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Daily Archives: June 3, 2018

The Soft Skin (1964)

Posted on June 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Soft Skin (La peau douce)
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Written by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard
1964/France
Les Films du Carosse/SEDIF/Simar Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Pierre Lachenay: I’ve learned that men’s unhappiness arises from the inability to stay quietly in their own room.[/box]

Adultery works out unsatisfactorily for every one concerned in this interesting film from Francois Truffaut.

Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) is a famous literary critic who is popular on TV and the lecture circuit. He is married to Franca (Nelly Benedetti) and they have one daughter, Sabine, about age 10. She seems devoted to him. One day on a flight to Lisbon he spots airline stewardess Nicole (Francoise Dorleac) and they keep running into each other in the airport and at the hotel where both overnight. He calls her and so begins their affair.

The affair involves a lot of lying and sneaking and Pierre is not very clever at this game. He literally cannot stay away from Nicole however. Inevitably, his marriage hits the skids. And then …

I liked everything about this movie. Truffaut made all the characters very identifiable. I really was not expecting the ending!!! Dorleac, who was Catherine Deneuve’s elder sister, is a revelation. Recommended.

Back Street (1932)

Posted on June 3, 2018 | 2 comments

Back Street
Directed by John M. Stahl
Written by Gladys Lehman and Lynn Starling from a novel by Frannie Hurst
1932/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Ray Schmidt: I know myself so well – it’s all the way or zero with me.[/box]

Irene Dunne gives heart to this top-drawer melodrama.

Fun-loving Ray Schmidt (Dunne) is playing the field around the turn of the last century when she falls hard for rich, handsome Walter Saxel. It just so happens that he is engaged. On the day he is supposed to introduce Ray to Mama as a potential future bride she is called away by a family emergency. They meet again in New York five years later. Ray does not wait for a wedding ring from the now married Walter and he begins to “keep” her in an apartment.

Walter refuses to let Ray work or have a child so she spends a lot of lonely time waiting around while he is with his family or on extended business trips. Eventually, his children discover the affair but are unable to break it off. Twenty-five yers of mutual devotion end as they inevitably must, even in the pre-Code days.

John Boles overdoes it but Dunne is solid as a rock in this. I believed every one of her tears without feeling manipulated in the least. Recommended.

Back Street was remade in 1941 with Margaret Sullavan and Charles Boyer and in 1961 with Susan Hayward and John Gavin, neither of which I have seen.