Movies I love: Moment to Moment

MOMENT TO MOMENT in 1966 is a glossy romantic thriller by old hand Mervyn Le Roy (his last film in fact) set in the South of France and is a fabulous treat to see now at this remove. It was part of a double-bill on release initially.

The first half is lushly romantic as Jean Seberg drives around Nice in her snazzy red sports car, sporting a Yves St Laurent wardrobe that would still be the height of chic today - she is a bored wife whose (dull) husband Arthur Hill is away on business, and she gets romantically involved [as one does] with a sailor on the loose - Sean Garrison, a bit wooden but does what is required of him, ie - he fills out his uniform nicely. Jean resists at first but ... add in Honor Blackman [just after her stint as Pussy Galore with James Bond] as the maneater next door and the stage is set for some fireworks.

Then it turns into a Chabrol-like thriller with a missing body, police on the prowl, the return of the husband and the missing body (very much alive). It is though all nicely worked out, a lot of it studio bound, but nice locations too. Jean is perfect here and its a perfect mid'60s treat. Great Henry Mancini score too .... it deserves to be much better known and would be a much better chick flick now than some of the current examples. There is a lovely moment at the well-known Colombe D'Or restaurant (still going strong at St-Paul-de-Vence - I read a recommendtion on it last week) with the doves flying into the sun .... perfectly romantic then with a few Hitchcockian twists and Seberg is in her lovely prime here. What's not to like? My IMDB pal Timshelboy loves it as well.

Bonjour Tristesse

Staying with 1957 for now, I should have been at a screening of BONJOUR TRISTESSE last evening [part of the National Film Theatre's Deborah Kerr retrospective] but a knee injury intervened - apologies, Donal and Jerry (Timshelboy) - so its back to the dvd of this Otto Preminger classic, made in '57 for '58 release. That ace photojournalist Bob Willoughby was on the set (as he seems to have been on all the important-to-me movies of the late '50s, and he shot this classic shot of Seberg (above) and (botttom) best-selling author Francoise Sagan on set with Niven and Kerr.


David Niven plays a wealthy playboy, the father of teenaged Cecile (Jean Seberg). Cecile tolerates father’s girlfriends, particularly Mylene Demongeot, but doesn’t know what to make of the prudish Anne (Deborah Kerr), who will not cohabit with Niven until after they’re married. Feeling that her own relationship with her father will be disrupted by Anne’s presence and the plans for her further education, Cecile does her malicious best to break up the relationship, only to be beaten by Niven, who despite his promises of fidelity to Anne cannot give up his hedonistic lifestyle. The combination of the daughter’s disdain and the father’s rakishness leads a fatal accident. Niven and Seberg continue pursuing their lavish but empty lifestyle, though both realize that their lack of moral fibre has destroyed a life, but was it an accident or suicide? The incestuous undertones of the original Sagan novel are only slightly downplayed in the film; the “tristesse” (sadness) is visually conveyed by filming the flashback scenes in colour and the opening and closing of the film in bleak black and white, as they drive and party around Paris - another Sagan best-seller "Aimez vous Brahms" filmed in 1961 as GOODBYE AGAIN is another bittersweet tale (which I must revisit) also with lots of driving around Paris by Anthony Perkins and Ingrid Bergman .... TRISTESSE is perfectly directed by Preminger with his SAINT JOAN star Seberg in her element here, Geoffrey Horne is her boyfriend, Juliette Greco sings the theme song "... my heart has no address, bonjour tristesse" in a nightclub and then the colour seeps in as the memories intrude ... Niven and Kerr are perfectly cast here, as opposed to their playing against type next in SEPARATE TABLES.

50th birthdays ...

Iconic movies never go out of style - age does not wither them. BREATHLESS is just released in a new 50th anniversary print - like Varda's CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (also re-released recently) it is a poem to early '60s Paris; L'AVVENTURA and PSYCHO were similarly re-released, and I finally discovered THE APARTMENT this year! Also due for re-release (though its never really gone away) should be Delon and Clement's endlessly fascinating stylish PLEIN SOLEIL with its real mediterranean of that iconic year 1960... I have written about them previously here and will probably continue to do so...

Jean Seberg trio

IN THE FRENCH STYLE is a charming entry in the American Girl in Paris stakes by Robert Parrish in 1963, from Irwin Shaw stories. Jean Seberg is quite charming here going from naïve young girl to sophisticated woman of affairs before giving it all up for domesticity with an American doctor (played by one of my favourite writers James Leo Herlihy, author of All Fall Down and Midnight Cowboy, among others). Stanley Baker is one of her lovers so cue lots of meetings at airports and a decadent party that prefigures the one in DARLING. Its an interesting American take on the international film scene of the early '60s and Seberg's iconic place in it.

MOMENT TO MOMENT in 1965 is a glossy romantic thriller by old hand Mervyn Le Roy (his last film in fact) set in the South of France and is a fabulous treat to see now at this remove. The first half is lushly romantic as Jean drives around Nice in her snazzy red sports car, sporting a Yves St Laurent wardrobe that would still be the height of chic today - she is a bored wife whose (dull) husband Arthur Hill is away on business, and she gets romantically involved with a sailor on the loose - Sean Garrison, a bit wooden but does what is required of him, ie - he fills out his uniform nicely. Jean resists at first but ... add in Honor Blackman [just after her stint as Pussy Galore with James Bond] as the maneater next door and the stage is set for some fireworks. Then it turns into a Chabrol-like thriller with a missing body, police on the prowl, the return of the husband and the missing body. It is though all nicely worked out, a lot of it studio bound, but nice locations too. Jean is perfect here and its a perfect mid'60s treat. Great Henry Mancini score too .... it deserves to be much better known and would be a much better chick flick now than some of the current examples.

THE ROAD TO CORINTH (LA ROUTE DE CORINTHE) is real Chabrol - an amusing thriller in sunny daylight as Jean looking lovelier than ever and Maurice Ronet chase after some McGuffin all over Greece, in 1967. It is nice to see Jean at this period, after BREATHLESS and LILITH before things darkened for her.

Jean was "the girl from Marshalltown, Iowa" as I remember reading as a child, when discovered by Otto Preminger for ST JOAN, she is marvellous as Cecile in BONJOUR TRISTESSE (my comments on it are a few posts back here), now if one could only see missing items like her husband Romain Gary's THE BIRDS COME TO DIE IN PERU.... Like Romy Schneider's, Jean's is one of the more fascinating careers in international cinema.

Blonde Crazy ?

London's National Film Theatre is running a season on cinema blondes. Since you ask, its GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES / RED DUST / I'M NO ANGEL / BECKY SHARP (Miriam Hopkins as the first Technicolor blonde?) / TO BE OR NOT TO BE / I MARRIED A WITCH / CASQUE D'OR / IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU / YIELD TO THE NIGHT / WILD STRAWBERRIES / MARNIE / IMITATION OF LIFE / LE MEPRIS / BELLE DE JOUR / GLORIA and BASIC INSTINCT.

Intriguing enough, but no room for Jean Seberg, Kim Novak, Janet Leigh, Carroll Baker in her 60s sexbomb period, Belinda Lee [England's other blonde siren], Jayne in THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT or art-house goddess Monica as MODESTY BLAISE or her hilarious role in LE FATE or THE '50s siren Anita Ekberg or that other great exotic, Ursula Andress? Then there's the more 'everyday' blondes like Joanne Woodward, Carol Lynley, Tuesday Weld, Doris Day and ..... those other iconic Hitchock blondes as exemplified by Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Madeleine Carroll and the glacial Ann Todd.

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