LE PLAISIR

(1952, Max Ophüls) Claude Dauphin cuts a swath at a dance, but what’s wrong with his face? Madeleine Renaud’s village brothel is closed while Jean Gabin ferries the girls to Renaud’s niece’s first communion. And to jump or not to jump when romance between artist Jean Servais and model Simone Simon goes sour. Adapted from stories by Guy de Maupassant. Approx. 97 min. 35mm.

REVIEWS

top

"M. Ophuls' fluent camera does a lot of lively roving in this film and picks up a deal of pungent flavor in the rococco environmental spheres. Peter Ustinov's off-screen narration as the voice of de Maupassant is droll. On the whole, Le Plaisir affords such pleasures as are few and unrestrained in this hard world."
– Bosley Crowther, New York Times

“Unmistakably belongs to Ophüls’ postwar period, one of the most extraordinary creative peaks in film history.”
– Dave Kehr