Gloria

Eight years had passed since the release of Autant-Lara's "Les Patates " which had met mixed critical reception.Although Autant-Lara died in 2000,"Gloria" (1977) was his last effort,and to many ,a sad and tatty end to a career that produced many classics of the FRench cinema.

"Gloria" was generally received with great hostility by French critics who regarded it as rubbish .Autant-Lara called it a day and the man who made "Douce" "Le Diable Au Corps" "L'Auberge Rouge "and "Tu Ne Tueras Point" allowed his prestige to be tacked on to many causes ,some clearly offensive.

Gloria and Jacques ,still children,are in love .But do not expect another "Peter Ibbetson"!It's a melodrama,and in the seventies ,could be considered an anachronism ,although AL had not lost all his flair for story-telling.Jacques and Gloria have to survive in those trouble times ,including WW1,the boy's emigration (in the US) and of course a serious illness .One remembers this scene when the crowds celebrate the armistice ,singing "La Marseillaise " with a Prima Donna dressed in red ,white and blue on the parapet of the opera house.It's a far cry from the impressive ending of "Le Diable Au Corps" (1947).

Fact :businessman and producer Marcel Dassault had promised Autant- Lara to put up the money for his adaptation of Stendahl's "la chartreuse de Parme" -he had always directed "le rouge et le noir"-....provided that he directed "Gloria " based on a mushy novel by Solange Bellegarde serialized in Jours De France magazine .Autant-Lara reluctantly made his job but his producer did not keep his promise and "Gloria" was a commercial and critical fiasco,considering it was a high budget movie ,the absence of stars for the main roles making up for the money misspent in the settings and the costumes ;Autant -Lara was petulant : "so much dough for a soap opera!"

Jean-Pierre Bleys ,who wrote the definitive biography of the director, much to my surprise ,ranks Autant -Lara 's "Gloria" among his best ,with"douce" ,"occupe toi d'Amélie" ,"l'auberge rouge" ,"la traversée de Paris" "En cas de malheur " and "journal d'une femme en blanc".

Perhaps a little underrated when it was released , "Gloria" can't ever,in a month of Sundays , be mentioned in the same breath as"Douce " : the principals are bland and the male actor is below average ;the girl saves something from the wreckage : her performance of "la mort du cygne",in a theater -shades of Carné 's 'les enfants du paradis "- shows some emotion , which is rare in the whole movie,even in its finale ,a la "love story" ; one can feel Autant-Lara's bite in the children's reflections about WW1 about to happen ; the conversation between the girls which scandalizes a well-meaning bourgeois would not be out of place in "le diable au corps" ;the way pacifist anarchist Autant-Lara -before he turned far right activist ,a man of contradictions- treats the 1918 victory which claimed so many lives ;the -historic- scene of the prima donna bawling out "la Marseillaise " is almost burlesque ...

Autant -Lara called it a day after "Gloria" .