Chéri (1950)
Directed by Pierre Billon

Film Review

In the twilight of her illustrious career, the author Colette was actively engaged in adapting some of her most famous novels for the cinema, as well as the work of other writers such as Vicki Baum (for Marc Allégret's Lac aux dames).   Chéri and La Fin de Chéri, two of her most popular novels of the 1920s, were condensed into a stylish Belle Époque melodrama with Colette providing the dialogue that instantly transports the spectator into her distinctive world of brittle dreams and delicate romances.  Of the films that Colette lent her talents to, Chéri is the one that is most redolent of her written works.  It is a film that breathes the name 'Colette' in almost every frame.

Pierre Billon is a surprising choice to direct the film, although he had previously distinguished himself with a series of memorable period dramas that included Vautrin (1944) and Ruy Blas (1948).  He is probably better known for his darker dramas with a film noir feel, films such as L'Homme au chapeau rond (1946) and Jusqu'au dernier (1957), which could not be further from the sweetly perfumed salons of Colette's Belle Époque Paris.  Billon's main contribution is to give a darker undercurrent to Colette's original story, with a flashback structure and melancholic tone (emphasised by the carousel-like music constantly audible in the background) that anticipate the tragic outcome.  In film noir fashion, you can feel the world closing in on the main protagonist Chéri as his dreams turn to dust and he realises that there is no escape from the hopeless infatuation that has taken him prisoner.

Framed almost as a piece of theatre, the film's success rests on the quality of the performances, and this proves to be the film's strongest suit.  On the face of it, Jean Desailly seems an unlikely candidate for the role of Chéri - it is far easier to imagine an actor with a more Valentino-like allure for the part, someone like Louis Jourdan or Georges Guétary.  But as he demonstrated in his best-known role, the unfaithful husband in Truffaut's La Peau douce (1964), Desailly is at his best when playing weak men who, easily dominated by women, become prey to overpowering romantic impulses.  In Chéri, Desailly turns in one of his best screen performances, one that is a remarkably poignant testimony to the destructive power of love. 

Marcelle Chantal is equally impressive in her last film appearance, her portrayal of Chéri's beloved Léa being an unsettling but tragic conflation of maternal affection and amorous yearning.  In the supporting cast, Jane Marken and Marcelle Derrien are both excellent, but the performance that leaves the strongest impression is that of Yvonne de Bray, the most charismatic French actress of them all.  Far from being wasted in a secondary role, de Bray very nearly steals the film as a decrepit prostitute (referred to as 'la Copine') whose own tragic circumstances provide a wistful leitmotif for the main drama.  In 2009, Stephen Frears directed a big budget remake of the film, with Michelle Pfeiffer as Léa and Rupert Friend as Chéri - glossier it may be, but it doesn't have the eerie poetry and velvet-lined bleakness of Billon's unjustly overlooked version.

Film Synopsis

Paris, at the time of the Belle Époque...  Known to his female admirers as Chéri, Fred Peloux is the son of the high-class courtesan Charlotte Peloux and spends most of his time in the company of his mother's friends, all fading prostitutes.  One of the latter, Léa, becomes his first lover, and despite the difference in their ages, their affair lasts several years.  When Fred begins to lose interest in Léa, he is forced by his mother into marrying a woman of his own age, Edmée, even though he has no feelings for her.  The marriage turns out to be a disaster and it isn't long before Fred is pining for Léa, the only woman he is capable of loving...