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Wednesday, May 12, 2021

LE BONHEUR (1934)

At his most inventive & influential in silent film, Marcel L’Herbier had something of a late masterpiece in this devastating romance: psychologically/philosophically/morally complex, with a hint of Dostoevsky in its turns & tone.  Charles Boyer, in exceptional form as a newspaper caricaturist with anarchistic beliefs, responds to the return to Paris of actress/singer Gaby Morlay by shooting her after a rapturously received concert.  Planning to kill, he merely wounds and, during his court case, realizes he’s had some sort of epiphany.  So too Morlay, who not only forgives him, but finds herself falling in love.  Her husband, a useless Prince, and her gay manager, grandly drawn by Michel Simon in stupendously glam suits, are confused & appalled.  But fate doesn’t exactly hold much future for the odd couple lovers, especially once Boyer finds out the how the plot of her new film follows their own relationship.  Fascinating on almost every level, L’Herbier’s sound technique retains a silent film rhythm, with agogic accents that jar, though handsomely shot by Harry Stradling.  (Look for the 2013 restoration.)  A fantastic film no one seems to know Stateside; far surpassing L’Herbier’s experimental silent work that does still get the occasional outing.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Boyer had just starred for Fritz Lang, fresh out of Nazi Germany, as LILIOM/’34 in the best film realization of Ferenc Molnár’s famous play, now better known as the source material of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CAROUSEL.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/liliom-1934.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Morlay’s daringly conceived perf has her looking far from her best when called for.

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