Elena et les hommes

There is one really great scene in this movie....the ocean of people at the Bastille Day Celebration and the movement of the crowd through its waves. This scene, and the overall color and details of costumes make this movie worthwhile. And of course there's Ingrid Bergman, whose beauty and poise (even when a little tipsy) is always watcheable. (She is really unique in her era.....have you ever seen or heard of her persona being vamped by any contemporary drag queens....can't be done, I'll wager). The rest of the movie tries to be madcap and michievous, but it just doesn't work. I'm amazed at reading the plot description here....so THAT'S what it was supposed to be about! Sure lost me.

I have only seen this silly film once on television, somewhere around 1979 or so. It was, naturally, with English dubbing, not sub-titles. In the years since, I have confused it's title with another silly film, PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES (there seems a curse on films beginning with "PARIS", all of which are silly or expensive failures - add to these two PARIS HOLIDAY, TO PARIS WITH LOVE, and IS PARIS BURNING?). This one, though, does have a few things going for it - it was directed by Jean Renoir, it stars Jean Marais and Ingrid Bergman, and it deals (albeit in a farcical manner) with one of the great "ifs" of modern French history: what would have happened in 1889 to France (and Europe) had General Georges Boulanger (the man on horseback of the day) seized the moment and completed a planned coup - d'etat of the Third Republic. For that is precisely what the underpinnings of this comedy is about. Boulanger's name is changed to General Roland, but it is the same story.

In the English version, Roland's adjutant (Mel Ferrer) is telling the story - and giving a sardonic account of how the naive patriot is primed to seize the country by a band of cartoon conspirators who use the General's fascination with a Polish countess (Bergman) as a lure. Renoir tries to get as much milage as he can out of the political shenanigans, and the fin-de-siec Paris setting, as he can. Both Marais and Bergman try hard to make what they can out of the frou-frou atmosphere of the film. But although both are good (so is Ferrer and Juliet Greco as a gypsy who loves the General)the screenplay is weak. The motivation of Bergman is highly self-centered (she is attracted to the idea of being the beloved muse to great men, and then leaving them when she feels they no longer need them). It might be good for a minor character, but it is hard for an audience to sustain interest in such a flighty idiot.

It would have been better if they had stuck closer to the historical reality (and ultimate tragedy) of Boulanger's hour of historical importance. France was recovering from the humiliation of defeat in 1870, but the Third Republic was born with grave weaknesses: it signed the treaty of peace ceding Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, it had okayed the extermination of the Communards in Paris in 1871, and it lacked the legitimacy of French government. But its opponents were weak too - the defeat in 1870 was due to the Bonapartiste regime of Napoleon III. He had fled (and was dead in 1873). His son, the Prince Imperiale, died fighting for the British in the Zulu War in 1879. Most of the French, had they a choice of the Third Republic or Second Empire would have chosen the Second Empire, but without Napoleon III or his son they were not too interested in restoring the Bourbons or the house of Orleans. These two families had (by 1877) seemed prepared to compromise their rival feelings, and accept the restoration of the monarchy. The Bourbon pretender, the Comte de Paris, was childless, and would be restored, leaving his cousin, the Duc de Orleans as heir. The first President of the Third Republic, Marshal MacMahon, was ready to order the army to assist the Comte ascend the throne. But the Comte refused the deal unless the national flag reverted from the Revolutionary tri-color to the old Fleur-de-lys of the pre-1789 Bourbons. This was not acceptable. The Comte died in 1883. By then MacMahon had been eased into resigning the Presidency, and the Third Republic continued stumbling on and on.

One of the few generals who had not been damaged by the disasters of the Franco-Prussian War was Georges Boulanger. He was an above average commander, and he actually did do some innovation. By 1887 he was attracting attention, and was elected to the Chambre of Deputies, and became Minister of War. At some point, he began to be approached by the Royalists in France. He had the choice of the Orleanists or the Bonapartistes. He remained vague about his view on whom he'd support, but this may have been his way of guaranteeing that he would be supported by both groups (with Boulanger it is hard to know if he was a brilliant opportunist or just a lucky fool for awhile). He catered to the Paris and French desire for revenge by speaking out against German acts of aggression or of spying - talking about the future war to regain the lost provinces. Initially he had the support of the Republicans, but this was slowly lost as their suspicions of the man grew. Clemenceau, sick of his one-time friend's antics, confronted him on one occasion with a bitter reminder: "General, at your age Napoleon I was dead!"

Despite being thrown out of his cabinet rank, and his seat in the Chambre (he got reelected soon after from another district) Boulanger went on. Then, in September 1889 events climaxed with a series of pro-Boulanger desplays by the army and various supporters. It looked like the General was going to lead the troops onto the Chambre of Deputies or the Elysee Palace and seize control. The moment arrived....and passed. Nothing happened. The leaders of the Republic regained their nerve, and ordered his arrest. He fled, with his mistress. In fact, rumour had it that he wasted the critical hours having sex with the mistress [a rumour that has never been totally dismissed]. He spent the remaining two years of his life in exile in Belgium. His mistress died there, and in 1891 Boulanger committed suicide on her grave. Clemenceau, upon hearing the news, summarized the tragedy appropriately (if cruelly): "The General lived as he died, as a subaltern" [The lowest rank in the French army - and one where the young officers have cheap prostitutes for lovers.]

In the English version of the film, Ferrer is gentler, suggesting that had Boulanger/Roland done what he was expected to do his biographical standing would be as large as Napoleon I's. Probably true. The film does show Roland leaving with his gypsy lover, not going into the sad death that awaited them soon after. To a viewer in the know it is a bittersweet ending. But a better version of the story remains to be done - and to try to come to grips with the General who held France, briefly perhaps, in his hands, and then dropped everything in so inexplicably a manner.

After watching two of his silent shorts, 'Elena and her Men (1956)' is my first feature-length film from French director Jean Renoir, and I quite enjoyed it. However, I didn't watch the film for Renoir, but for star Ingrid Bergman, who – at age 41 – still radiated unsurpassed beauty, elegance and charm. Throughout the early 1950s, following her scandalous marriage to Italian Roberto Rossellini, Bergman temporarily fell out of public favour. Her next five films, directed by her husband, were unsuccessful in the United States, and I suspect that Renoir's latest release did little to enhance Bergman's popularity with English-speaking audiences {however, she did regain her former success with an Oscar in the same year's 'Anastasia (1956)'}. She stars as Elena Sokorowska, a Polish princess who sees herself as a guardian angel of sorts, bringing success and recognition to promising men everywhere, before promptly abandoning them. While working her lucky charms to aid the political aspirations of the distinguished General Francois Rollan (Jean Marais), she finds herself falling into a love that she won't be able to walk away from. This vaguely-political film works well as either a satire or a romantic comedy, as long as you don't take it too seriously; it's purely lighthearted romantic fluff.

Filmed in vibrant Technicolor, 'Elena and her Men' looks terrific as well, a flurry of bright colours, characters and costumes. Bergman's Polish princess is dreamy and somewhat self-absorbed, not in an unlikable way, but hardly a woman of high principles and convictions. She is persuaded by a team of bumbling government conspirators to convince General Rollan to stage a coup d'état, knowingly exploiting his love for her in order to satisfy her own delusions as a "guardian angel." Perhaps the film's only legitimately virtuous character is Henri de Chevincourt (Mel Ferrer, then Audrey Hepburn's husband), who ignores everybody else's selfish secondary motives and pursues Elena for love, and love alone. This, Renoir proudly suggests, is what the true French do best. 'Elena and her Men' also attempts, with moderate success, to expose the superficiality of upper-class French liaisons, through the clumsy philandering of Eugène (Jacques Jouanneau), who can't make love to his servant mistress without his fiancè walking in on them. For these sequences, Renoir was obviously trying for the madcap sort of humour that you might find in a Marx Brothers film, but the film itself is so relaxed and laid-back that the energy just isn't there.

Jean Renoir will always be judged by his timeless pre-war French classics which means that his subsequent films invariably fall short. This is the third of his 'trilogy' from the 1950's. It is not quite as bad as 'La Carosse d'Or' but not nearly as good as 'French Cancan'.

Ravishingly shot by Claude Renoir, it begins promisingly with the blossoming romance between luminous Ingrid Bergman and elegant Mel Ferrer but the director has alas plumped for a strange concoction of romantic melodrama and slapstick farce and ultimately the film works as neither. Love conquers all at the end which is a relief because it means the film is finally over.

Apparently Rossellini advised his wife to work with Renoir and Bergman. Having made this dud with the former she had to wait twenty years to work with the latter which produced the masterpiece 'Autumn Sonata'.

Being both a fan of Renoir and Ingrid, imagine my surprise that they happened to collaborate on "Elena and Her Men!" Having yet to be disappointed by Renoir (Rules of the Game being one of the top five 20th century French films), I knew from the description that it wouldn't quite reach those heights but it should still be fun.

Having watched it through, I have to say that the comparisons made to Rules of the Game happen quite enough in Elena that would make the latter seem trite. Even so, and despite the annoying presence of Mel Ferrer (was he dubbed?) and the sub-plots with Eugene-Denise-Lisotte, I have to say that Ingrid Bergman more than makes up for it, with Renoir showing her in all her luminosity in the beautiful dresses (and she certainly out-acts everyone else). The film itself is a little muddled, the previously mentioned sub-plots and other elements like the gypsy woman not quite fitting together (and the ending seems quite cheesy for Renoir, at least for me). All in all watch it if you are a Bergman fan.