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Overview
Félicie Nanteuil is a French romantic film drama first released in 1945,
directed by Marc Allégret.
The film is based on a novel by Anatole France and stars Micheline Presle, Claude Dauphin, Louis Jourdan, Edmond Beauchamp and Mady Berry.
Our overall rating for this film is: very good.
Synopsis
During a school revue at which she gets to show off her singing
talents, Félicie Nanteuil meets the well-known actor Aimé
Cavalier. The latter has seen sent by the Odéon theatre to
read some poetry. Félicie is a big fan of Cavalier and he
admires her beauty. The actor persuades himself that the young
woman has talent and gives her some lessons in diction, which turns out
to be a pretext for her becoming his mistress. Cavalier persuades
the manager of the Odéon to hire Félicie and in no time
the aspiring young singer is a greater star than the man who launched
her on her career. Cavalier is devastated when Félicie
falls for the irresistible Robert de Ligny, but he has a plan to win
her back...
© Willems Henri (Brussels, Belgium) Film Review
You have to feel sorry for Marc Allégret. Active
throughout the sound era, during which he turned out some excellent
films, he finally came up with a Valentine to the nineteenth century
French Theatre, featuring a beautiful and charismatic actress who has
two men fighting over her. This had ’winner’ written all over it
but alas there was another film on a very similar theme made in that
same year and, next to the Carné-Prévert masterpiece Les Enfants du paradis,
Allégret’s Félice
Nanteuil got lost in the shuffle. That doesn’t mean we
can’t enjoy it today of course, and there is a lot to enjoy.
Leading lady Micheline Presle was rapidly ascending the North Face of
her career peak (which was a scant two years away via Le Diable au corps) and if
Louis Jordan never really convinced in anything he did, Claude Dauphin
scarcely puts a foot wrong as Presle’s mentor. I urge you to seek
this one out.
© Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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Related links
More French RomanceMore French Romance/Comedy Recent DVD releases |
Credits
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If you like this film you may also like the following: Les Affaires sont les affaires (1942) La Belle et la bête (1946) Le Carrosse d’or (1953) Les Enfants du paradis (1945) Hiroshima mon amour (1959) Les Jeux sont faits (1947) Marius (1931) Le Mépris (1963) Le Quai des brumes (1938) Quatorze Juillet (1933) Sous les toits de Paris (1930) Toni (1935) La Vie d’un honnête homme (1953) Les Visiteurs du soir (1942) |


