Fanny (1961)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Joshua Logan's film of "Fanny" began life as Marcel Pagnol's Marseilles Trilogy, (Fanny, Marius and Cesar, the three films that made up that trilogy), later condensed to a Broadway musical which Logan directed. This film version arrived in 1961, keeping the musical's structure but minus the (not particularly memorable) songs and it's a sentimental triumph. It's set in Marseilles and tells the story of Fanny, the 18 year old daughter of a fish-seller, Marius, the boy she loves, Cesar, Marius' father and Panisse, the old sail-maker who marries Fanny to give her illegitimate child by Marius, a name after Marius has gone off to sea, unaware that he is to be a father.For this version Logan was canny enough to cast Charles Boyer as Cesar, Maurice Chevallier as Panisse and Leslie Caron as Fanny and a largely French supporting cast. The German-born Horst Buchholz is Marius and although he never sounds French, for once he doesn't disgrace himself. However, Caron, Boyer and especially Chevallier are outstanding. Boyer picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Actor though personally I think it should have gone to a hardly ever better Chevallier. Caron, too, was unlucky enough to miss out on a Best Actress nomination although the film was nominated for Best Picture.I've always felt Logan was among the most underrated of great American directors, (Truffaut was a big fan). He worked largely in musicals and melodramas but never achieved the critical adulation heaped on Minnelli; not that he was ever in Minnelli's class. Still, he produced some sterling work, if no actual masterpieces. "Fanny", long unseen, is definitely one of his best films.

I have been reading all these raves about this movie which I just saw on TMC this morning, 11/4/10, and thought I would write my thoughts. Certainly felt there was an overuse-age of the same song over and over again. I kept asking myself could not the composer think of another? What was with all the close ups? We can see a person's expression without a head shot filling the screen. Leslie Caron wasn't dancing with Gene Kelley and Horst Buchholz wasn't following the other '6" in the Magnificent 7. I liked him better in that movie than this one. There was the 2 older actors, Charles Boyer and Chevalier who I suppose were passing the reins onto the younger generation they were pleasant enough but the reins never passed as both of the actors never did much after this movie, unless you liked Father Goose or How the West was Won.Bottom line is its about a small village, a teenage one night stand that turns into a nightmare when she finds out she is pregnant. Basically after she let's him follow his dream, her mother, his father and the local rich man keep the 'secret' by a quick marriage and a 'pre-mature' birthing which made the rich man's family very happy. Of course you could not get away with that nowadays, someone would be screaming for a DNA testing. It's really just a soap opera in Technicolor, why an R rating? I have no clue, it should have been a PG-13. There was no bad language, no violence, no nudity and sex was mildly implied compared to today's standards. The only thing I could think of is it gives the impression that if a girl gets pregnant and her boyfriend heads out she can still get support for her child without government getting involved. Actually, I like that idea but it only happens in the movies so don't try this at home.

One of the essential pleasures of the film is its soundtrack of Harold Rome's beautiful melodies from the Broadway show, Fanny. The title theme, the song Fanny, is especially haunting, and played throughout the film.Unfortunately, there is no movie soundtrack CD (Grrrrrrrr!), only a Broadway cast album (yes, a phonograph record) from the 1954 stage production. I keep searching to find the song recorded somewhere, by someone (anyone), but just keep coming up empty. What a genuine pity that this beautiful piece of music seems to have been lost in time and we can only hear it sporadically in this film.Fanny contains my favorite performance my Maurice Chevalier as Panisse, the lovestruck older gentleman who marries the pregnant Fanny (Leslie Caron), whose young lover (Horst Bucholtz) has run off to be with his first true love, the sea. If you've seen The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, you'll know the story (based on the same source material). But, since this is after all a Hollywood production, the ending has an upbeat twist.Romantic love stories such as this were often filmed in epic style back in the day (a style resurrected by James Cameron for "Titanic", complete with theme music that played in your head for weeks). Sadly, it's a genre that's never made a solid comeback . . . though I fervently wish it would. Sigh . . .

Leslie Caron is quite wonderful playing the love-starved daughter of a fish-market saleswoman on the Paris waterfront who sets her sights on the son of the tavern owner. After a night in her bed, the paths of the young lovers separate, but soon there's a baby on the way and Caron realizes a father will be needed so as not to shame her hard-working mother. Marcel Pagnol's star-crossed trilogy ("Marius", "Fanny", and "César") about life and love in Marseille was first turned into a hit Broadway musical, soon adapted into this non-musical film directed by Joshua Logan. You can easily spot where the songs might have been (the scenes surge forth in emotion, but have no emotional outlet beyond the dialogue). However, Caron just kept getting better and better as an actress, and any trace of self-consciousness as a performer was, by this point, minute. Lots of wily eccentrics dot the supporting cast, with friendly adversaries Maurice Chevalier and Charles Boyer relishing their roles (they're both deliciously mad, like characters out of Lewis Carroll). As the baby's father, Horst Buchholz is handsome and has a few fine scenes, but he's out of his league within this company and doesn't quite connect with Boyer, portraying his father. The film is long and contains possibly too many Mount Rushmore close-ups of La Caron, but indeed it's a handsome piece of work, with Harold Rome's songs now used for the pleasant background score. If viewers can get through the clunky first act, the absorbing plot becomes a surprisingly fine study of missed opportunities, decisions, and human feelings. *** from ****