La vie de plaisir

"La Vie de Plaisir" ,like "Le Corbeau" ,was deemed infamous and banned after the Liberation.The censorship was ruthless and dumb.Albert Valentin would never get over it and ,after two more movies,became a writer ,sometimes lost in sword and sandal material .

However ,during the war,he was one of the most promising directors France had.His three movies ,although ignored by today's audience are all worthwhile:

1942:"L'entraineuse" was a delicate melodrama where Michèle Morgan was a night club hostess who tried to make friend with decent people.

1943:"la Marie-Martine" which many critics consider his best was a woman's portrait a la Citizen Kane ,flouting chronology long before "Memento" and co.

1944: By combining the subject of "L'entraineuse" ( a character enters a world where he does not belong) with the experiments of "la Marie Martine" (We see the same scenes from two points of view : a trick that André Cayatte would use again in ...1963 for his "la Vie Conjugale" ,Albert Valentin brings it all back home and makes one of the lost masterpieces of the occupation days.

An aristocrat institutes divorce proceedings against his son-in-law ,a commoner,ex-owner of a night club "La Vie de Plaisir" (Life of pleasure).Flashbacks:the two lawyers tell the unfortunate love story and Charles Spaak lets his inspiration flow...

The hunting with hounds is the scene which always comes to mind when someone speaks of Valentin's movie:the bishop,with pomp and ceremony ,blesses the pack,a scene which Luis Bunuel would have loved!Then the younger son of the noble man who got pregnant the woman he wants to marry (but his family is not prepared to accept a misalliance)tells the ecclesiastic: "so you've blessed dogs and you would not bless my union!"Another strong scene shows Maulette(Albert Préjean) the simple man telling his wife leaving for the (clay?) pigeon shooting where she meets her father and her ex-suitor "tell the pigeons I side with them!" This cruel "sport" is a transparent metaphor of how that aristocracy treats their fellow men.

Valentin /Spaak portray the wealthy vitriolic style.

I admire "Marie-Martine" directed by Albert Valentin. I had to see ""la Vie de Plaisir", dark vitriolic portrait of aristocraty (with a double point of view during a trial, the aristocratic arranged truth and the real truth). In a raced and elegant society, Aimé Clariond and Maurice Escande matches on the dot that toxic ugliness while Albert Préjean is the sincerity personified. And Noël Roquevert as Préjean's lawyer telling the truth plays also frankly, as Yves Deniaud as Préjean's servant. Banned after the war, "la Vie de Plaisir" is a great movie and now deserves recognition by dvd release, like so many fine french forgotten movies like "le Secret de Madame Clapain", "Monsieur des Lourdines" and "la Grande Meute" (with again Aimé Clariond).