Three Rooms in Manhattan (1965) - part2 - Marcel Carné

So this is my last 12 frames taken from Three Rooms in Manhattan aka Trois Chambres à Manhattan by Marcel Carné.

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If Robert De Niro wasn't playing an extra in a scene in a Greenwich Village's bar, who will remember that movie ?

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Did i tell you that the soundtrack is terrific ? Great jazz numbers from Mal Waldron. Yes it's the same pianist who played with Billie Holiday in her last years, he also played with the Jazz Workshop of Charles Mingus and the magnificent Jeanne Lee.

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At the Venice Film Festival in 1965, Annie Girardot won the Volpi Cup despite the unbelievable uproar by the press.

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That was meant to be the last great movie by Marcel Carné, the man who did 6 masterpieces in a row !! Bizarre, Bizarre (1937) / Port of Shadows (1938) / Hôtel du Nord (1938) / Daybreak (1939) / The Devil's Envoys (1942) and of course Children of Paradise (1945).
But let's not forget his essentials other movies : Gates of the Night (1946) / Juliette, or the Dream Book (1950) / Thérèse Raquin (The Adultress) (1953) / Les Tricheurs (The Cheaters) (1958) / Terrain vague (Wasteland) (1960) /
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PLOT
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Kay (Annie Girardot) and Francois (Maurice Ronet) are two people from France who meet and fall in love in New York in this melancholy romantic drama. She is a former countess, while he is an actor. Both of them must reconcile with their past while they decide to trust their feelings and possibly enter into a relationship.
Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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NOTES
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These frames are taken from an out of print VHS issued by Canal+ Video in 1993.

bonus -

This blog will be on hold until friday August 19th 2005.
Bye bye now.

Three Rooms in Manhattan (1965) - part1 - Marcel Carné

"Another movie, another planet".
This week let's get a close up on a underrated movie from the late period of the great french director Marcel Carné. Yes, the same director that was so despised by the french New Wave & François Truffaut. Three Rooms in Manhattan aka Trois Chambres à Manhattan is nevertheless a moving picture that we should look at now without the controversies of its release. Probably made 10 years too late, try to imagine what it would have been like in 1955, before the french "New Wave", before Antonioni's "L'Avventura". it should have been seen as a masterpiece about Love and the trouble to feel it, to communicate it etc...
But maybe critics & cinephiles just don't care. they know better. Really ?

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Adapted from a novel by Georges Simenon, it should have been directed by Jean-Pierre Melville who become disinterested and prefered to direct "Le Deuxieme Souffle".

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Three Rooms in Manhattan couldn't have been that great without its two main characters : Maurice Ronet who should be seen in the rare "Raphael, or The Debauched One" by Michel Deville and Annie Girardot who will be remembered in "Rocco & His Brothers" by Luchino Visconti.

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Another beautiful black & white movie thanks to the great cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan who began his carreer with 2 masterpieces with Robert Siodmak in Germany (1930) : People On Sunday and Abschied.

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In his autobiography, "Ma Vie à Belles Dents", Marcel Carné has very harsh words about Maurice Ronet (he was imposed by the production), he feared that he was too weak & too dramatic for his part. I don't know. I just love his melancholy.

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This was the first 12 frames i'll post of this movie.
Next monday you'll see the last 12.
In the meantime, any comments will be appreciated.

This Above All (1942) - part2 - Anatole Litvak

So this is my last 12 frames taken from This Above All aka Ames Rebelles.

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I could translate this saying that it's "a music that is so much more than just music". Something i often think the same about some Musics that are dear to me. Everyone knows that, no ?

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As Liz from the Joan Fontaine website rightfully wrote, "So many of Joan's really terrific films have not made it to either VHS or DVD. Hopefully that will change." Yes Liz, let's hope.

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Tyrone Power has never been so touching than in playing this moody character as Clive Briggs except maybe in The Razor's Edge that i already wrote about.

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"To thy one-self be true".

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PLOT
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Eric Knight's wartime novel This Above All was given the Tiffany treatment in the this 20th Century Fox big-budgeter. Tyrone Power plays Clive Briggs, a conscientious objector from humble origins, who deserts the British Army because he doesn't believe in fighting to preserve his country's oppressive class structure. But Briggs is no coward, and he performs admirably in rescuing air-raid victims. Through the love of Prudence Cathaway (Joan Fontaine), a doctor's daughter and member of the women's air corps, Briggs realizes that love of country supersedes all social outrage. This Above All ends with Briggs seriously wounded, though given a good chance to survive. In the original novel, the hero not only dies, but also has a censor-baiting love affair with the Prudence character (who, of course, is as pure as the driven snow in the film). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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NOTES
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These frames are taken from a broadcast on french cable tv Cine Classics some years ago. This movie is available on VHS & DVD through bootlegs companies via mail order. As i don't want to advertise them, i won't give you their adress.
Do a research through Google. It's easy.

Bonus -
"It's no use talking about it if you can't see beyond words".

bye bye now...
See you next friday.