Les jeux sont faits

I was ten when I began watching good movies. Les Jeux Sont Faits was one of them, and as a young boy, this romantic fantastic noir from 1947 impressed me deeply and forever. Except that I was too young to remember the title of the movie and the director's and actors name, ... but the story, impossible to forget, haunting me for nearly forty years.

And last week, searching in a huge video club, I finally rediscovered it. What a surprise : Jean Delannoy, Jean-Paul Sartre, Micheline Presles and the great cinematographer Christian Matras (three masterpieces with Max Ophüls and many more).

Despite a too old cassette edition, the souvenir was intact and the emotion even stronger. A real forgotten french romantic fantastic noir movie masterpiece, sadly with no DVD edition, I just don't understand.

But maybe we can think of hope with the "musée Jean Delannoy", time will tell ...

If ever there was a hidden gem in movie-history, this is a true one. Despite its rather sombre theme, notice that one of the writers is Jean-Paul Sartre, the film is terribly entertaining and exciting. Micheline Presle is superb in the title role. The black-and-white photography is excellent, as always in the French films from the 30´s and 40´s. This film is a must, if you ever get to see it, although the chances probably are rather slim since it hasn´t been in circulation for quite some time.

I have seen quite a few films in my life, but this is one of the films that will be one of my absolute faves of all time. And it's definitely a brilliant piece of art and a film legend.

Eva, the unhappy wife of a rich man and Pierre, a poor rebel, are killed at the same time, independently from each other. They meet again in a mysterious village and both are lead to a small street and a house that turns out to be the waiting room, where they get to know what happens to them in after life. Eva and Pierre fall in love while waiting and when their time comes, they are given a chance: Both will be send back to live and if they succeed in finding each other on earth again and staying a couple, they can stay together for all time in the afterlife. If they don't succeed, they will be banned from ever seeing each other again. And so off they go back to life...

I won't tell how this all is resolved and what end Eva and Pierre find, but the story, as well as the settings and the style this film was shot in, are remarkable and intriguing. Even more if you keep in mind that this film was made in the 40s.

I can't say anything bad about it. It has everything: Style, suspense, emotion, a simply wonderful love story and a fantastic plot. Both protagonists are doing a fantastic job and Micheline Presle is simply a feast to watch...

As I said: A masterpiece. Worth watching at least once and being remembered forever.

I saw this film in the early 1950s, I believe, and I have never forgotten it. I can't find a listing of it as a video production in any format and wish that it could be restored and shown again. It is a touching story of an aristocratic woman and a working-class tough who die and meet in the afterlife. They fall in love and apply to a registry to get a second chance at life on earth. The conditions being that they stay together and make a success of their union. I particularly remember the depiction of the afterlife, which is populated with people costumed from several past eras, who stroll unseen in the contemporary world. A haunting visual experience and a touching drama.

Whadaya say Jean Delannoy ain't high culture?This is Jean-Paul Sartre!Will this director suffer for eternity from the reputation he got from the "nouvelle vague " clique?At least an user without bias has already written to tell his admiration for "les jeux sont faits".

"Les jeux sont faits" is an unfairly almost unknown movie in France and elsewhere,sometimes by people who praise such works as "heaven can wait" (1943 and 1978)," a matter of life and death" (Powell,1946),"une simple formalité" (Tornatore,circa 1998) and even "the sixth sense"(1999).

Two young people (Micheline Presle and Marcel Pagliero)come back from the realm of the Dead because they "were meant for each other".Their love must overcome everything or else they will have to go back .It might seem easy,but they had not reckoned on there being a society...The others... In "huis clos",there's Sartre's famous sentence "l'enfer c'est les autres"(=hell comes from the other ones")She comes from a wealthy milieu ,he's a working-class hero.Too many things come between them ."Les jeux sont faits" ,from the very beginning.

A good editing, an intriguing "paradise"(?) without a single religious touch,the person who facilitates the communication between the two worlds being an ordinary secretary (a wonderful Marguerite Moreno).And the last picture is poetic and ,what might seem strange in Sartre's world,leaves some hope to the viewer.

Outside the already mentioned works,people who like this should catch "Orphée" (Jean Cocteau,1950) and ,above all,"huis clos"(Jacqueline Audry,one of the very few women who were directors at the time,1954).