Trois places pour le 26 (1988) - film review

Popular singer Yves Montand returns to Marseilles, the town where he grew up and began his career, to prepare an international tour.  His new show consists of numbers which recount the various episodes in his life and career.  One of his most ardent fans, Marion, finds herself in the limelight when Montand’s female co-star pulls out of the show at the last minute.  The singer discovers, to his amazement, that Marion is the daughter of he woman he loved when he was a young man...

Yves Montand is the only artist active in the twentieth century who can be compared to Frank Sinatra as a singer/actor.  Both were superb interpreters of light verse welded seamlessly on to soaring melodies and both were equally superb dramatic actors - though it has to be said that there were many times when Sinatra preferred to phone in a performance rather than put his mind to it.  This makes for a nice balance, for while Sinatra left many more classic songs (he was, of course, singing in English), Montand left many, many more outstanding dramatic performances (L’Aveu, for openers).  

Even if you can just about tolerate Montand, you should see this film.  If you love, admire and respect him (as I do) then it is obligatory.  Made just three years before he died, it is perhaps best described as a pseudo-documentary, inasmuch as Montand plays himself returning to Marseilles where he grew up (he was in fact born in Italy and came to Marseilles aged two) at the end of a musical tour. During the course of the film, we revisit (or learn if we are new to him) some of the milestones in his life.  We hear, for example, the story of how Ivo Levi became Yves Montand, and this is more or less factual.  

Director Jacques Demy, however, has grafted on to this a confection involving Montand meeting a woman he knew as a young man and entertaining the possibility that he may have fathered her daughter.  In one of those coincidences that only occur on celluloid, the latter wins a spot in Montand’s show...  If you’re an Yves Montand fan, you’ll be overwhelmed by his charm, style and superb talent.  A positive gem.

© Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 

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