Julietta (1953)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Family ties are as prevalent in French cinema as anywhere else; father- son, Marcel and Jacques Tourneur, Bertrand and Bernard Blier, Pierre and Claude Brasseur, brothers, Jean and Pierre Renoir, Jacques and Pierre Prevert and Marc and Yves Allegret, perhaps the only two brothers to direct a body of work laced with great titles. Marc, the elder, was also the first to score via a string of great movies in the thirties and forties - Fanny, Entree des Artistes - with Yves taking the family name forward from the late forties - Manages, Dedee d'Anvers. Julietta is late-blooming Marc Allegret and although he eclipsed it with Un Drole de Dimanche a couple of years later he was running on empty.Which is why Julietta, made in 1953, is such a delight especially since neither Jean Marais nor Jeanne Moreau were known for the light touch. The plot, of course, is paper-thin. The mother of Julietta Valendor (Dany Robin) attempts a little match-making with her daughter and Hector d'Alpon (Bernard Lancet), who is also titled but Julietta doesn't want to know. En route back to Paris from Limoges, Julietta notices that another passenger in their carriage, Andre Landrecourt (Jean Marais) has left the train without his cigarette case. She hurries after him and misses the train. Naturally his car is waiting outside the station and he drives her to his château-size home for the night. Julietta takes a liking to it and decides to stay. Not a good idea when Leandrecourt's fiancé Rosie Facibey (Jeanne Moreau) is already coming by appointment and, just to add a touch of spice, she has invited d'Alpon along for the ride. This is the sort of stuff that Danielle Darrieux turned out by the yard in the thirties and exactly the kind of stuff that elevated her to the most popular actress in France by the end of the decade. Dany Robin is a fine substitute Darrieux and is, in fact, the most adept at this genre of the three principals. It's all as light as a soufflé' and charmant with it and I have no hesitation in recommending it as pure entertainment.

...after "les amants de minuit" a charming romantic story directed by Roger Richebé the precedent year.This one was directed by Marc Allégret who is essentially renowned for his pre WW2 work.The fifties were his brother Yves 's time ("une si jolie petite plage" "manèges")and by 1955,he had fallen into mediocrity ("en effeuilllant la marguerite" ," sois belle et tais-toi")."Julietta" is a harmless little comedy(much less entertaining that " les amants de minuit")which is watchable only because of the three actors:Jean Marais,Dany Robin and Jeanne Moreau;the latter probably had the worst part of a brilliant career:she portrays here a snub squeamish yellow-bellied bourgeois whom Marais takes to his desirable property;the problem is that he has already taken in Robin before,and he has got to hide her from Moreau's jealousy.You can describe the plot as an endless hide-and -seek game.NB:Dany Robin's career ended with Hitchcock's "Topaz" (1969),but it was one of the master's worst works (it might actually be the worst).She tragically died in a fire in 1995.