Les perles de la couronne

A delight! This is kind of the film I was hoping to see last year when I watched Guitry's Story of a Cheat, which I had heard about for years prior to its becoming available. I liked that film quite a bit, but there was a tinge of disappointment in that it didn't live up to my expectations. The Pearls of the Crown, though, was just brilliant. Guitry and his wife Jacqueline Delubac play multiple roles throughout a 400 year timespan. In the present they play a historian and his wife. Guitry is telling Delubac the story of the pearls in the crown of England. These pearls came from Mary Queen of Scots' necklace, which in turn came from a wedding gift to Catherine de Medici from the Pope. Guitry tells the story of the pearls' origin, and also of their theft the night Mary Stuart was executed. The four pearls that were recovered from the thieves went into the crown, and the three others were never found. Soon Guitry teams up with British and Italian counterparts and the three of them set out on a mission to find the remaining three pearls. This film moves back and forth through time with the grace of a ballerina. Arletty appears in one of the more outrageous bits of the film, as an Abyssinian queen (and, yes, she plays it in blackface).

Funny and very witty comedy by Sacha Guitry. Like almost all of his works, it is very episodic, with characters who rarely appear for more than 5 minutes and who ingeniously plays with the relationship between the image and the everlasting voice-over.

In this case, the story of a seven-pearl necklace with an impressive history from the Renaissance to the present day is used by Guitry to show his ingenuity in the form of a history lesson, full of symmetries, repetitions and ingenious twists.

The cast, as always, is impressive, with the best of French cinema and theater from thirty years of French culture: Cecile Sorel, Coquelin, Raimu, Arletty, Barrault, Moreno....as well as the director himself and his own wife, the very elegant Jacqueline Delubac, like the married couple who decide to follow the trail of those historical pearls.

The film is an intelligent entertainment that does not tire despite its episodic character, thanks to the director's continued inventiveness. Some basic knowledge in history helps.

In the end, The Pearls Of the Crown is about political gains and advantage, royalty and succession, love and heartbreak, and life and death; with the main story that connects all the dots being the origin of the seven pearls.

Basically four of the pearls rest on the English Crown, and a writer recounts to his wife how there were originally seven pearls, all of identical shape, color and weight, but 3 of them are considered missing and to understand the value and importance of these pearls a history lesson is in order. In the meantime, representatives from France and Italy are also interested in the missing pearls. By fate, the writer and these representatives manage to form a bond and make it a mission for each individual to locate a missing pearl. This is what happens in present time, but the true main story is the pearls.

Sasha Guitry and his team create a fascinating and original story that literally spans generations and involve a bevy of characters. In fact, the director who stars and many of the actors and actresses play multiple roles. The main story of the pearls is truly epic and keeps things interesting. The main fault to me is being able to keep up with that main story. Its challenging, things fast forward in the story at a lightning quick pace and characters come and go in the blink of an eye, and events and circumstance mixed in can leave you in the dust if you suddenly lost attention. It was also purposely made to appeal to both audiences who speak English, French and Italian as it shifts frequently back and forth and sometimes all at the same moment in each language.

So I would say watch it for the story alone, its unique and ambitious. Its not for all tastes for sure but its a nicely made and well acted movie.

This unusual tri-lingual (French, English, Italien) film traces the history of seven pearls acquired at the behest of Pope Clement who gave them to Catherine d'Medici. The pearls are passed down to Mary, Queen of Scots. At the time of Mary's execution the pearls are stolen and separated. Four of them become part of the crown of England. The characters then try to discover what happened to the other three pearls.

It is a delightful film with clever, amusing dialogue. At one point a character is instructed to only speak using adverbs. She does so in answering a string of questions. It is a marvelous scene. Anyone who gets a chance to see this film should do so.

With only two comments on IMDb (and only one external review) I feel duty bound to chime in with a third to say that this is one of the perpetually delightful gems of cinema. A unique film: playful, fascinating, extravagant, hilarious, touching. Guitry is written off time and again as a mere purveyor of filmed theater, and it's true that he made many films -- about half of his output -- from stage plays, often long after their original stage productions. But once he got the cinema bug (he resisted for a very long time, only starting make films in middle age) he found that he was given a wonderful new toy, and continued to play with it for the rest of his days. The enormous cast, the huge number of extravagant sets, the lavish costumes, and the vivacious imagination with which all these are employed make of this charming film something to be treasured. I've seen it now four times -- I try to save it for moments when I really want something wonderful to savor. And let me not forget the beautiful and equally lavish musical score of Jean Francaix. The DVD is quite good, but you will of course have to have a region-free player -- and if you don't, why not? Available at this time only as one of the eight discs in a magnificent box set (with many extras) from Gaumont France, "Sacha Guitry: L'age d'or 1936-1938." It's well worth the price.