Les Perles de la couronne (1937) - film review

French writer Jean Martin tells his wife a fantastic story involving seven perfect pearls, four of which ended up in the English crown.  The pearls were originally presented as a gift, in the form of a necklace, from Pope Clement VII to his niece, Catherine de Medicis, to celebrate her wedding to Henri, duke of Orleans, son of François I and future King Henri II of France.   Queen Catherine later passed the necklace on to her daughter-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots, when she married François II.  After Mary’s execution, four of the pearls fell into the hands of Queen Elizabeth I of England.  Two centuries later, Queen Victoria had the pearls set in the royal crown.  But what was the fate of the other three pearls?

Les Perles de la couronne was the first of Sacha Guitry’s lavish episodic historical dramas, made nearly two decades before his similar major works Napoléon (1955) and Si Versailles m’était conté (1954).  As in these later films, Guitry takes more than a few liberties with historical fact and much of the film is just an excuse for Guitry to give free rein to his colourful imagination.  The film cleverly links together historical figures over a four hundred year period (from 1523 to 1937) as it pieces together the origin of four pearls in the English crown.

Himself an accomplished actor both on stage and in film, Guitry turns up in the film in a number of guises, along with his real-life wife Jacqueline Delubac.  Guitry took the controversial decision to script the film in three languages – so that the English, French and Italian characters each spoke their own language.  This did not harm the film’s commercial success and it was generally well-received by the critics.

© James Travers 2003

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