, which facilitated later dubbing. And if that wasn’t enough, he conducted tests in 3D – used in the battle scenes it was discarded for distracting the eye. Rock salt substituted for hail and filming proved so dangerous there were 220 insurance claims.
It cost $500,000 – equivalent to $8.7 million today – a hefty sum for those days but nothing compared to MGM’s Ben-Hur which cost eight times as much. However, Gance had anticipated box office returns of $4.4 million. As well as his technical skills, Gance was a whiz at salesmanship and eventually secured the bulk of his funding from Russian entrepreneur Vladimir Wengeroff who had previously invested in German films. Wengeroff had earmarked Gance as a potential director for a projected movie version of War and Peace.
But with little finance from the major French studios, Gance retained control. Initially, he promised the first part would be completed by the end of 1924 with the rest two years later. In the end, part one was as far as he got. Initially, he planned to use four actors to play the Emperor at different stages of his life. Oddly perhaps from the modern perspective, he placed more emphasis on physical resemblance to Napoleon than acting ability and screen-tested over a dozen actors. In fact, the actor who won the part of the adult Napoleon was a “rank outsider,” considered too old and too fat. When tested Albert Dieudonne “looked rather like an old woman.” But when Gance’s original choice rejected the role, he returned to Dieudonne who had transformed himself into a slimmer person after undertaking an extreme diet.
The first of the innovative multi-screen images – nine in total – occurs early in the picture, in the snowball fight. Later, as many as 16 images would be superimposed. All this was achieved through technical drudgery, repeating shots endlessly until they fitted into a pattern, and Gance likened the effect to listening to an orchestra, not necessarily taking in each instrument but enjoying the accumulated effect. The snowballs were actually made from cotton wool so didn’t fly far. To achieve authenticity, the sequence took place in winter, parents outraged that their children in the conditions risked flu or bronchitis.
The chase scene filmed in Corsica employed camera cars, with other shots from cameras placed in pits, while extreme long shots over the hills and the use of wide angle lens enhanced the experience. But there were three cameras on the one car, one facing back, one sideways and another fixed to the running board. He also filmed from the back of a horse devising his own means of working the camera.
Ambition cost money. And soon the movie was in financial trouble, filming put on hold while the director sought new backers. Eventually, funding came from a new source. Despite its name, the Societe Generale du Films, originally set up to develop film itself, was actually owned by a Russian. The SGF funding came with a proviso – that if necessary it was entitled to edit the film to bring it down to the contractual length.
Gance’s boldest innovation was without doubt the triptych (more easily explained as film projected on three screens simultaneously in the manner, a quarter of a century later, of Cinerama). “I felt in certain scenes I lacked space,” he said, “That the picture was too small for me. Even a big picture was too small…I had the idea of stretching the screen. I didn’t know how. I vaguely thought if I put one camera on the right, one in front and one on the left I would have an enormous panorama.” To achieve this effect – his name is on the patent – he intended to mount three cameras on top of each other, in a pyramid linked by a motor.
There was no time to test the new equipment, manufactured by Debrie. It was completed just in time for the filming of the battle scene on 11 August 1926. When shooting ended in October 26 (though editing and post-production would continue into the following year), the producers had cause for celebration, the signing of a distribution deal with MGM, which promoted it in Variety as a “celebrated world epic.”
The version that premiered in Paris ran for 210 minutes although the following month the trade press were treated to a longer version. But it proved a flop. Even in France where audiences had been reared on the myth of Napoleon, and revered him, it was too long. Though MGM purchased it for American consumption, and some critics enthused (Variety deemed it an “extremely impressive job”) they cut it down (Variety was in agreement – noting “it would have to be sliced” while conceding “no picture producer can picture Napoleon in 70 minutes”) and it was given a very restricted number of showings. It was expected to attract most attention from the “sure-seaters” (i.e. arthouses).
Response was poor. Although shown in New York, it didn’t warrant information on the box office, suggesting it had been such a disappointment the figures were not revealed. At the 600-seat Arcadia in Philadelphia box office was “very bad.” However, returns at the 3,200-seat Loews in Montreal the returns were “above average.” That could possibly explained by Canadian affinity with France except that in Toronto the 2,300-seat Loews “took one in the jaw” at the box office. In Baltimore audiences “let it alone.” In Havana, exhibitors complained of Napoleon overload, this being the third film on the subject in as many months.
Although most U.S. exhibitors contended that interest from “the horde” in Napoleon was extremely limited that didn’t stop studios from churning out rivals. Films that may have got in its way included Frank Lloyd’s The Eagle of the Sea (1926), Napoleon (1927) with Lionel Atwill, Glorious Betsy (1928) with Dolores Costello, the German Queen Louise and Napoleon (1928) and Napoleon’s Barber (1928), one of the first talkie shorts.
In Britain, while critics doubted the effect of the triple screen, it was shown to “great success” at the Tivoli in London’s West End. But the promised general release failed to materialize.
The cost of creating “a new alphabet for the cinema” proved excessive. That the film sank into the vaults, quickly forgotten, ensured that when critics came to assess foreign silent pictures inevitably they alighted instead on Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Metropolis (1927). To all intents and purposes, Abel Gance’s Napoleon was gone – but it turned out not to be quite so forgotten and its resurrection ushered in a new experience in cinema-going.
SOURCES: Kevin Brownlow, Napoleon, Abel Gance’s Classic Film (Threefold Music, 2009); “French Napoleon,” Billboard, March 21, 1925, p85; Review, Variety, April 27, 1927, p20; Advertisement, Variety, October 26, 1927, p14; “Napoleon,” Kinematograph Weekly, December 15, 1927, p59; “Napoleon,” Variety, March 7, 1928, p50; Review, Kinematograph Weekly, July 5, 1928, p41; “Scenes From,” Kinematograph Weekly, July 26, 1928, p4; “Theatre Atmosphere,” Kinematograph Weekly, August 2, 1928, p50; “Too Many Napoleons,” Variety, October 24, 1928, p2; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, November 14, 1928, p9; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, December 5, 1928, p10; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, January 9, 1929, p7; “The Empire 13,” Kinematograph Weekly, January 17, 1929, p34; “Advertising Cost Biz for Stanleys,” Variety, February 6, 1929, p9.
Behind the Scenes: Napoleon (1927)
Purportedly, Frenchman Abel Gance got the idea for his film while walking down Broadway in New York in 1921. At that point he envisaged what we would these days term a “Napoleon Universe,” a series of six interlinked films (although early U.S. reports promised eight films) tracking the Emperor from his student days to exile in St Helena. Gance was a successful director, from La Droit a la Vie in 1917 to J’Accuse two years later each successive film had out-grossed the last. His La Roue / The Wheel (1923) was so lauded that French critics put it on a par with the later Citizen Kane.
He conceived each film to run about 5,500 feet for domestic release with a reduced version for the United States market. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending – he could not contain his ambition. The film, eventually restricted to just the early part of Napoleon’s career, took two years to make, beginning in 1925. But his innovations included dolly shots, handheld camera, overhead camera, footage shot from the back of a horse, tracking, rapid editing and split screen. It’s worth remembering just why cameras were so static during that period – moving them was extremely laborious and time-consuming, which meant it cost too much money to do. And when it did move, the unsteady camera attracted too much attention. Gance wanted movement to be discreet, not just for its own sake.
He also invented an extremely wide-angle lens and then the camera employed for the triptych. Anticipating the arrival of sound, and although they could not be heard, he made his actors speak dialog, which facilitated later dubbing. And if that wasn’t enough, he conducted tests in 3D – used in the battle scenes it was discarded for distracting the eye. Rock salt substituted for hail and filming proved so dangerous there were 220 insurance claims.
It cost $500,000 – equivalent to $8.7 million today – a hefty sum for those days but nothing compared to MGM’s Ben-Hur which cost eight times as much. However, Gance had anticipated box office returns of $4.4 million. As well as his technical skills, Gance was a whiz at salesmanship and eventually secured the bulk of his funding from Russian entrepreneur Vladimir Wengeroff who had previously invested in German films. Wengeroff had earmarked Gance as a potential director for a projected movie version of War and Peace.
But with little finance from the major French studios, Gance retained control. Initially, he promised the first part would be completed by the end of 1924 with the rest two years later. In the end, part one was as far as he got. Initially, he planned to use four actors to play the Emperor at different stages of his life. Oddly perhaps from the modern perspective, he placed more emphasis on physical resemblance to Napoleon than acting ability and screen-tested over a dozen actors. In fact, the actor who won the part of the adult Napoleon was a “rank outsider,” considered too old and too fat. When tested Albert Dieudonne “looked rather like an old woman.” But when Gance’s original choice rejected the role, he returned to Dieudonne who had transformed himself into a slimmer person after undertaking an extreme diet.
The first of the innovative multi-screen images – nine in total – occurs early in the picture, in the snowball fight. Later, as many as 16 images would be superimposed. All this was achieved through technical drudgery, repeating shots endlessly until they fitted into a pattern, and Gance likened the effect to listening to an orchestra, not necessarily taking in each instrument but enjoying the accumulated effect. The snowballs were actually made from cotton wool so didn’t fly far. To achieve authenticity, the sequence took place in winter, parents outraged that their children in the conditions risked flu or bronchitis.
The chase scene filmed in Corsica employed camera cars, with other shots from cameras placed in pits, while extreme long shots over the hills and the use of wide angle lens enhanced the experience. But there were three cameras on the one car, one facing back, one sideways and another fixed to the running board. He also filmed from the back of a horse devising his own means of working the camera.
Ambition cost money. And soon the movie was in financial trouble, filming put on hold while the director sought new backers. Eventually, funding came from a new source. Despite its name, the Societe Generale du Films, originally set up to develop film itself, was actually owned by a Russian. The SGF funding came with a proviso – that if necessary it was entitled to edit the film to bring it down to the contractual length.
Gance’s boldest innovation was without doubt the triptych (more easily explained as film projected on three screens simultaneously in the manner, a quarter of a century later, of Cinerama). “I felt in certain scenes I lacked space,” he said, “That the picture was too small for me. Even a big picture was too small…I had the idea of stretching the screen. I didn’t know how. I vaguely thought if I put one camera on the right, one in front and one on the left I would have an enormous panorama.” To achieve this effect – his name is on the patent – he intended to mount three cameras on top of each other, in a pyramid linked by a motor.
There was no time to test the new equipment, manufactured by Debrie. It was completed just in time for the filming of the battle scene on 11 August 1926. When shooting ended in October 26 (though editing and post-production would continue into the following year), the producers had cause for celebration, the signing of a distribution deal with MGM, which promoted it in Variety as a “celebrated world epic.”
The version that premiered in Paris ran for 210 minutes although the following month the trade press were treated to a longer version. But it proved a flop. Even in France where audiences had been reared on the myth of Napoleon, and revered him, it was too long. Though MGM purchased it for American consumption, and some critics enthused (Variety deemed it an “extremely impressive job”) they cut it down (Variety was in agreement – noting “it would have to be sliced” while conceding “no picture producer can picture Napoleon in 70 minutes”) and it was given a very restricted number of showings. It was expected to attract most attention from the “sure-seaters” (i.e. arthouses).
Response was poor. Although shown in New York, it didn’t warrant information on the box office, suggesting it had been such a disappointment the figures were not revealed. At the 600-seat Arcadia in Philadelphia box office was “very bad.” However, returns at the 3,200-seat Loews in Montreal the returns were “above average.” That could possibly explained by Canadian affinity with France except that in Toronto the 2,300-seat Loews “took one in the jaw” at the box office. In Baltimore audiences “let it alone.” In Havana, exhibitors complained of Napoleon overload, this being the third film on the subject in as many months.
Although most U.S. exhibitors contended that interest from “the horde” in Napoleon was extremely limited that didn’t stop studios from churning out rivals. Films that may have got in its way included Frank Lloyd’s The Eagle of the Sea (1926), Napoleon (1927) with Lionel Atwill, Glorious Betsy (1928) with Dolores Costello, the German Queen Louise and Napoleon (1928) and Napoleon’s Barber (1928), one of the first talkie shorts.
In Britain, while critics doubted the effect of the triple screen, it was shown to “great success” at the Tivoli in London’s West End. But the promised general release failed to materialize.
The cost of creating “a new alphabet for the cinema” proved excessive. That the film sank into the vaults, quickly forgotten, ensured that when critics came to assess foreign silent pictures inevitably they alighted instead on Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Metropolis (1927). To all intents and purposes, Abel Gance’s Napoleon was gone – but it turned out not to be quite so forgotten and its resurrection ushered in a new experience in cinema-going.
SOURCES: Kevin Brownlow, Napoleon, Abel Gance’s Classic Film (Threefold Music, 2009); “French Napoleon,” Billboard, March 21, 1925, p85; Review, Variety, April 27, 1927, p20; Advertisement, Variety, October 26, 1927, p14; “Napoleon,” Kinematograph Weekly, December 15, 1927, p59; “Napoleon,” Variety, March 7, 1928, p50; Review, Kinematograph Weekly, July 5, 1928, p41; “Scenes From,” Kinematograph Weekly, July 26, 1928, p4; “Theatre Atmosphere,” Kinematograph Weekly, August 2, 1928, p50; “Too Many Napoleons,” Variety, October 24, 1928, p2; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, November 14, 1928, p9; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, December 5, 1928, p10; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, January 9, 1929, p7; “The Empire 13,” Kinematograph Weekly, January 17, 1929, p34; “Advertising Cost Biz for Stanleys,” Variety, February 6, 1929, p9.
That Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) dominated the foreign film scene in the silent era was only because Abel Gance’s majestic Napoleon the same year was butchered on release and rarely seen outside its native France. Audiences who might fancy waiting for streaming to view Ridley Scott’s new epic on the grander four-hour scale might prefer to test their stamina against this early masterpiece that broke incredible new cinematic ground.
You could easily get the impression from the vast amount of innovation on display here that one man – and a Frenchman at that – had single-handedly decided to revolutionize the entire medium. Of course, France had been instrumental in the birth of cinema. Alice Guy was key to the development of narrative cinema although the world being male-dominated that singular achievement was erroneously handed over to George Melies.
Here’s the list of Abel Gance’s innovations: split screen (in fact, triple images), underwater shots, tinting, fast cutting, hand-held shots, extensive close-ups, point-of-view shots, superimposition, use of multiple cameras, mosaic shots and multiple exposure. Perhaps even more astonishing was that at the time the bulk of movie cameras were static. Even if the result had been, dramatically speaking, as dull as ditch water, it would have been of historical cinematic importance, possibly on a par with This Is Cinerama (1952) or House of Wax (1953), the first 3D.
And it if had been as visually striking and cinematically interesting as The Robe (1953), Twentieth Century Fox’s first demonstration of Cinemascope, it would have more than passed muster as a cinematic footnote.
Instead, it is just stunning. You couldn’t ask for a bolder storyline, the biopic of one of the most fascinating characters who ever lived, Napoleon Bonaparte, who resurrected France after the Revolution of 1789, conquered most of Europe, and rose from defeat and captivity to rally his troops for one final battle at Waterloo in 1815. Wisely, Abel Gance doesn’t attempt to cover all that territory, only going as far as the invasion of Italy, which marked the Little General’s rise as a battle master.
Unlike other directors such as Orson Welles who scarcely made another movie after one of his first efforts was butchered on release, Gance kept plugging away despite the debacle of Napoleon. “Venus of Paris” was shown in 1941.
Which version you see – the most common one comes in at around the four-hour mark but if you have the stamina there’s enough in the longer version to keep you engrossed for another couple of hours – will inform your assessment of the authenticity of the narrative and attest to the compelling nature of the tale.
Beginning with a young Napoleon revealing his military skills just to engage in a snowball fight, it moves with narrative focus and cinematic flair through his difficult time at school to the invasion of Italy. Some of the imagery is haunting, a freed pet eagle returning out of choice to his side, the French flag used as a sail, lightning illuminates hand-to-hand combat (that battle taking place in the kind of driving rain Kurosawa would employ in Seven Samurai, 1954), scenes change color, and the final unfurling of the triptych (three connected screens a la Cinerama) is one of the most visual climaxes in cinema.
But even the shortest version contains the bulk of the innovation, perhaps proving that dialog was the most redundant of all the cinematic developments. The trailer, which you can catch on YouTube (see link below), is almost jukebox cinema, a compilation of many of the greatest scenes. Unless you are familiar with silent cinema style, you might recoil at some of the acting, but, once you get into the swing of it, that seems to jar less.
Much as I am a huge fan of Ridley Scott (the extended version of Kingdom of Heaven, 2005, a long-time fave), I doubt if his version (even the longer one promised for the Netflix screening) will come anywhere close to the almost cinematic perfection of Abel Gance.
Don’t take Stanley Kubrick and martin Scorsese’s word for it, this is a must watch.
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.
Short stories can be an excellent starting point for movies because usually they are lean and narrative driven, a screenwriter needing basically to fill out the characters and add a subplot. But short stories have one weakness. They require a pay-off, a twist, something the reader doesn’t see coming. And short of a twist of the caliber of Jagged Edge (1985) or The Sixth Sense (1999), these don’t usually come off, the audience feeling duped.
This one falls down due to a twist. Two actually, because it comprises a pair of initially unconnected short stories, A Year to Learn the Language and In the French Style. Which is a shame because the movie itself with its Parisian setting is in general charming and conveys the development of young American Christine (Jean Seberg) as she moves from innocent wannabe artist to promiscuous model while worrying she is throwing her life away on transient pleasures.
Writer Irwin Shaw (Two Weeks in Another Town, 1962), who doubles as producer, has used Christine as the link between two of this best-known short stories. So it’s – to dip into soccer parlance – a film of two halves and I’ll let you know right away co-star Stanley Baker (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) is consigned to the second part, when he meets an older and perhaps more rueful Christine.
So, young, not exactly starving (an allowance from her father funds her lifestyle), artist meets a young Frenchman Guy (Phillipe Forquet) determined to be the antithesis of the standard Frenchman. He doesn’t drink because alcohol is ruining his country. He won’t kiss her in public because not all Frenchman are insanely romantic. He’s severely lacking it has to be said in the romantic gene. Seduction is abrupt. He’s got the key to a friend’s apartment. Let’s go. Is as much subtlety as he can summon up.
So no sex this time and she decides she’ll be the one doing the asking, which upsets his notion of the biddable girlfriend. Anyway, they end up touring Paris on his scooter looking for a suitable no-questions-asked hotel. Surprisingly, the city, according to Guy, isn’t full of them.
And end up in a freezing hotel room. He can’t open the champagne bottle. He insists she undress last, as apparently that’s the done thing. And then he springs his surprise. He’s not only a virgin, he’s not the 21-year-old he told her he was, but still at school and just 16.
If this had been done The Graduate-style, with his awkwardness to the fore, or if she had just been as clumsy, it would probably have worked. There would have been nothing illegal in their coupling, or cringe-worthy (she’s 19 after all), but it just makes her out to be an idiot, fooled because she effectively fell for the first handsome Frenchman to come her way. It just drops a bomb of the wrong kind halfway through the movie.
Cut to four years later and she’s much more the lady-about-town, independent or of questionable morals depending on your point of view, self-sufficient or relying on male companionship to see her through depending on your point of view. Having been dumped by Bill (Jack Hedley), she hooks up with itinerant flamboyant journalist Walter (Stanley Baker) but while he’s off on some important story she’s made hay with more sober American Dr John Haislip (James Leo Herlihy, yes that one, author of Midnight Cowboy) and chooses security over culture and fun.
The problem with this section is that the short story was originally written from Walter’s point of view, as he comes to realize that long-term commitment is not compatible with globe-trotting.
All told, a pretty odd concoction. That it works at all is largely due to Jean Seberg (Breathless, 1960). I’m not totally convinced by her transition. You get the impression that had she met a more worldly Frenchman in the first half she would have quickly shaken him off for another lover. As it is, her rootlessness is meant to be the result of being disappointed by a schoolboy lover. Hmmm!
Although there’s over-reliance on Paris atmosphere – jazz club, Arc de Triomphe, restaurants where waiters transport flambe dishes halfway across a room, a “happening” where the art crowd lets it all hang out – and we rely on other characters telling us about Christine’s personal situation, it remains an interesting view of the French capital from the point-of-view of an American ex-pat, who, less successfully than Hemingway perhaps, offers a different perspective on the city. Robert Parrish (Duffy, 1968) directed.
Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant (later a famous duo in Charade, 1963) were the first names associated with Bonjour Tristesse. The former was mooted soon after the movie rights were sold to French producer Ray Ventura. She remained in the frame after Otto Preminger took over in 1955, when the project was intended for MGM rather than Columbia, at which point Grant was being targeted.
But, unfortunately, this was not being proposed as a dream team. Vittorio De Sica was being lined up to play the father in the Hepburn version that was to be directed by Jean Negulesco.
(You can see why uncovering this information prompted me to have a second shot at a “Behind the Scenes” for this picture. When I did the original article, I didn’t have access to my usual online sources. But after a query from a reader over the success/failure of the movie, and with internet access restored, I began to check out its box office and, in so doing, found a treasure trove of new data.)
Even after Preminger dumped Hepburn – and Maggie MacNamara, star of The Moon Is Blue (1953) for that matter – as being too old, at this point Preminger was not looking in the direction of Jean Seberg either. Instead, he was going down a more traditional route to find an actress to play disturbed teenager Cecile. He embarked on a publicity-driven new star hunt. After in 1956 holding a “talent search for femme lead” in France, the director selected 17-year-old Gisele Franchomme for the role.
But she never made the grade either and was quickly jettisoned for Francoise Arnoul (French Cancan, 1955), aged 25 at the time, with another Frenchwoman, Michele Morgan (Lost Command, 1966), as the older woman who snares Cecile’s father, still to be played by Grant.
It’s hard to visualize now just what a hot number the source material was. The novel by Francoise Sagan had been a massive U.S. bestseller. By September 1955 it was in its ninth hardback printing, shifting 110,000 copies, and in 1956 became Dell’s top-selling paperback of the year. The movie rights had originally sold for just $3,000 to Ventura before Preminger ponied up $100,000 (or $150,000 depending on who you believe and in either case still the highest price ever paid for a French novel) and set the movie up at MGM.
So that studio was determined to strike while the novel was hot, taking advantage of the sensational sales figures achieved by Dell. Preminger had different plans. He had a double whammy in mind, planning to pre-empt the movie with a play written by S.N. Berhman (on loan-out from MGM who took first stab at the screenplay) initially scheduled to hit Broadway more than a year before the film appeared.
Preminger had worked the play-into-movie magic before, directing The Moon Is Blue on Broadway in 1951 two years prior to his controversial movie version. In the end Preminger concluded there was “insufficient time” to put a play into production before he was due to begin shooting.
Although it had originally gone along with the idea of the play to the extent of funding the stage production, MGM grew increasingly anxious about the delay in moving onto the picture-making part of the deal. Originally, it was planned as Preminger’s follow-up to The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) which would have seen it released either in later 1956 or early 1957.
The notion of turning the book into a play first probably caused the parting of the ways between MGM and Preminger, the studio unable to pin him down to a start date that would take advantage of phenomenal public interest. He was a hard guy to pin down, already commissioning Alec Coppel to write the screenplay of The Wheel, his proposed biopic of Gandhi, and he also had an ongoing deal with United Artists. So when MGM pulled out, the director turned to Columbia, planning Bonjour Tristesse as the first film in a multi-picture non-exclusive deal.
You could see why MGM were so anxious to get going. The studio was leading the way in a new trend, “the newest film cycle is controversy,” trumpeted Variety in a front-page splash in 1956, tagging Bonjour Tristesse “an unpleasant tale.”
But there was a better reason to act fast rather than just to be seen as with-it. Not only was the paperback market booming, its fastest-growing sector was the movie tie-in. While the 4,500 titles appearing annually accounted for sales of around 200 million copies, publishers also printed movie tie-ins for another 200 titles.
Movie tie-ins had turned into a publishing phenomenon. Sales of Dell movie tie-in paperbacks rocketed year on year, so much so that the rise in 1959 was 23 per cent over the previous year. Ironically, Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder (1959) has been the publisher’s top title for that year. Peyton Place had taken the top spot in both 1957 and 1958 – 4.2 million copies in print – with Bonjour Tristesse its top seller in 1956.
Typically, a movie tie-in was, in effect, a follow-up to the initial paperback. Often the tie-in print run was much higher than the initial printing. The tie-in edition for Bridge on the River Kwai, for example, topped 750,000 copies, for Sayonara it was 900,000. Don’t Go Near the Water sold one million in a month. The average movie tie-in print run for Bantam was 200,000-350,000 copies; for Dell 250,000-300,000; for Signet 300,000; Popular Library 250,000-300,000; and Pocket 225,000-375,000.
Paperbacks accessed a new market. Apart from traditional bookshops, they were available in drugstores, newsstands, supermarkets, impulse buys when the reader was purchasing something else. But they provided for studios a powerful marketing tool. Dell advertised that its paperback “bestsellers were movie pre-sellers” and for good reason. Front covers adorned with stills from a forthcoming movie offered studios fresh promotional opportunity. When a big picture was due you could hardly walk down a street without your attention being called to a tie-in.
Paperback sales were also viewed as a providing a strong indication of box office potential. Based on its sales, it was predicted that Bonjour Tristesse would do as well as Old Yeller and Don’t Go Near the Water, which turned into, respectively, the 10th and 14th biggest films of the year. Columbia sales chief Rube Jackter was so confident of success for Bonjour Tristesse that he departed from convention, taking a groundbreaking approach, personally undertaking a nationwide tour to sell the project to his local sales teams. Perhaps he didn’t want to be beaten to the punch by A Certain Smile (1958), Sagan’s sophomore novel, rights selling for $150,000 and eight per cent of the gross.
Newcomer Jean Seberg was in the vanguard of a new talent hunt. Undaunted by his experience with Seberg in Saint Joan and the critical pummelling she had personally taken, Preminger defended his protégé. “I think she has talent. If I’m wrong, I’ll pay for it. I don’t say I’m infallible, but neither are the critics.”
Preminger backed new talent, taking a chance on Maggie MacNamara in The Moon Is Blue, Lee Remick in Anatomy of a Murder and, later, Tom Tryon in The Cardinal (1963) and Carol Lynley in Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965). In the late 1950s, Twentieth Century Fox was particularly active in developing younger – and cheaper – stars. But other studios such as Universal and Paramount (who had picked up Audrey Hepburn in a talent hunt in the earlier part of the decade) were also keen.
Lynley and Remick were among those being tipped for the top in 1959 in addition to Rod Taylor (Dark of the Sun, 1968), Jill St John (Tony Rome, 1967), Stuart Whitman (Rio Conchos, 1964), Troy Donohue (Rome Adventure, 1962), Bradford Dillman (The Bridge at Remagen, 1969), Sandra Dee (A Man Could Get Killed, 1966), John Gavin (Psycho, 1960) and Cliff Robertson (Masquerade, 1965).
Preminger’s cinematographer George Perinal (who had taken over Saint Joan, 1957, at short notice) hankered after using Technirama for the picture until the director pointed out “the difficulties of using such a large camera in the tiny interiors of the locations.” These included an art gallery in Montparnasse round the corner from Notre Dame where Preminger negotiated a one-day rental (and the purchase of a Picasso) from the Japanese owner. Following Saint Joan, Perinal was so taken with the experience of working with Preminger that he had turned down several other offers in order to keep himself free for a possible shot at Bonjour Tristesse.
“A large part of my job,” noted Perinal, “ is keeping out of the way once I had lit the set as Preminger wanted,” leaving the physical shooting to the cameraman. He had “great admiration for Preminger’s methods” since “unlike most directors he doesn’t protect himself by having one or two extra cameras covering the scene from different angle. He knows the angle he is after, and he gets it.” If the rushes proved the scene didn’t go as planned, he simply shot it all over again.
The scene in Maxim’s was filmed for a day and a night, extras being rehearsed in the morning. Most of the takes concentrated on chanteuse Juliette Greco. Francoise Sagan was tapped to write the lyrics for the movie’s theme song, but that didn;t work out instead it’s credited to Jacques Datin.
It’s worth remembering the ease with which top stars travelled. Deborah Kerr had booked passage on the Queen Mary sailing from New York to Cherbourg in the north of France for herself and two children, Melanie and Francesca, and after docking took a leisurely drive down to St Tropez.
As well as paperbacks offering marketing opportunities, the theme song to Bonjour Tristesse was also a promotional tool, Gogi Grant released it as a single, Les Baxter as an instrumental and Janet Blair sang it on British television top show Sunday Night at the London Palladium while the soundtrack album was a premier release for RCA Victor, which backed it up with an advertising campaign.
Released in February 1958 in the U.S., Bonjour Tristesse was one of 35 pictures distributed by Columbia over a six-month period. Thanks to the book sales and the cast, expectations were high. David Niven was riding a commercial (blockbuster Around the World in 80 Days, 1956, still in cinemas) and critical wave (Separate Tables, 1958, would earn him an Oscar). Deborah Kerr remained one of the industry’s most sought-after stars, her commercial and critical standing (three Oscar nominations 1956-1958 in a row) far higher than Niven’s. She had hit box office heights in The King and I (1956) and played opposite such top male stars as William Holden (The Proud and the Profane, 1956), Cary Grant (An Affair to Remember, 1957) and Robert Mitchum (Heaven Knows Mister Allison, 1957).
Robert Coyne of exhibitor alliance Compo rated it potentially one of the year’s “big pictures” along with The Young Lions and Peyton Place. But while enjoying some reasonable results in prestigious first run theaters in hi-hat locations, Bonjour Tristesse quickly fizzled out.
Although a dud in the United States – in terms of rentals it didn’t even clear $1 million – it enjoyed greater success elsewhere, ranking fifth in Japan, 20th in the annual Italian box office race, and in the Top 50 in France, “bang-up business” in journalistic parlance. But it was banned in Ireland. However, suggestions it was a box office smash elsewhere had to be taken with a pinch of salt. It only earned $195,000 in rentals in Japan. So, it is doubtful if it ever reached profitability on initial release.
There was some respite in the critical pummeling of Seberg. Hollywood Reporter, in a favorable review, tabbed her a “delicious little eyeful” noting her style was better suited to this than Saint Joan. And despite her experience of working with the director, the actress, one year later, was reported as “hoping Otto Preminger will come through with a commitment to her” not realising he was on the stage of ducking out of her contract, explaining that there wasn’t a suitable role for her in his next three planned pictures. So that contract, too, went the way of Columbia who tested her for a supporting role in The Beach Boys, a starring vehicle for Kim Novak to be helmed by Charles Vidor.
There was some reassessment of the title post-release. When Columbia sold a batch of 60 movies to television in 1964, Bonjour Tristesse was hailed in the trade advertising campaign as the main attraction, photos of the three stars adorning a full-page advert in Variety. It was reissued in Tokyo in 1981. It was featured in a 15-picture Columbia retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1985.
SOURCES: “Europe,” Hollywood Reporter, August 18, 1954, p7; “Otto Preminger Acquires Bonjour Tristesse Novel,” Hollywood Reporter, April 27, 1955, p2; “Tristesse Legit Version Being Financed by MGM,” Hollywood Reporter, May 31, 1955, p1; “Preminger Gets Behrman To Script Play and Film,” Hollywood Reporter, August 5, 1955, p3; Mike Connolly, “Rambling Reporter,” Hollywood Reporter, August 24, 1955, p2; “M-G Bankrolls Tristesse Legiter,” Variety, September 7, 1955, p3; “Literati,” Variety, September 7, 1955, p69; “Preminger Sets Coppel To Script Wheel,” Hollywood Reporter, January 12, 1956, p3; Stuart Schulberg, “Europe’s Unpampered Stars,” Variety, February 15, 1956, p7; “Chatter,” Variety, February 15, 1956, p74; “Paris,” Hollywood Reporter, May 22, 1956, p20; Mike Connolly, “Rambling Reporter,” Hollywood Reporter, June 8, 1956, p2; “Chatter,” Variety, June 13, 1956, p78; “Looky – We’re Controversial,” Variety, June 26, 1956, p5; “Bonjour Tristesse,” Variety, July 25, 1956, p4; “Chatter,” Variety, August 22, 1956, p62; ”Niven and Kerr Will Star in Tristesse,” Hollywood Reporter, February 21, 1957, p2; “Broadway Ballyhoo,” Hollywood Reporter, April 19, 1957, p10; “Insufficient Time for Tristesse Stage Version,” Variety, March 28, 1956, p2; “Cameraman on the Sidelines,” American Cinematographer, August 1957, p510; “The Note-Book,” Hollywood Reporter, August 5, 1957, p7; “Broadway Ballyhoo,” Hollywood Reporter, August 13, 1957, p4; “Broadway Ballyhoo,” Hollywood Reporter, August 20, 1957, p4; “Preminger,” Variety, October 16, 1957, p75; “Jackter Hits Sticks for Bonjour Release,” Variety, December 18, 1957, p3; “Foreign TV Follow-Up,” Variety, December 18, 1957, p38; Advert, “Dell Book Best-Sellers Are Movie Pre-Sellers,” Hollywood Reporter, January 8, 1958, p5; Review, Hollywood Reporter, January 15, 1958, p3; Advert, Variety, January 22, 1958, p56; RCA Victor advert, Variety, January 29, 1958, p56; Advert, Billboard, January 27, 1958, p49; “Columbia Feeds 35 by August,” Variety, February 5, 1958, p18; “A Film ‘Still’ Big Sell on Paperback,” Variety, March 5, 1958, p7; “Irish Want New Film Censoring,” Variety, June 11, 1958, p11; “Broadway Ballyhoo,” Hollywood Reporter, July 1, 1958, p4; “Sindlinger: And Rebuffed,” Variety, July 2, 1958, p5; “Paris First Runs,” Variety, July 16, 1958, p12; “New York Sound Track,” Variety, July 30, 1958, p21; “Columbia To Test Seberg for Beach Boys Role,“ Hollywood Reporter, August 15, 1958, p1; “Yank Films Still Dominate Italy,” Variety, December 3, 1958, p12; “Top Grossers* of 1958,” Variety, Jan 7, 1959, p48; “Kwai Tops in Japan,” Variety, March 18, 1959, p24; “Nine U.S. Pix,” Variety, May 13, 1959, p12; “Hollywood Takes To Tyros,” Variety, September 2, 1959, p3; “Paperback-Film Zowie Tandem,” Variety, February 3, 1960, p5; Advert, Variety, September 9, 1964, p39; “Bull Takes Charge,” Variety, May 25, 1981, p32; “MoMa Columbia Retro Set,” Variety, January 30, 1985, p4.
* NOTE: Just to confuse things, Variety headlined its annual rentals report as “Top Grossers of 1958” but in the small print clarified that these figures related to “domestic market rentals accruing to distributors (i.e. studios) a distinguished from total theater gross.”
The Magnificent 60s 