Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JUNE 1940 15 THREE NEW FRENCH FILMS saijiii ns Etaient Neuf Celibataires. Director: Sacha Guitry. Actors: Sacha Guitry, Elvire Popesco, iBetty Stockfeld. Distributors: Unity Films. GUITRY again. Guitry's wit to charm tliose who Qsijj, like it, Guitry's self-assurance to put it over to those who don't. And Guitry's shameless exploitation of the cinema for his own ends. It njjujjjj seems he is trying to goebbelize his public by a ^ £ji_ succession of faits accomplis into booking for him j)^ n in the French film Valhalla a seat on the right 1,^ I hand of Duvivier. It seems rather churlish to say Qjjjj^j he really doesn't deserve it, after all he's done. jajjjj But he doesn't. His art has almost nothing to do with the cinema. He uses the film like a visual y^j, gramophone record, merely as a means of widening his public. And because the film just won't stand for that sort of thing, there is always a certain awkwardness about Guitry's films. They look rather as if they were photographed on an emulsion of grease-paint, and spliced together with spirit-gum. This one is no exception, but it is none the less delightful. The gist of the story is ithat Guitry gathers nine heads of aged bachelors together in a hostel with the object of marrying ^ iji them off" to foreign women who want to acquire French nationality. He gets his rake-off, and also in the end Elvire Popesco, which makes it worth his while. The herd of bachelors is rather too large to be manageable. Two drop out half way through, and it would have helped the film for two more to have gone with them, leaving more time to expand on the remainder. Or perhaps it ihoulill rod wwiji nxxtdi sSfldaj ntoi ::i ra would have been better if Guitry had played all nine himself. He's quite capable of it. La Marseillaise. Director: Jean Renoir. Actors: Pierre Renoir, Louis Jouvet. Distributors: Unity Films. AFTER so many films about the French Revolution made by people who think the sans-cidottes went around with their pants off — after all, aren't all revolutionaries morally depraved? — this Popular Front act of faith has a very genuine air. At least one can feel that La Revolution might have been like this. For one thing it is not oversimplified. It doesn't blow up to full intensity overnight, with hordes of ragged extras carrying property billhooks thronging through the streets of quaint old Paris. It develops much more gradually and uncertainly, directed first against the corrupt and traitorous nobility — the fifth column who are hampering France in her fight against the invader. But the thing has started, and there's no stopping it. Through his weakness and vacillation the king, excellently played by Pierre Renoir, is dragged in. But even then the revolutionaries are very careful to treat him with fairness and respect. They only ask that he shall be responsible to the National Assembly. The film ends before the tumbril and knitting-woman stage has been reached. The only aristocrats executed are those who have fired in cold blood on the people. Because the co-operative unit which made the picture could not afford to build grandiose sets. most of the action takes place in genuine surroundings, which give an atmosphere tiiat all the Metro millions could not buy. It is a film which deserves more than the faint praise which the critics have given it. Le Dernier Tournant. Director: Pierre Chenal. Actors: Fernand Gravet, Michel Simon, Corinne Luchaire. THIS film also gains immeasurably from the fact that natural settings have been used as much as possible. The Californian filling station of "The Postman Always Knocks Twice" has been translated into French and perched on a bend of one of those roads which wind steeply up from the coast into the hinterland of the Alpes Maritimes. It's all there in the flesh, so to speak, no back-projection, and most of the light supplied by the Mediterranean sun. The fullest use has been made of what the credit title calls the camion sonore, so that the dialogue scenes have the same natural quality as the rest. The story is basically the same as that of "The Postman", but the characters are not Mr Cain's characters, not by a long chalk. They are much more concerned with sentiment, and the human implications of their actions. They even take the trouble to explain their motives to each other. Perhaps violent action, if speechless, just looks dumb to a Frenchman. Whatever the reason, the film benefits from it. All the acting is well up to standard, with Michel Simon a head or so in front of the rest. ■■Mm ■m^di 'inM Eijdlfi cf.M Ol'lM lypopu! iBroib! iihBan ;t! il CO) lot tit to aif. tM jual ii'ii HAVE YOU READ aV^ ,.<^^ and the other features in SIGHT AND SOUND? 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