The first user wrote about the poster,so I'm going to write about the movie itself.
It's a small gem,based on a story by Irene Nemirovski,and it really deserves to be watched.
First of all ,it is Danielle Darrieux's debut :she was not yet 14 then!Little did one know she would enjoy such a brilliant career ,and to this day ,the longest ever in France :I saw her ,a few months ago,in "Pièce Montée" (2010!! 80 years after "Le Bal" ) in which she stole the show from her co-stars ! Darrieux is still a gamine,but she rises to the occasion .
This is a marvelous satire: two middle-class notions dealers live happily with their Darling girl;the depiction of this cozy life is exquisite:dad dipping his croissants in his coffee,the family having lunch in the restaurant on Sunday (chicken is the obligatory dish),the piano lesson with sour-tempered cousin ,an old maid.
But a inheritance turns these nice people into snob Nouveaux Riches;although the aristocracy invites them,the 'Tout-Paris ' laughs behind their back;for the counts,dukes,ministers ,ambassadors et al ,they are nothing but a laughing stock .
They do not realize it ,and they think they are part of the chic world: Madame wants to flirt again and although she tells her daughter she's too young to attend the society parties ,she 's actually afraid the handsome earl she gets a crush on might discover she has already a fourteen-year old daughter.Monsieur uses the subjunctive imperfect and wears a monocle.
They invite their would be new friends for a ball (hence the title),in their desirable new mansion ("it looks like a railway station" says the cousin),but their daughter,sick and tired of being forgotten by her once loving parents,throws the invitations into the Seine.
The last sequences climax the movie,as the two snobs are waiting for their 200 guests who never show up .All the servants and the musicians they hired to impress the high society ,all they try to do backfires on them and the husband winds up ,dancing with the old broke cousin ,to a popular tune.
In its form,this comedy can be considered a musical and Darrieux herself sings several old-fashioned but charming tunes such as " C'est Le Dimanche " ;a little Freudian ,she declares "I'd like to marry a man like you,dad".And she proves that "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings comes forth truth".
Very funny!
