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Seduced and Abandoned (1964)

Seduced and Abandoned (1964)

“It’s a question of honor – it’s always a question of honor!”

Synopsis:
When he learns his 15-year-old daughter (Stefania Sandrelli) has been impregnated by the fiance (Aldo Puglisi) of his more homely daughter (Paola Biggio), the head (Saro Urzì of a large Sicilian family vows revenge upon his family’s honor.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Black Comedy
  • Italian Films
  • Morality Police

Review:
After the success of Divorce, Italian Style (1961) — which was largely responsible for sparking the genre of commedia all’italiana — writer-director Pietro Germi helmed this second in a trilogy of dark satires about social (specifically gender-based) mores in mid-20th-century Italy. The real-life scenario presented here is truly ludicrous: Sandrelli feels guilt for “allowing” herself to be seduced by Biggio, who promptly shuns her once he’s “defiled” her: now that she no longer a virgin (thanks to him), she’s a whore. The logical consequences of such a warped ideology are played out to the nth degree here, to the extent that responses to this film were mixed. As noted in Irene Bignardi’s essay for Criterion:

There was a sense that Germi had simply gone too far in this second installment of his “baroque trilogy,” in his piling up of twists, turns, and coups de théâtre, and that the tone of his satire veered toward the grotesque and cynical. And a ghastly piece of work it indeed is: a brilliant satire of a society totally devoted to appearances and to minding other people’s business, a dark farce about the cult of gossip and honor.

It’s nice to see beautiful Sandrelli given more of a central role (and a bit more agency) here than in Divorce … (though she’s still terribly objectified):

… and Germi’s imagery of a town all-too-ready to play along with toxic patriarchy is appropriately incisive.

This one’s worth a look if you can stomach it.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Saro Urzì as Don Vincenzo Ascalone
  • Fine location shooting in Sciacca

Must See?
No, but it’s recommended.

Links:

Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)

Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)

“Would you mind if I touched your calf?”

Synopsis:
When a Parisian maid (Jeanne Moreau) arrives at the country chateau of a man (Michel Picoli) with a foot-fetishing father (Jean Ozenne) and a frigid wife (Françoise Lugagne), she quickly learns that the groundskeeper (Georges Géret) is a Fascist; that the couple’s neighbor (Daniel Ivernel) is perpetually vindictive; and that a young girl (Dominique Sauvage) is at risk from predators.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Class Relations
  • French Films
  • Jeanne Moreau Films
  • Luis Buñuel Films
  • Murder Mystery
  • Servants, Maids, and Housekeepers
  • Strong Females

Review:
Luis Buñuel’s first collaboration with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière was this loosely inspired adaptation of a 1900 novel by Octave Mirbeau, previously adapted by Jean Renoir (1946) with Paulette Goddard in the title role. It’s challenging to know what to make of the storyline here, which starts off as a fairly straightforward tale of a savvy working-class woman navigating bourgeois perversities:

… but takes a decidedly darker turn when one key character dies suddenly, another is brutally murdered, and Moreau shifts into an amateur detective role. Things certainly don’t end in a satisfying or conclusive manner, and we’re left (possibly intentionally so) feeling quite unsettled. Given that this is a Buñuel film, that’s not so surprising — though it’s all accomplished without any overtly surreal imagery. As noted in David Kalat’s review for TCM, “If there’s anything that ties Buñuel’s films together, it is their commitment to intellectual anarchy, their refusal to be tied down by anything so reductive as a simple interpretation.”

Note: A benefit of watching a number of foreign language titles in chronological order is feeling better able to place certain supporting actors who seemed to be cast to type — as is the case here with Françoise Lugagne playing a variation on the same kind of uptight wife she embodied in Claude Chabrol’s Bluebeard (1963).

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Jeanne Moreau as Célestine
  • Fine cinematography and sets

Must See?
No, though it’s worth a look. Listed as a film with Historical Importance and a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

Links:

Black Like Me (1964)

Black Like Me (1964)

“I thought I’d seen every form of human degradation there was.”

Synopsis:
When a White journalist (James Whitmore) takes pills to turn himself temporarily Black, his travels through the South begin to give him an approximation of systemic and individual racism across the American south.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • African-Americans
  • Deep South
  • James Whitmore Films
  • Journalists
  • Mistaken and Hidden Identities
  • Race Relations and Racism

Review:
I’ll open my review of this unusual independent film by citing directly from David Sterritt’s article for TCM, where he notes that:

Black Like Me (1964), based on the book of that title by John Howard Griffin, tells the unlikely tale of a bold, flawed, and enduringly controversial experiment carried out by a journalist whose lack of training in social science was balanced by deep curiosity and a profound sense of indignation over some of the ugliest aspects of 20th-century American society.

Indeed, it should be noted that modern viewers will likely have a hard time swallowing the overall intent of this flick — and it doesn’t help matters that (as Bosley Crowther points out in his review) “Whitmore’s make-up does little to convince us he’s actually Black (he looks more “like an end man in a minstrel show”):

… and “Carl Lerner’s direction of the screenplay that he and his wife, Gerda, wrote is melodramatic and unsubtle.” However, also true is Sterritt’s assessment that while this is “not great cinema,” it’s “a compelling time capsule… offering a rough-and-ready sketch of the powerful passions and noble purposes that propelled the civil-rights movement in the crucial year of 1964.”

To that end, in order to contextualize this film within other cinematic efforts of the time, I turn to DVD Savant’s review, where he writes:

As socially conscious filmmaking moved into the 1960s, it became marginalized more than ever. Getting low-budget B&W pictures into theaters was an even tougher sell, and the watered-down liberal messages in TV meant that only a specialized audience went for films about social justice or race equality. The average person thinks that a successful liberal consciousness picture is the overly insistent The Defiant Ones or the feel-good Lilies of the Field or the glamorous Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Ironically, those glamorous and unthreatening Sidney Poitier pictures probably did more to convince nervous whitebread America accept the idea that blacks weren’t a scary “other”, than all the heartfelt confrontational movies put together. The nature of film distribution required that movies court a white audience. Sidney won over his audiences by playing characters of obvious virtue and integrity. Good actors like James Edwards and Brock Peters got plenty of bit parts and some that allowed them to express pride in their color, but Hollywood in general reacted to the Civil Rights advances with a dose of defensive tokenism.

With all this important contextualizing information in mind, Black Like Me is recommended for one-time viewing.

Note: I found it especially intriguing reading more about Griffin himself in Sterritt’s overview for TCM, and highly recommend a fascinating 2011 documentary about him available for viewing on Vimeo.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • A most unusual social experiment brought to life on screen

Must See?
Yes, as a powerful (if perhaps inevitably flawed) independent film about racism.

Categories

  • Good Show
  • Historically Relevant

Links:

Before the Revolution (1964)

Before the Revolution (1964)

“It’s terrible to think how near to death the living are.”

Synopsis:
In post-WWII Parma, a bourgeois young man (Francesco Barilli) engaged to an apolitical beauty (Cristina Pariset) reflects on life, religion, politics, and the recent death of his friend (Allen Midgette) while beginning an affair with his young aunt (Adriana Asti).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Bernardo Bertolucci Films
  • Italian Films

Review:
Bernardo Bertolucci was only 22-years-old when he made his second feature-length film, with overt references to filmmakers he admired — including Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Unfortunately, Bertolucci’s Oscar-nominated screenplay — co-authored by Gianni Amico, and inspired by characters’ names from Stendhal’s 1839 novel The Charterhouse of Parma — doesn’t provide us with much to hold onto, with Barilli simply presenting as a callow youth whose crush on his aunt seems ill-advised at best:

… and Asti coming across as merely a wide-eyed, tortured cipher. While this film is lauded in 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die as an “astonishing” “elegy for those bourgeois lives doomed because they take place before the revolution,” showcasing “a perfect portrait of the generation who were to embrace revolt in the late 1960s,” most modern (non-Italian) viewers won’t have a good sense of which revolution is being referred to, or why any of this much matters.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Aldo Scavarda’s cinematography

Must See?
No; you can skip this one unless you’re a Bertolucci fan. Listed as a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

Reflections on Must-See Films From 1963

Reflections on Must-See Films From 1963

Given that Peary lambastes 1963 in his Alternate Oscars as a cinematic year unworthy of any Best Picture contenders, I was curious to take a look at how many titles from this year struck a chord with me — and was pleasantly surprised to see that quite a few are worth mentioning. Out of 74 total titles, I voted 32 — or ~43% — as must-see; here are just a few. (We’re seeing a lot more color than in 1962, btw.)

“It is mankind… who insists upon making it difficult for life to exist upon this planet.”
  • Numbers wise, only six of the 32 titles are in a language other than English: one in Japanese (Kurosawa’s High and Low), three in Italian (Fellini’s 8 1/2, Mario Monicelli’s The Organizer, and Vittorio de Sica’s Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow), and two in Spanish — including the powerful Spanish documentary To Die in Madrid.
  • Several are British — including Peter Brook’s adaptation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, made with an unusual amount of creative leeway and resulting in “an appropriately terrifying tale about leadership (or lack thereof) run amok.”
  • I’m also a fan of Joseph Losey’s creepy The Servant — featuring shadowy cinematography by Douglas Slocombe and starring Dirk Bogarde as “a calculating and unflappable servant-for-hire who knows exactly the right moves to make at each moment as he pursues his self-serving, often inscrutable goals” while helping to care for an alcoholic financier (James Fox).
  • British director Alexander Mackendrick’s little-seen A Boy Ten Feet Tall (a.k.a. Sammy Going South) tells the unusual story of a ten-year-old boy (Fergus McClelland) embarking on a trek across Africa to find his aunt, and encountering Edward G. Robinson’s grizzled jewel miner along the way. McClelland and Robinson are excellent together, and the cinematography by Erwin Hiller is often beautiful.
  • Murder at the Gallop remains a delightful Agatha Christie adaptation featuring jowly Margaret Rutherford as “prim, spinsterish Miss Marple.” As I note in my review, “With her otherworldly facial grimaces and her indomitable lust for sleuthing (and snooping), Rutherford carries the film with ease.”
  • From all of 1963’s titles, what stands out most is Hitchcock’s The Birds — one of his most unique and suspenseful thrillers, telling a metaphorically rich tale of a seaside town overtaken by gulls, crows, ravens, sparrows, and finches — for unknown reasons…

    “Why are they doing this? Why are they doing this? They said when you got here the whole thing started. Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think you’re the cause of all of this. I think you’re evil. EVIL!”

  • The second James Bond film — From Russia With Love — is a worthy successor to Dr. No (1962), featuring a couple of memorable villains: blond Robert Shaw as a psychopathic British traitor, and Lotte Lenya as diabolical Rosa Klebb.
  • Jason and the Argonauts showcases some of Ray Harryhausen’s most memorable stop-motion animation, including (of course) the sword fighting skeletons, but also the giant statue of Talos coming to life and gruesome harpies relentlessly plaguing blind Phineus.
  • Martin Ritt’s Hud, a “film about alienation in all its forms,” is brutal viewing — worth watching for the powerful performances by co-stars Paul Newman and Patricia Neal, but not likely to engender much desire for a revisit.
  • Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra — notorious for its overblown budget and multi-year filming saga — is actually “a reasonably engaging (if over-long) saga of opulence, narcissism, treachery, and high drama among the elite ruling class,” with literally “no expense [being] spared to (re)create a vision of ancient Egypt and Rome fantastic enough to represent the delusional grandeur of such fabled rulers.” It nearly took down 20th Century Fox.
  • Finally, Roger Corman’s low-budget sci-fi thriller X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes remains an enjoyable flick about the “inevitable downward spiral of a man [Ray Milland] who has… clearly become a ‘freak’ of nature, demonstrating that one “who can see ‘everything’ may have access to universal secrets best left untapped.”
    “We are virtually blind — all of us.”
    • As I’m reflecting on all these titles, I’m seeing a definite theme of terror and unease mixed with revolution and resilience. Life was getting increasingly challenging, and cinema was showing this in a variety of forms.

      I look forward to seeing where 1964 takes us!

8 1/2 (1963)

8 1/2 (1963)

“I really have nothing to say — but I want to say it all the same.”

Synopsis:
A famous director (Marcello Mastroianni) in a creative slump seeks respite at a spa, but by inviting his mistress (Sandra Milo) and his wife (Anouk Aimee) to come visit — and inevitably being surrounded by people wanting something from him — he is unable to rest.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Anouk Aimee Films
  • Barbara Steele Films
  • Claudia Cardinale Films
  • Directors
  • Federico Fellini Films
  • Italian Films
  • Marcello Mastroianni Films
  • Midlife Crisis

Review:
Fellini’s hyper-existential 8 1/2th film was made after his first six features — Variety Lights (1950) (which he co-directed — so, it counts for half), The White Sheik (1952), I Vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), The Swindle (1955) [not listed in Peary’s GFTFF], Nights of Cabiria (1957), and La Dolce Vita (1960), as well as segments of Love in the City (1953) and Boccaccio ’70 (1962) — and thus was named after its own numerical placement in his oeuvre. As Alexander Sesonke notes in his review for Criterion, “8 1/2 is a film about making a film, and the film that is being made is 8 1/2.” Precisely.

Given how intentionally self-absorbed this project ended up being, I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I got caught up in Mastroianni’s travails — unlike in the much bleaker La Dolce Vita (perhaps in part because Fellini kept a note to himself by his camera saying “Remember — this is a comedy.”). Fellini very effectively conveys what it’s like to be so famous and beloved for your craft that you’re literally swarmed by people wanting a piece of it (and you):

… as you’re simultaneously trying to manage an escapist affair, keeping your wife and producers happy (or not):

… and flashing back continuously on memories from your childhood.

Fellini’s direction is seamlessly fluid, never giving us a moment’s pause before turning to the next distraction (much like his protagonist seems to feel at all times).

Watch for Barbara Steele as an inscrutable young American starlet in an early sequence:

… and Claudia Cardinale — at both bookends of the film — starring as Fellini’s (er, Mastroianni’s) “Ideal Woman”.

Note: Not surprisingly, this film spawned a number of imitators, including Alex in Wonderland (1970), All That Jazz (1979), and Stardust Memories (1980).

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Marcello Mastroianni as Guido
  • Gianni Di Venanzo’s cinematography
  • Many memorable scenes and moments
  • Nino Rota’s score

Must See?
Yes, for sure. Listed as a film with Historical relevance, a Cult Movie, and a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

Categories

  • Foreign Gem
  • Historically Relevant
  • Important Director

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

Organizer, The (1963)

Organizer, The (1963)

“Friends, it’s not true: we haven’t lost. This is only the darkest hour.”

Synopsis:
In late 1800s Turin, workers at a textile factory are inspired by a visiting “professor” (Marcello Mastroianni) to collectivize and strike for better conditions.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Historical Drama
  • Italian Films
  • Labor Movements
  • Marcello Mastroianni Films
  • Workplace Drama

Review:
Nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and debuting at the 35th Congress of the Italian Socialist Party, this serio-comedy about disastrous workers’ conditions back before unionization — including 14 hour work days, no accident insurance, unsafe working conditions, and only a half-hour lunch break — tells a sobering yet ultimately uplifting tale of workers coming together to stand up for their rights. We see the harshness of their living and work conditions:

… as well as how intimidating it is to stand up to the dismissive and patronizing bosses at their company:

… and the challenges that arise when a visiting worker in much more dire straits insists he has no choice but to be a scab.

Mastroianni’s role throughout is a crucial one, playing a seemingly meek yet actually headstrong force who knows that he must act with deliberation and relational savvy at all times.

The cinematography, historic sets, and ensemble cast all add to the film’s air of bleak realism, helping us imagine we’re really there during this time.

I was interested to read in J. Hoberman’s essay for Criterion the following about director Mario Monicelli, whose only other film I’ve seen was the featherweight heist caper Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958):

“[He was] the son of a political journalist who moved from socialism to anarcho-syndicalism to fascism (briefly) to antifascism, and who also founded Italy’s first film journal, [and] is best known for his socially aware tragi­comedies. Still, his oeuvre is not easily synopsized. He directed some sixty films and wrote or cowrote more than seventy over the course of a career that began in 1935 with a precocious 16 mm feature based… on Ferenc Molnár’s novel The Paul Street Boys and ended seven decades later, when he was ninety-one, with The Roses of the Desert (2006), a comedy about an Italian medical unit sent to Libya in 1940.”

I haven’t seen enough of Monicelli’s titles to say, but I would venture to guess that this remains one of his most potent — and still relevant — outings. It’s well worth a look. Watch for several familiar faces from Italian cinema of the time, including Renato Salvatori:

… and Annie Girardot (both from Rocco and His Brothers).

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Marcello Mastroianni as the Professor
  • Fine performances by the ensemble cast
  • Excellent use of real-life locales
  • Giuseppe Rotunno’s cinematography

Must See?
Yes, as a good show on an important topic.

Categories

  • Good Show

Links:

Leopard, The (1963)

Leopard, The (1963)

“Ours is a country of compromises.”

Synopsis:
In 1860 Sicily, as Italian states are unifying into one nation, the Prince of Salina (Burt Lancaster) watches over his large family, giving permission for his nephew (Alain Delon) to marry the daughter (Claudia Cardinale) of “new money” (Paolo Stoppa).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Alain Delon Films
  • Burt Lancaster Films
  • Class Relations
  • Claudia Cardinale Films
  • Historical Drama
  • Italian Films
  • Luchino Visconti Films
  • Royalty and Nobility

Response to Peary’s Review:
As Peary writes, this “opulent historical epic” — based on a 1958 novel of the same name by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and set during a specific time in Italy’s history known as the Risorgimento — shows us “the old, loyal, refined royalty [as] represented by the picture’s central character, Don Fabrizio,” who is “majestically played by Burt Lancaster.”

While Lancaster “at first… refuses to acknowledge that civil war is taking place around him” — even “continuing his plans for a vacation with his wife (Rina Morelli), his dashing nephew (Alain Delon), and his seven children”:

— very quickly “the face of Italy changes too drastically for him to ignore,” given that “the noble aristocracy of the past is being phased out” and “replaced by” not only “greedy military and political opportunists who switch loyalties at the drop of a hat” but by “shrewd and vulgar young people who will not carry on the dignified tradition.”

Peary points out that “it’s unclear what Lancaster’s attitude toward” the “breathtaking” “Cardinale is — although he appears to approve of her and Delon because they at least have style.”

He adds that the “picture has excellent acting, surprising wit, and glorious sets, costumes, and scenery,” as well as a “lush score” by Nino Rota.

Peary’s assessment is fair, yet I struggled to find much connection with the storyline, which seems conflicted in its views on revolution. While it’s clear that social change is needed, we’re meant to (and do) relate to Lancaster’s central character (the “leopard”) — a man who represents everything noble and patient about a landed gentry which will nonetheless soon be overrun by a much more complicated national reality.

I haven’t much more to say about this film, other than that it’s widely lauded and considered must-see for its visuals alone, which are indeed impressive — but I’m not really sure why American audiences in particular would feel drawn to this tale.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Burt Lancaster as the Prince
  • Sumptuous sets and costumes
  • Giuseppe Rotunno’s cinematography

Must See?
No, though of course it’s worth a one-time look.

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

Bluebeard (1963)

Bluebeard (1963)

“When a man finds a solution to all his problems, it’s a dizzying feeling.”

Synopsis:
During World War I, a crook (Charles Denner) supports his wife (Françoise Lugagne) and four kids by secretly wooing and then killing lonely women with money, keeping a mistress (Stéphane Audran) as well on the side.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Claude Chabrol Films
  • French Films
  • Mistaken and Hidden Identities
  • Serial Killers

Review:
Claude Chabrol directed and Françoise Sagan scripted this fictionalized biopic of French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, who was also the inspiration for Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux (1947). Indeed, Chabrol was a huge fan of Chaplin’s work — an interview with him can be found on the Criterion DVD of the latter — and it’s easy to see its influence, given that Denner’s Landru (like Chaplin’s many cinematic iterations) is a clownish (with widely painted eyebrows) yet serious character who moves around the world feeling perfectly justified in his every move:

… and who is able to shift personas with ease while maintaining his work-a-day sensibility.

After all, wooing and killing (then chopping up and burning) women is simply his lot in life (so he sincerely believes).

As in … Verdoux, this is all presented in a darkly comedic fashion, with the running “jokes” including the fact that there’s a shortage of men due to World War I (which is surely the primary reason so many lonely women fall for this balding, intense weirdo), and that Landru must somehow support his large family.

Indeed, it’s surprisingly challenging to hate Landru despite what a despicable sociopath he unquestionably is. Chabrol’s real-life wife (Stéphane Audran) plays Landru’s real-life lover, Fernande Segret:

… and there are other well-known faces among the women Ladru seduces and murders — including Danielle Darrieux as Berthe Héon:

… Juliette Mayniel — Florence in Chabrol’s Les Cousins (1959) — as Anna Collomb:

… and Hildegard Knef as Mme. X.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Charles Denner as Landru
  • Vibrant cinematography and sets

Must See?
No, though it’s worth a one-time look.

Links:

Joli Mai, Le (1963)

Joli Mai, Le (1963)

“Politics, for me, is living well.”

Synopsis:
In May of 1962 — after the end of an eight-year war with Algeria — an assortment of Parisians are interviewed about their views on life, happiness, society, and current politics.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Documentary
  • French Films

Review:
French filmmaker Chris Marker (nee: Christian Hippolyte François Georges Bouche-Villeneuve) co-directed — with DP Pierre Lhomme — this snapshot of Parisians’ impressions of the (supposed) first “lovely month of May” in eight years since the beginning of the Algerian war (which led to Algeria’s independence from France after more than 100 years of colonial rule). Marker considered this movie to be a form of “direct cinema” (rather than cinéma vérité), given that he was intentional in many of the people he selected to interview — including the inventor below, who says, “Luck plays a big part in life — but the best luck is hands; they’re the best capital you can have” (as the camera occasionally pans to a spider crawling along his coat).


After collecting 55 hours of footage, the resulting ~2.5 hour film — with participants’ interviews left as uninterrupted as possible — was divided into two parts: “A Prayer from the Eiffel Tower” (mostly about everyday life and love) and “The Return of Fantomas” (looking more closely at reactions to the situation in Algeria). Notable instances in the first section include, as described by Margarita Landazuri in TCM’s article, “a suit salesman”:

… “a mother of nine children”:

… “a group of stockbrokers concerned about how the Algerian situation is affecting the market”:

… “children examining a museum display of John Glenn’s space capsule”:

… and “a blissfully in love young couple unconcerned about anything but their own happiness.”

In the second half, “Among those interviewed are an African student” (from Dahomey):

… “and a young Algerian worker who discuss French racism”:

… “and a communist priest who chose his political convictions over his church.”

Notably, however, “there’s also an eccentric young woman who designs costumes for her cat, saying she does so to escape from those dead things that crush you.”

The kind of rhyme or reason you make of all this will likely vary — but regardless, as Landazuri points out, the footage “seems prescient about the political upheavals of the 1960s and beyond, including Paris in 1968.” Note that two versions exist: one narrated in English by Simone Signoret (though there are still subtitles throughout for participants) and one in French by Yves Montand.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

  • Fine “direct cinema” footage of daily life in Paris
  • Several quirky interludes
  • Michel Legrand’s score

Must See?
Yes, for its historical relevance.

Categories

  • Historically Relevant

Links: