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THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT
1967's The Young Girls of Rochefort is a stylish and colorful valentine to MGM musicals that, even though it is in French with English subtitles, will appeal to anyone who has ever enjoyed an MGM musical because everything you expect from a classic musical comedy is here, it's just presented with a delicious French accent.
Set during a memorable weekend in a small seaside town in France called Rochefort, this musical focuses on a pair of glamorous sisters: Delphine (Catherine Deneuve) is a dance teacher and her twin, Solange (Francois Dorleac), a piano teacher and composer who have big dreams and plan to move to Paris to seek fame and fortune. A cluster of characters caught up in romantic destiny that revolves around these sisters include the girls' mother (Danielle Darrieux), a lonely cafe owner, an American musician between gigs in Paris (Gene Kelly), a charming music store owner (Michel Piccoli), a sailor who is also a poet and painter (Jacques Perrin), and a pair of slick carnival performers (George Chakiris, Grover Dale) who have just been deserted by their leading ladies. These characters are thrown together in classic musical comedy fashion and our joy comes in watching exactly how we're going to reach the happy romantic ending we customarily require for our musicals.
I must confess to some initial panic when I realized the film was in French with subtitles because normally I hate reading at the movies, but reservations were almost immediately quashed as I realized that I was about to be treated to a musical that makes no apologies about the fact that it is a musical...the first dance number begins during the opening credits and from there I was hooked...the story is crafted from elements from so many classic musical that understanding exactly what was going on became a non-issue pretty quickly.
Director Jacques Demy mounted this confection with respect to the genre and giving us musical lovers all the things we are looking for, even if they are disguised with a French accent. Composer Michel Legrand has provided a lush and melodic musical score that is utilized in a classic theatrical style...I loved when the carny guys asked the twins to be in their show and wanted to know what kind of number they could do and the girls responded by reprising their opening number in the film that introduced them to the viewer, a classic musical comedy device. The story even throws in a small subplot involving a murder mystery that provided some fun without getting in the way of what we really came here for. The film also features spectacular dance numbers, beautifully choreographed by Norman Maen (except for Kelly's sequences which he choreographed himself).
About twenty minutes into the film, I suspected that most of the singing in the film was dubbed and it was confirmed when Kelly made his first appearance and opened his mouth to sing and a voice that was not Kelly's came out, but like the subtitles, this quickly became a non-issue, as did the unsettling image of George Chakiris, who six year earlier won an Oscar for playing Puerto Rican Bernardo in West Side Story speaking with a perfect French accent. To be honest, Kelly, in his first appearance in a musical in a decade was wasted, but I'm sure he was added to the cast to give the film some appeal to American film goers.
I think what I liked the best about this movie is that even though you know where everything is going and who's supposed to be with who, Demy makes you wait to the very last minute of the film for that requisite happy ending, but the journey there was such a surprising pleasure.
1967's The Young Girls of Rochefort is a stylish and colorful valentine to MGM musicals that, even though it is in French with English subtitles, will appeal to anyone who has ever enjoyed an MGM musical because everything you expect from a classic musical comedy is here, it's just presented with a delicious French accent.
Set during a memorable weekend in a small seaside town in France called Rochefort, this musical focuses on a pair of glamorous sisters: Delphine (Catherine Deneuve) is a dance teacher and her twin, Solange (Francois Dorleac), a piano teacher and composer who have big dreams and plan to move to Paris to seek fame and fortune. A cluster of characters caught up in romantic destiny that revolves around these sisters include the girls' mother (Danielle Darrieux), a lonely cafe owner, an American musician between gigs in Paris (Gene Kelly), a charming music store owner (Michel Piccoli), a sailor who is also a poet and painter (Jacques Perrin), and a pair of slick carnival performers (George Chakiris, Grover Dale) who have just been deserted by their leading ladies. These characters are thrown together in classic musical comedy fashion and our joy comes in watching exactly how we're going to reach the happy romantic ending we customarily require for our musicals.
I must confess to some initial panic when I realized the film was in French with subtitles because normally I hate reading at the movies, but reservations were almost immediately quashed as I realized that I was about to be treated to a musical that makes no apologies about the fact that it is a musical...the first dance number begins during the opening credits and from there I was hooked...the story is crafted from elements from so many classic musical that understanding exactly what was going on became a non-issue pretty quickly.
Director Jacques Demy mounted this confection with respect to the genre and giving us musical lovers all the things we are looking for, even if they are disguised with a French accent. Composer Michel Legrand has provided a lush and melodic musical score that is utilized in a classic theatrical style...I loved when the carny guys asked the twins to be in their show and wanted to know what kind of number they could do and the girls responded by reprising their opening number in the film that introduced them to the viewer, a classic musical comedy device. The story even throws in a small subplot involving a murder mystery that provided some fun without getting in the way of what we really came here for. The film also features spectacular dance numbers, beautifully choreographed by Norman Maen (except for Kelly's sequences which he choreographed himself).
About twenty minutes into the film, I suspected that most of the singing in the film was dubbed and it was confirmed when Kelly made his first appearance and opened his mouth to sing and a voice that was not Kelly's came out, but like the subtitles, this quickly became a non-issue, as did the unsettling image of George Chakiris, who six year earlier won an Oscar for playing Puerto Rican Bernardo in West Side Story speaking with a perfect French accent. To be honest, Kelly, in his first appearance in a musical in a decade was wasted, but I'm sure he was added to the cast to give the film some appeal to American film goers.
I think what I liked the best about this movie is that even though you know where everything is going and who's supposed to be with who, Demy makes you wait to the very last minute of the film for that requisite happy ending, but the journey there was such a surprising pleasure.