Adorables créatures

Christian-Jaque , a very talented FRench director here takes his best shot with a cracker full of traditional clichés...at least in the first sketch which is mediocre Theatre de Boulevard ,saved by Daniel Gelin and Danielle Darrieux.

Things go better in the second segment (this is a movie made up of three sketches linked by scenes in the hero's neighbors' apartment).Charles Spaak shows some nastiness and cruelty between women.Let's point out that most of the movie takes place in rich wealthy milieus:very few people could afford winter Sports in 1952.

But the real meat here lies in the third segment ,a spoof on charity among the chic people ,a subject which is today more relevant than ever.Edwige Feuillère portrays a Lady Bountiful rolling in it who spends her time throwing parties,dancing or attending fund-raising receptions "to help the poor and the needy" .She has even hired as a secretary an ex-con :the humiliated girl has got to learn her lines well cause every time she meets one of her boss's guests she must tell her whole story,warts and all.

The "Centrale Catholique Du Cinema" gave the movie unanimous thumbs down:they asked the Christians to avoid this "immoral cynical " movie. The three segments are amorous memories of a young man (Daniel Gélin)about to marry his neighbor's daughter he used to help with her equations but who obviously preferred to lead a wild life instead of studying for her high school diploma.This seventeen-year-old girl is played By Antonella Lualdi who resembled Hilary Swank when she was young.

The cast and credits would have been original ,hadn't Sacha Guitry invented the trick long before Christian -Jaque.And anyway the very same year even that was dwarfed by Julien Duvivier's "La Fête A Henriette".

I have enjoyed many Christian-Jaque films, among them La chartreuse de Parme, Les disparus de Saint-Agil, Fanfan la Tulipe. Coming to Adorables creatures, I expected to find a capable director who handles actors well, but not a master like Renoir or Carne. The three segments shown here are a good display of the talents of Edwige Feuillere, Danielle Darrieux, Martine Carol (who would go on to play Lola Montes in Ophuls's masterpiece), Renee Faure and Daniel Gelin as the boy-toy.

The best story is that of rich woman Feuillere and her servant Faure with whom she is carrying on a sort of sado-masochistic relationship. Blackmail and resentment are in the forefront here, and the acting really crackles. The young Antonella Lualdi has a poorly conceived part as an impetuous girl who we don't take much interest in.