1956 - ELENA AND HER MEN aka PARIS DOES STRANGE THINGS

Ingrid Bergman who had just entered her early 40's is at her most radiant in this film by the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir.  In this film Bergman is courted by several suitors all of who she manages to hold at bay until she finally chooses the guy she wants.  Bergman had a long career in the film industry with lots of highs in 1940's Hollywood and a big low with her involvement with Italian director Roberto Rossellini (having a child out of wedlock the horror, the horror). 

Elena and Her Men was made after Jean Renoir's return to France.  He had been in exile in Hollywood during World War II.  Renoir struggled in Hollywood and was never very comfortable with the cookie cutter studio approach to film making.   The films he made upon his return to France are considerably more light weight than some of his serious 1930's films such as Rules of the Game and Grand Illusion.  He certainly had the ability to film comedy with the amusing Boudu Saved from Drowning.  So filming a farce 20 years later wasn't difficult for him.

 

Elena and Her Men is frequently mentioned by critics as a variation on his theme of the foolishness of the upper class which he satirized in Rules of the Game.  Renoir certainly ridicules the upper class in this film but this is a very paper thin story for the most part.

 

The film was mostly filmed in the studio.  Claude Renoir who was an outstanding color cinematographer was responsible for the look of the film. This movie is absolutely gorgeous to look at.   Claude Renoir also happened to be the nephew of Jean Renoir.  Jean Marius and actor usually associated with Jean Cocteau is one of Bergman's suitors.  American actor Mel Ferrer is another.

The film was written by Jean Renoir and Jean Serge, the running time is 98 minutes.

1941 - SWAMP WATER, Jean Renoir's first American film

Jean Renoir, one France's most important filmmakers was invited by Darryl F Zanuck to make a film in Hollywood.  Renoir was a filmmaker who took his time with story and actors,.  Considering Hollywood's production methods, Renoir was in for a big disappointment.  There are numerous memos from Zanuck complaining about Renoir's slow pace and what he called his over attention to detail.

The film is set in Georgia in the Okefenokee Swamp, but other than a few opening shots the film is entirely filmed back in Hollywood at the Fox Studios.  For a film about rural people living in Georgia the film is cast with the usual bunch of Hollywood actors.  Dana Andrews, Walter Brennan,Walter Huston and Anne Baxter.  Ward Bond and Gunn “Big Boy” Williams also show up.  Nothing like using privileged rich Hollywood actors to bring authenticity to a film about poor rural southerners.

I spite of Renoir's battles with Zanuck and the Fox executives the film was one of their bigger moneymakers that year.  However Renoir was obviously not happy with the way it turned out.  The film has a few what I would call poetic touches but for the most part this is the usual Hollywood hokum about the"little people."

 

Written by Dudley Nichols, the running time is 90 minutes.

1970 - THE LITTLE THEATER OF JEAN RENOIR, Renoir's final film is really bad

Jean Renoir's final film is depressing in it's awfulness.  Renoir wrote three short stories, and added a musical interlude with Jeanne Moreau performing a music hall song.

The first story is based on Hans Christian Andersen's,  The Little Match Girl.  Renoir has updated the story to the present and has retold the story making it about an elderly homeless couple who freeze to death on a cold winter night, lots of fun.

The second story is just completely strange.  A woman wants a perfectly waxed wood floor in her apartment.  She buys an electronic floor polisher, and brings about the death of her first husband  by making the floor really slippery.  This episode is presented as a quasi musical with people breaking out into song frequently and badly.

Jeanne Moreau performs her musical interlude, and she must have done it as a favor to Renoir because it contributes nothing to the film and is not particularly well sung.

The third story is about a middle aged man married to a younger woman who realizes she is cheating on him.  He decides to live in a "menage a trois" arrangement with her lover.  This one probably had possibilities, but the story has no resolution and just kind of stops it's as if Renoir didn't know how to end it.

Renoir was always good with his actors, but the performers here are pretty broad with lots of hammy overacting.  The first two stories were shot in a studio and they sure look it,  there was absolutely no feeling for their settings.  Renoir appears to be attempting to achieve some kind of European whimsy, but the film comes off as amateurish in the best Ed Wood tradition.

The Little Theater of Jean Renoir has a lot in common with Hitchcock's final film Family Plot.  They are embarrassing to watch and would probably have been better left unmade.

100 minutes.