Brief Encounter

Author: writers_reign from London, England
6 October 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

It's often interesting and sometimes entertaining to witness one generation of actors sharing the screen with the next, sometimes handing the torch over gracefully, sometimes dangling it in front of the newcomer and sending the tacit message 'take it - if you think you can carry it. We've seen it with Yves Montand and Gerard Depardieu in Le Choix des armes, with Gabin himself and Alain Delon in Melodie en sous-sol and here we have Gabin again but more pertinently Edwige Feuilliere facing up to Brigitte Bardot.

I am arguably one of a small handful of heterosexual men who have never been able to see what all the fuss was about in the case of Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot. It would be foolish in incorrect to say they were totally inept and Monroe especially managed to appear in several films with real actors, like Clash By Night, All About Eve, The Ashphalt Jungle, Don't Bother To Knock and, of course, Some Like It Hot but only in the last title did she achieve above-the-title billing.

En cas de malheur is fascinating to people like me who love French cinema because it was released in 1958 which was just about the time those petulant schoolboys from Cahiers du Cinema were doing their best to destroy it and replace it with Amateur Night. Start with the script; a novel by Georges Simenon who had been providing material for French cinema since the earliest days of sound, add Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost who, beginning with Douce in 1943, had written no less than ten outstanding screenplays, largely adaptations from novels and in so doing had managed to get right up the nose of Truffaut, quel dommage.

With Encas de malheur they did it again even as Truffaut and Godard were preparing to take to the streets with their hand-held Arris and Nagras and egos the size of a Sound Stage at MGM.* Throw in Gabin and Feuilliere and you have as good a definition of the finest in French cinema as any. Call me odd but while I wouldn't cross a room let alone a street to get next to Bardot I'd cross deserts if Feuilliere was on the other side. I guess I've always preferred Class to Cute. Be that as it may this is a fine movie and well worth adding to your DVD collection.

* De gros egos mais au final de petits films...