Après l'amour

Maurice Tourneur, the director and father of his more famous son Jacques Tourneur, and Henri Duvernois, on which book the script of the movie was based, are two big but forgotten names in French cinema. They were both writers: Tourneur made a hundred films and Duvernois was a very known writer and good friend of Jean Cocteau, Sacha Guitry, Appollinaire etc... and as much movies were made of Duvernois' books as Tourneur wrote scripts for movies. Among this huge production, only a few titles stand. "Après l'amour", f.i., is an old fashioned love story which is centered around marriage and fidelity. Pierre Blanchar (François) and Simone Renant (Nicole) form a convincing high society couple and Gisèle Pascal (Germaine) is just good as a young student. We feel sympathy for this trio because they are not master of their passions, how much they would like to be. The end of the film is not disappointing for the viewers of that time but contemporary people would like to have something more of a surprise. There is a lot of pure love in this movie which was made by people who were still imprisoned by the obligations of marriage, without being unhappy. They simply had another idea of being happy: without pure sentiments life had no reason to be lived.

That was Maurice Tourneur's latter days melodrama.While his son Jacques (Jack) was highly successful in America ,the father stayed true to his native country.

A former professor (Pierre Renoir) became a successful writer and won the Nobel prize.When the journalists comes to his house,he does not feel like seeing them and leaves the job to his wife(Simone Renant) -who is no longer a wife but a manager- The marriage seems to be on the rocks;then come the flashbacks:probably inspired by previous experiments by Albert Valentin and Charles Spaak ("la Vie de Plaisir"(1944) "Marie-Martine" (1943))Tourneur tackles the "subjective flashback " ,the same scenes seen through the wife's then the husband's eyes.We discover that the hubby leads a double life ,one for his lover (a student who could be his daughter),and the one he takes home to his missus.He has got two children,from his two love affairs...but we soon discover that his wife's son is not his ,but a jealous professor's - who got jealous because he did not become a famous writer like his former colleague.

The screenplay may seem complicated and it is.Besides,there is not one but two unexpected twists at the end of the story...which makes the film less obsolete than it appears to be.

Generally dismissed as old hat stuff by French critics,this flick can appeal to melodrama buffs though.