Les grandes manoeuvres

I admit, I was not very big in this film for the most part of it. But hey, is very good from a visual standpoint. We have very unexpected angles and a weird set of lights. Look at how messy the lights are in this film. It helps even more to put focus in the characters. In fact, it alone put a focus in the characters, because they become darken than the set's natural light. And the plot is kinda ugh, you know what I mean? Very cliché. Sure, back in 1955, this kind of 'Guy wants to date girl because of bet with friend" must have been interesting and very original, but nowadays? Not very much, if you ask me. Maybe this is the film that started all these clichés? Well, I don't know, further research is welcomed. But anyway, the editing, the transition of scenes is very crazy, and certainly a very good technique aesthetically talking. This technique alone can change completely the film's ambient.

Is kinda interesting and even funny at times, but yeah, for the most part there is nothing that you already haven't seen before made much better than in this film.

There are many ways to see this film: the story of a bet, a womanizer ( or Don Juan as we call them usually in Europe) has made a bet, to seduce a woman, but the thing seems more complicated : the divorced woman is very intelligent,she doesn't take seriously this handsome cavalry lieutenant and Armand becomes confused. "Les grandes manoeuvres" is also a description of the "Belle Époque" , men and women looking for love, the pleasure of the good dressing, eating, drinking and dancing. On the other side we have the description of the careless high society of a provincial some years before the world war one: marriage, dancing, tombola, military parade, concert in public garden and a lot of gossips , and as part of this pleasures a secret bet between civilian and army officers. I think that René Clair wanted to show both aspects: a love story in which a seducer becomes seduced and a totally careless high society before a great war in which thousend of soldiers will die in the trenches of Verdun for example. The performances of Gérard Philipe and Michèle Morgan are really very good.

This finely crafted movie takes us convincingly back to the France of some 100 years ago. Against the setting of a small provincial town, it shows how its prominent citizens mix up with the officers of the local cavalry regiment. Citizenry is represented here by the excellent female star Michèle Morgan, the military equally well by actor Gérard Philipe. The magnificent interaction between the two of them makes this movie going: Morgan, playing a divorced Parisienne running a ladies' fashion shop, has herself seduced at last by officer Philipe's tireless efforts. But at that very moment their relationship takes a turn for the worse.

Their tragedy gets more dimension, and is softened at the same time by the succesful development of another love. A young local girl (Brigitte Bardot) finds her cavalry officer, played by Yves Robert. The sincere human warmth between them contrasts with the stiff etiquette in the Morgan/Philipe-affair.

'Les grandes manoeuvres' (= the big army-excercises) is a very well made movie. I only think it a little too mechanical, as director René Clair forces you to watch it with hardly any emotions. Not even Brigitte Bardot is able to change that.

or, more precise, charming. for its delicate elegance , for the presence of Michele Morgan, Gerard Philippe and Brigitte Bardot, for the French spirit of a so old period and for impeccable performances. and, in same measure, for a form of... magic. because it is a simple story about appearances, love and seduction, about charm and bets, about an innocent age of Europe before the WW I. and this transforms the film of Rene Clair not only in a seductive work but in support for reflection about art and illusion and the work of remarkable actors."The Grand Maneuver" is a classic. but the motifs of this status are many and fragile. like a letter from a lost world. so, see it !

A French army regiment, resplendent in colorful uniform, is quartered in a French provincial town for summer exercises. As this detachment first enters the town marching in order down its main thoroughfare, a beautiful woman (Michele Morgan) appears on the balcony of her fashion shop and catches the eye of the regiment's dashing and handsome Lothario who has already compiled a notorious string of conquests (Gerard Philipe). This gives rise to a bet by his fellow soldiers with him, when the soldiers reach their barracks, that this time he will not be able to seduce this woman. He launches a spirited campaign for her, designed to sweep her off her feet, but becomes so ensnared in her charms that he completely loses his mind and falls genuinely and madly in love with her, forgetting totally about the bet and wanting only her. The high point of his fortunes is reached when, practically on bended knee, he protests to her that he does not love her for only a few days or a few weeks but for his whole life. She is on the point of yielding to his entreaties when she learns of the bet. The denouement is exquisite torture as she is unable to credit his protestations any longer notwithstanding that she passionately desires to, he is in effect impaled to his hurt on the thorns of his past, she ends by returning to the fat husband with greasy ringlets of curls from whom she'd been divorced and who appears totally unworthy of her, and the regiment marches out of town at the end of summer. There are comic interludes of great charm and even some hilarity, as well as all the brilliance and wit that make a French movie a French movie, but all in all this is a sentimentalist's dream of a production in which the adorable loveliness of Michele Morgan is at its dazzling height.