Pattes blanches

It beggars belief that Jean Grémillon made only one 'short' in the six years that elapsed between the mystifying failure of 'Le Ciel est a vous' and this touching and beautiful film.

He is working here with a splendid screenplay by Jean Anouilh whose stage works are seldom performed nowadays, some of which have been adapted for the screen, the best of which is probably 'Becket'.

This film is a strange mixture of poetic realism, melodrama and fairytale, the latter element being supplied by the character of Mimi the Hunchback who dreams of living in a Gothic chateau with her noble lord. Unfortunately this particular lord is obsessed with a flighty female who is already having an affair with his lunatic younger brother and is also engaged to a local fishmonger! Suffice to say this a recipe for disaster.......

Despite its eccentricities this is a mesmerising piece of film-making with a top notch, fascinating cast and wonderfully drawn characters. Grémillon, in common with all the great directors, has an acute sense of music and here we have only one of two scores written for film by classical composer Elsa Barraine, this one showing the influence of Debussy. Philippe Agostini's lighting is suitably dreamlike and editor Louisette Hautecoeur, favoured by both Grémillon and Bunuel, has again turned up trumps.

The quintet of Clair, Renoir, Carné, Feyder and Duvivier are quite rightly synonymous with the Golden Age of French cinema. Grémillon's artistic projects seemed constantly thwarted by the constraints of commercial cinema but judged solely upon the films he made between 1937 and 1943 he fully deserves to be included in that select body.

Immediate background:Jean Anouilh who wrote the screenplay was to direct the movie but he fell sick and had to give up.He chose Jean Grémillon,one of the great directors of the golden age of the FRench cinema (1935-1945)to do the job and he was right.

Jean Grémillon gathered a splendid cast including Paul Bernard,as the fallen aristocrat ("Pattes Blanches"),Fernand Ledoux,Suzy Delair at her bitchiest,and -the Chabrol fans will notice it- a very young Michel Bouquet as the squire's doomed brother,Sylvie and Arlette Thomas.

This latter actress is completely forgotten today,but her part brings some hope in a desperate -most of Anouilh's plays are- story.Her character ,a hunchback whom Odette (Delair) despises ,resembles Cinderella,a miserable Cinderella (check the admirable sequence in the castle ).Another memorable scene shows the noble,on the edge of the cliff,holding Odette's bridal veil.

Don't let the current rating fool you.(since the movie was upgraded : 7,4;thanks to IMDb users)."Pattes Blanches " ,with its distraught lyricism,is a must.