Frou-Frou (1955)
Directed by Augusto Genina

Film Review

Director Augusto Genina concluded his long and illustrious career with this lavish but somewhat stilted adaptation of a popular novel by Cecil Saint-Laurent, whose works (mostly historical novels) have frequently been adapted for cinema.  Following Richard Pottier's Caroline chérie (1951) and Christian-Jacque's Lucrèce Borgia (1953), Frou-Frou hardly does justice to Saint-Laurent's decades-spanning tome, despite being filmed in vibrant colour and widescreen (a rarity for French and Italian cinema at the time).  The inspired touch and authenticity that Genina habitually brought to his silent films (notably the Louise Brooks vehicle Prix de beauté (1930)) and neo-realist offerings of the 1940s are singularly lacking in this plodding and uneven melodrama, the only signs of vitality being confined to the colourful musical hall scenes (which include the obligatory bare-breasted dancers) near the start of the film.

Rising star Brigitte Bardot was considered for the lead role (two years before her big breakthrough in Roger Vadim's Et Dieu créa la femme) but she had a lucky escape - the part went instead to Dany Robin, a more established performer who had recently triumphed in the enjoyable swashbuckler Cadet Rousselle (1954), another (much feistier) period extravaganza.  Playing Robin's love interest was another rising star, Philippe Lemaire, who is most famous today for playing De Vardes in the Angélique series of films in the mid-1960s, alongside Michèle Mercier.  The fate of Lemaire's character in the film (a failed artist driven to suicide) cruelly prefigures his own and Robin would herself die in tragic circumstances in 1995.  The versatile Italian actor Gino Cervi (famous for playing Peppone opposite Fernandel in the Don Camillo films) brings further class to the cast, although his humorous attempts at a Russian accent do little for the film's credibility.  Louis de Funès appears briefly in the film (over a decade before his talents would be properly appreciated) - the scene in which he gives Dany Robin a lesson in deportment is one of the film's few delights.

On the plus side, the film looks stunning for a French film of this era, with apparently no expense spared on the set and costume design.  The musical numbers (including the memorable title song performed by Robin but sung by Lucie Dolène) are well choreographed and provide some moral sustenance for the exhausting trek across the desert of life-sapping mediocrity that follows.  Unfortunately, a lamentably bad script and Genina's half-hearted direction prevent any of the cast members from shining and far from being sympathetic Robin's portrayal is anaemic to the point of mind-numbing tedium.  Lemaire's tendency to over-act is painfully evident in his later scenes, and far from being moving these have all the well-judged sobriety of a third rate pantomime.  Lemaire's arrival in the film bucks things up a little but comes far too late to save it - by the time he shows up and Robin finally has the chance to do some serious acting you've pretty well lost all interest in the film, if not the will to go on living.  Frou-Frou is, as its title mockingly implies, all frills and ornamentation, with precious little of substance beneath its pretty cardboard façade.

Film Synopsis

At a busy airport, Antoinette Dubois tries in vain to prevent her teenage daughter Michèle from jetting off to start a new life far away with the man she has lost her heart to.  Prompted by her daughter, the aged Antoinette looks back on her own life and recalls that she was once in Michèle's position, but she made the wrong choice.  At the turn of the century, as a sixteen-year-old flower girl, Antoinette attracted the attention of four comfortably off middle-aged men-about-town.  Under the patronage of these latter-day Pygmalions, Antoinette became first a successful cabaret artiste, known to all as Frou-Frou, and then a society lady.  Abandoned by her first lover, she spent several years with Prince Vladimir in Russia, before returning to France and leading a dazzling life in Parisian society of the 1920s.  One day, she encounters a penniless young artist, Michel Arthus, and resolves to use her wealth and influence to launch his career.  The attempt fails and Arthus decides to start over again in South America.  He begs Antoinette to come with him, but whilst she loves him and is carrying his child, she is persuaded she must remain in France...