Life Dances On
Life Dances On | |
---|---|
Directed by | Julien Duvivier |
Written by | Julien Duvivier Henri Jeanson Yves Mirande Jean Sarment Pierre Wolff Bernard Zimmer |
Produced by | Jean-Pierre Frogerais |
Starring | Marie Bell Françoise Rosay Louis Jouvet |
Cinematography | Philippe Agostini Michel Kelber Pierre Levent |
Edited by | André Versein |
Music by | Maurice Jaubert |
Production company | Productions Sigma |
Distributed by | Les Films Vog |
Release date | 9 September 1937 |
Running time | 144 minutes |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Life Dances On or Christine (French: Un carnet de bal) is a 1937 French drama film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Marie Bell, Françoise Rosay and Louis Jouvet.[1]
The film's art direction was by Jean Douarinou.
Plot
Twenty years after her debut ball, recently-widowed Christine tracks down her former dance partners to see how time has treated them. Her beaux have not fared well: one killed himself over Christine and his doting mother haunts his room in a perpetual state of denial. Promising lawyer and poet Pierre became a cynical nightclub owner and mob boss. An older composer took monastic vows and now teaches music to choirboys. The relatively fit and well-adjusted bachelor Eric has secluded himself on a mountain. Francois is a petit-bourgeois mayor marrying his henpecked maid in a small village. A former medical student is now a world-weary, drug-addicted wreck performing illegal abortions in the dockyard district. And optimistic card-trick-loving Fabien is a hair-dresser well-contented with his domestic life (though perhaps closeted) and frequenting the same old dance circuit.
Christine indulges in the melancholy of regret, remaining non-judgmental, but nevertheless disturbed by the profound effect she had on these men, their loss of innocence, and the ravages of time.
Cast
- Harry Baur as Alain Regnault
- Marie Bell as Christine Surgère
- Pierre Blanchar as Thierry Raynal
- Fernandel as Fabien Coutissol
- Louis Jouvet as Pierre Verdier, dit Jo
- Raimu as Francois Patusset
- Françoise Rosay as Marguerite Audié
- Pierre Richard-Willm as Eric Irvin
- Maurice Bénard as Brémond
- Robert Lynen as Jacques Dambreval
- Milly Mathis as Cécile Galtéry
- Sylvie as La maîtresse de Thierry
- Andrex as Paul
- Jeanne Fusier-Gir as La marchande de journaux
- Alfred Adam as Fred
- Pierre Alcover as Teddy Mélanco
- Jacques Beauvais as Le maître d'hôtel
- Peggy Bonny as L'entraîneuse
- Serge de Landauer
- Georges Dorival as Le baron
- Crista Dorra
- Marguerite Ducouret as La mère de la jeune fille au bal
- Agnès Duval as La serveuse du repas de noces
- Gabrielle Fontan as Rose, la bonne de Mme Audié
- Simone Gauthier as La jeune fille au bal
- René Génin as L'adjoint du maire
- Roger Legris as Un complice de Jo
- Raymond Narlay as Un dîneur chez Jo
- Henri Nassiet as Un policier
- Henri Niel as Un invité chez Patusset
- Les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois as Les petits chanteurs de la manécanterie
- Sylvain as Un danseur
- Janine Zorelli
References
- ^ Moeller p.33
Bibliography
- Moeller, Felix. The Film Minister: Goebbels and the Cinema in the Third Reich. Axel Menges, 2000.