Reviews (2)

A glorious, bawdy early French comedy
A very funny, saucy French historical comedy, directed by Jacques Feyder, with production assistance by Marcel Carne (who was just on the cusp of his own directorial career)... The story is set in the Flemish town of Boom, in 1616, after the Spanish conquest of the region... When the royal troops announce their intention to billet in the town on their way across country, the village's male population proves so wimpy that it's left up to the womenfolk (led by Francoise Rosay, who is a brilliant actress) to save the town. It's unfortunate that this video version has such incomplete subtitling -- all the racier jokes get glided over, and the text is kept to a bare minimum. But even non-Francophone ingoramuses like myself get how clever and bawdy this film is. Cute. Apparently, this also had a powerful influence on manhy of the costume dramas which came in its wake.

Feyder puts Breughel on Screen
This gem from 1935 by Belgian-French director Feyder is still wonderfully vibrant and witty. In 1616, the Flemish village of Boom is indulging in its annual fair when a Spanish army is approaching and panic ensues. The women of the village take up action for welcoming the Spaniards while the men hide, but seek the credit later. Movie was accused of slander against the Catholic Church and the 'official' history of Flanders. The reconstruction of Breughelian images is stunning. A painting comes to life. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Wrong Kiss
Sorry, but I can't figure out any other way to correct a mistake on Lawrence M. Burnabo's otherwise excellent National Film Registry lists. The title may be the same, but "The Kiss" that's on the NFR is Edison's 1896 kinetoscope film, not this Garbo silent.

Garbo's final silent film is nothing to speak of...
"The Kiss," Greta Garbo's final silent film, finds the Swedish star playing Irene Guarry, the unhappy wife of a silk merchant (Anders Randolf) in Lyon, France. Pierre Lassalle (Lew Ayres), the son of her husband's business partner, is madly in love with Irene, but she resists his advances. However, her jealous husband tries to kill Pierre. When Irene kills her husband with his own gun to save the young man, Pierre's father makes him keep quite about what happened. At her trial, Irene is defended by Andre Dubail (Conrad Nagel), her former lover. This 1929 film, directed by Jacques Feyder, is yet another mediocre story for Garbo in which she plays a pure woman of passion who is wronged. She does look good and if you just watch her and do not even bother to read the title cards it should not detract from your enjoyment of this film at all. "The Kiss" was the first major role for Lew Ayres, who went on to fame as Dr. Kildare in a series of movies. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A glorious, bawdy early French comedy
A very funny, saucy French historical comedy, directed by Jacques Feyder, with production assistance by Marcel Carne (who was just on the cusp of his own directorial career)... The story is set in the Flemish town of Boom, in 1616, after the Spanish conquest of the region... When the royal troops announce their intention to billet in the town on their way across country, the village's male population proves so wimpy that it's left up to the womenfolk (led by Francoise Rosay, who is a brilliant actress) to save the town. It's unfortunate that this video version has such incomplete subtitling -- all the racier jokes get glided over, and the text is kept to a bare minimum. But even non-Francophone ingoramuses like myself get how clever and bawdy this film is. Cute. Apparently, this also had a powerful influence on manhy of the costume dramas which came in its wake.

Feyder puts Breughel on Screen
This gem from 1935 by Belgian-French director Feyder is still wonderfully vibrant and witty. In 1616, the Flemish village of Boom is indulging in its annual fair when a Spanish army is approaching and panic ensues. The women of the village take up action for welcoming the Spaniards while the men hide, but seek the credit later. Movie was accused of slander against the Catholic Church and the 'official' history of Flanders. The reconstruction of Breughelian images is stunning. A painting comes to life. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A Dream Of Romance
The story is familiar enough: Russian noblewoman abducted, and saved after many adventurers. It seems improbable now, but the material is very close not only to historical accounts of such escapes, or even merely to the fictional Anastasia of stage and film. Eighty years ago, nobody wold have doubted a bit of it. Some aristocrats did escape. Some titled and formerly rich and beautiful Russian women found their various ways to Berlin and Paris. Several founded successful businesses based on their knowledge of and familiarity with beautiful things; they dealt in lingeree, clothing, furs, jewels. During the 20s there actually was such a thing as Russian chic, and this film recaptures some of that romance.

Like all well-made black and white films, KNIGHT has the feeling of a dream, and that feeling is sustained throughout with the most amazing display of understated cinematic skill. The scenario: A beautiful woman living in a cocoon of wealth and privilege, is swept away in the middle of the night. Led and shielded by a handsome stranger, she finds her way to political and emotional freedom, by crossing a final border, and by falling in love with her non-aristocratic guardian and savior. She becoemes a 'real' woman. This is fairly pure Joseph Campbell with a bit of Cocteau and Jung thrown in for good measur. If it is not bluntly erotic enough for our time, perhaps, or for a somewhat earlier time -- think of Dr. Zivago -- it brings us back to a frame of mind that died with the First World War, when what attracted men and women to one another, had to do with character; when admiration combined with sex to form Adoration. It was a time of ideals. Dietrich's exceptional beauty in this film, is more than merely the beauty of an actress. Here, it becomes symbolic of all that was beautiful in Aristocratic Russia before the Revolution. She becomes the embodiment of some a rare and exquisite treasure very much like a Feberge jewel; something fragile, unique, astonishing. She looks the way Rachmaninoff sounds.

This is a cinematic experience of exceptional beauty; much like a fine eau de parfum; Chanel's Russian Leather, perhaps.

Nights Without Passion
This is a wonderful film for all the wrong reasons. The plot, though not absolutely impossible considering the time and the circumstances of the Russian Revolution, appear to derive more from Anastasia than from anything else. Nevertheless, Dietrich is a beautiful noblewoman who is rescued by Robert Donat, and their adventures across a Russia swarming with armed and dangerous Soviet thugs is the meat and potatoes of this story. Possibly because most of it appears to have been shot on sound stages, one doesn't feel any sense of real danger, except for the scene where Dietrich, dressed in beautiful peasant drag, is confronted with one of her old womenservants who refuses to recognize her. This in and of itself is preposterous because Dietrich's beauty in this scene is incredible. Her flawless, porcelain face is like no other on earth, and despite months of scrouncing through the wilds of Russia, not even slightly smudged. A peasant girl? Hardly.

Throughout the film, the secondary characters are very good and uniformly well played.

We now know that Dietrich didn't care for Donat either physically, or temperamentally. He was athsmatic, married, and unavailable. Dietrich was not amused by his coldness and distance. Their playing together has very little of anything like passion about it, but demonstrates very well how two skilled actors, guided by a helpful director, good lighting and camerawork, can make perfunctory embraces resemble something close to love-making, or at least the warmest affection.

The strengths of the movie are these: Dietrich is beautiful throughout, and nothing establishes that more strongly than her abduction from her bedroom while wearing a filmy negligee -- on horseback, no less! She is so beautiful, so gem-like and precious in her cinematic femeninity, one is reminded of a juggling act in which the juggler, tormented and teased on every side, struggles to cross the stage without dropping his treasure.

Donat is handsome; he photographs well, moves well, and uses his elegant voice to good effect. As a leading man he performs much as a dancing partner whose job it is to make his partner look her best.

The real triumph of the movie is the high and imaginative finish the director's team is able to achieve. The quality of black and white photography is very high, with scenes of many diferent kinds, handled so skillfully, one is unaware of the craft involved in their presentation. As it happens in many black and white Hitchcock movies, the pace and timing of the scenes parading across the screen, becomes in itself, almost a kinetic character or a presence in the story. One thinks of his 39 STEPS, and the moor scenes.

And so, although there is nothing of hot-blooded passion in this film, what it does offer is something rare in Dietrich's work; it is a romantic adventure story not altogether unlike one of Cocteau's modern fairy tale in its sophistication and delicacy. This is a connaisseur's movie; rare, and choice: gourmet eye candy. ... Read more

Description

AKA: Kermesse héroïque, La (1935)

B&W Sub-Titled in English Runtime: 110 minutes

When the village of Boom, in Flanders, learns a Spanish Duke and his troops plan to pass the night, the 4-man army deserts and the Mayor plays dead; so the Mayor's wife organizes the townswomen to greet the invaders and preserve the peace with womanly wiles.

Cast overview, first billed only:
Françoise Rosay ....Madame la Bourgmestre
Micheline Cheirel ....Siska
Lyne Clevers ....La poissonière

Maryse Wendling ....La boulangère
Ginette Gaubert ....L'aubergiste
Marguerite Ducouret ....La femme du brasseur
Jean Murat ....Le duc d'Olivarès
André Alerme ....Le bourgmestre
Bernard Lancret ....Jean Breughel
Alfred Adam ....Le boucher
Pierre Labry ....L'aubergiste
Arthur Devère ....Le poissonnier (as Arthur Devere)
Marcel Carpentier ....Le boulanger
Alexander D'Arcy ....Le capitaine (as Alexandre Darcy)
Claude Sainval ....Le lieutenant (as Claude Saint-Val) ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A glorious, bawdy early French comedy
A very funny, saucy French historical comedy, directed by Jacques Feyder, with production assistance by Marcel Carne (who was just on the cusp of his own directorial career)... The story is set in the Flemish town of Boom, in 1616, after the Spanish conquest of the region... When the royal troops announce their intention to billet in the town on their way across country, the village's male population proves so wimpy that it's left up to the womenfolk (led by Francoise Rosay, who is a brilliant actress) to save the town. It's unfortunate that this video version has such incomplete subtitling -- all the racier jokes get glided over, and the text is kept to a bare minimum. But even non-Francophone ingoramuses like myself get how clever and bawdy this film is. Cute. Apparently, this also had a powerful influence on manhy of the costume dramas which came in its wake.

Feyder puts Breughel on Screen
This gem from 1935 by Belgian-French director Feyder is still wonderfully vibrant and witty. In 1616, the Flemish village of Boom is indulging in its annual fair when a Spanish army is approaching and panic ensues. The women of the village take up action for welcoming the Spaniards while the men hide, but seek the credit later. Movie was accused of slander against the Catholic Church and the 'official' history of Flanders. The reconstruction of Breughelian images is stunning. A painting comes to life. ... Read more