Club de femmes (1936) - film review

In a women only boarding house in Paris, impressionable young women are offered cheap accommodation and sanctuary from corrupting male influences.  Unfortunately, this is not the quite the haven of happiness it should be.  One young woman is infatuated with her neighbour, whilst another girl goes to extraordinary lengths to smuggle her boyfriend into her room.  And the receptionist is secretly running a prostitution ring...

An astonishingly daring film for its time, Club de femmes is a curious combination of Billy Wilder-esque comedy and French romantic melodrama.  Although some of the risqué elements of the plot are pretty mundane by today’s standards, there is still a great deal of comedy which should appeal to a modern audience.

Danielle Darrieux, later to become a star of French cinema, was only 19 when she appeared in this film.  She plays the exuberant man-mad dancer, Claire, a woman who will do anything to be united with her boyfriend.  This is just one of many sublime comic performances in this film.

On a more sober note, Else Argal plays the sensitive Alice, probably the first lesbian role in French cinema.  Unlike in so many subsequent films, the subject is treated with great sensitivity and tenderness in this film.

Lesbianism, overt sexuality, prostitution, child birth out of wedlock, crime of passion, cross-dressing, female nudity – there is no shortage of material in this film to tempt the censors.  When the film was released, whole swathes of the film were cut. As a result of this mutilation, the film had meagre showing and was soon forgotten.  It was only when the film was rediscovered 50 years later that it earned the recognition that it merits.

© James Travers 2000

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