Una ragazza a rimorchio

Thank you to Stella Kersová , Pierre Laroche (Jacqueline Audry's husband), Pierre Pelegri and Jacqueline Audry for this pleasant road movie made in 1962 !

The tribulations of Agathe, a typist who has won a prize (a stay at La Panne) and encounters a beach under the rain:thanks to a the talkative journalist she realizes that she must go to the Côte d'Azur where she will find the sun: then begins her travel by hitchhiking through Belgium: a lot of pleasant and unpleasant encounters with very different men.

Agathe is at the same time ingenuous but also cute (she speaks of an imaginary aunt or boss who is waiting for her), she escapes from dubious situations (her 40 years old father or the psychopath) and follows her quest for the sea and the sun.

I enjoyed very much the performances of Darry Cowl, Pierre Mondy, Lino Venturo , Daniel Gélin, Robert Hossein, Pierre Brasseur, Fernand Gravey, François Périer, Gilbert Bécaud, Bernard Blier, Arletty,Michel Le Royer and Jean-Claude Brialy: their dialogues with te character of Agathe were full of humour and Agathe Aëms was brilliant.

All the actors, some big names, from this film are dead: Arletty, Gilbert Bécaud, Francis Blanche, Bernard Blier, Pierre Brasseur, Jean-Claude Brialy, Daniel Gélin, Fernand Gravey, Robert Hossein, Pierre Mondy, Noël-Noël, Andréa Parisy , François Périer, Claude Rich, Lino Ventura. Only the protagonist, Agathe Aëms, is still alive now in 2024, when I saw the film and am writing this review. She was only 16 years old in 1960 when the film was made, but she looks much more physically developed. She was not extremely talented, the proof, she only made one more film after this one, but she looked sexy, had an attractive face and an even more appetizing ass. I am convinced that this aspect was also the main reason why it was distributed. The film has no value, the only reason to see it would be the impressive name of stars present in the cast. And, despite the very short appearance on the screen, a few manage some interesting performances, especially Robert Hossein, Francis Blanche and Arletty.

Jacqueline Audry is France's Ida Lupino:she was a director when women were only meant to be actresses,film editors or script girls.Her work begins to surface again,but really little by little.Some critics said that the laurels Agnès Varda won were actually Jacqueline Audry's .

She had only one subject: woman.But who could do it better than a woman? She was probably the first artist to cast a lesbian as a lead (in Jean-Paul Sartre's "huis clos",all the same!);just before "les petits matins" ,she made "le secret du chevalier d'Eon" which cast Andrée Debar as a woman dressed up as a man."Les petits matins" is a story of eighteen-year old Agathe with a firm independence of men even if she uses them to get to the côte d'azur.Along the way she meets a lot of people-because it's finally a road movie-,mostly men ,whom the director does not spare :the macho proud of their brand new car,the forty-something who wants to take Agathe home,the strange handsome guy (Robert Hossein)under his mother 's thumb -a spoof on Hitchcock's characters?-.This is very light stuff,nothing intellectual ,but often charming and there's a bevy of famous actors:Jean -Claude Brialy,Claude Rich,Lino Ventura,François Perrier,Pierre Brasseur,and the couple Bernard Blier/Arletty who team up for the first time since Marcel Carné's "Hôtel du Nord" (1938).Plus two singers ,the first of whom plays but does not sing (Gilbert Becaud who wrote "let it be me" and "what now my love?"),the second sings the title song but does not play.(Charles Aznavour)

Agathe Aems who plays the lead never made another movie before or since.