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Overview
Les Mariés de l’an II is a French comedy romance film first released in 1971,
directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau.
The film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlène Jobert, Laura Antonelli, Michel Auclair and Julien Guiomar.
It has also been released under the title: Scoundrel.
Our overall rating for this film is: good.
Synopsis
After killing an aristocrat, commoner Nicolas Philibert bids a hasty
farewell to his native France and arrives in the United States, where
he soon makes his fortune as a crop merchant. His marriage to the
daughter of a wealthy man is frustrated when it is revealed that he is
already married, to a woman still living in France. The only
solution is for Nicolas to return to France to divorce his wife.
He lands in his country of birth shortly after the French Revolution,
to find that his wife Charlotte has allied herself with a party of
loyalists who intend to dispose of the newly formed republic...
Film Review
Les Mariés de l’an II
typifies the kind of exuberant swashbuckler that was once highly
popular in France and which still makes great entertainment
today. With its lavish production values, energetic pace and
extravagant action sequences, it compares favourably with other, better
known, offerings in the genre - such as Christian-Jaque’s Fanfan
la Tulipe (1952) and André Hunebelle’s Le
Bossu (1960) - although it does fall down somewhat in the
script department. Jean-Paul Belmondo, renowned for performing
his own stunts, throws his all into yet another action hero portrayal
par excellence, proving that he is a worthy successor to Gérard
Philipe and Jean Marais in this field.The film is directed with flair and a smattering of unmistakable Gallic humour by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, his second feature after the quirky wartime comedy La Vie de château (1966). Although more prolific as a screenwriter than a director, Rappeneau has earned more acclaim for his directing, particularly for his subsequent historical epics, Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) and Le Hussard sur le toit (1995). Les Mariés de l’an II matches both of these films in its scale, lush cinematography and meticulous attention to detail (even if it does offer a somewhat sanitised version of the French Revolution) but lacks their narrative coherence and intelligent dialogue. It feels like a family comedy that is trying a little too hard to be something more substantial - not that this prevented it from being an enormous success when it was first released in France (it attracted an audience of almost three million).
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Credits
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If you like this film you may also like the following: Cause toujours... tu m’intéresses! (1979) Danton (1983) L’Enfant sauvage (1969) La Folie des grandeurs (1971) French Cancan (1954) Les Guichets du Louvre (1974) L’Homme de Rio (1964) Le Magnifique (1973) Monsieur Klein (1976) Pierrot le fou (1965) Le Salaire de la peur (1953) Si tous les gars du monde (1956) Stavisky (1974) Une femme est une femme (1961) |


