Viver à Noite

"Vivre la nuit" is a pleasant comedy about night clubs in Paris, with all the rackets possible. Dialogues are quite fun. It's a movie for mods, there are a lot of jerk sequences, with 1968 jerk music with organ and fuzz guitars, typical hip clothings (Jacques Perrin in parka), sport cars (even a Lamboghini)... I found Catherine Jourdan delicious, especially in sexy scenes. And there is Srge Gainsbourg. The René Chateau disc is correct.

....and,it is not surprising,an of course completely outdated one,as outdated as the "jerk" the youth used to dance in the famous night clubs such as "Palladiums" .

Marcel Camus who made the excellent "Orfeo Negro" eight years before (curiously,French critics do not think much of that later work which is more appreciated abroad) wanted to be hip in the late sixties:he even cast Serge Gainsbourg - probably the best French singer/songwriter of the second half of the 20th century- as a journalist ;he does what he can but he is not an actor.The leads are Catherine Jordan,a forgotten actress,and Jacques Perrin whose career is still buoyant.

The subject is the jungle of Paris nights.The heroes learn that it is not a nice place to be.