User Reviews

"La Kermesse Rouge" is a fine drama in the painting area of old Montmartre, lot of views of the old streets. It is a very interesting drama about husband and wife who are both painters but do not get the same success. And come more and more tension, until ... The director Paul Mesnier is unknown to me, I'll have to try his version of "Poil de Carotte".

The most impressive sequence is the fire in a cinema theatre, and it anticipates from a few months the fire in the theatre le Select at Rueil-Malmaison causing 89 victims.

"The Bazar De la Charité was an annual charity event organized by the French Catholic aristocracy in Paris from 1885 onwards. It is best known for the fire at the 1897 bazaar that claimed 126 lives, many of them aristocratic women, the most notable of whom was Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Alençon, née Sophie Charlotte of Bavaria, sister of the famous Empress Sisi"(Wikipedia).Sophie was Ludwig Der Zweite 's fiancée for a short while but the gay king of Bavaria -who was also platonically in love with sister Sissi drew a sigh of relief when they broke up;Duchess of Alençon (Colette Régis) briefly appears in "la Kermesse Rouge" (the red fair).This great fire happened because the projectionist's equipment caught fire :the "cinematographe" was then the main attraction of the event.

Our story begins with the hero searching his love in the flames;then a long flashback and the ending -disaster movie before the term was invented -which shows the husband desperate after the death of his wife for which he is somewhat (unintentionally) responsible.

"LA Kermesse Rouge" is an original interesting work of the late forties. A high born girl falls in love with a painter ,the worst misalliance for her well-meaning bourgeois family (too bad that the parts of those wealthy persons are underwritten:Germaine Kerjean could have shone in this pompous character):the girl becomes a rebel ,telling the nuns who take care of her she sleeps with the artist ,posing for him (and showing her breast for the picture called "La Révoltée" (=the defiant one).They get married,to the girl's family displeasure.

Nothing new under the sun so far;but what comes next is anything by derivative:the artist ,who used to lead a bohemian life ,becomes middle-class ,turns his back on his former pals,attends the posh parties of his family-in-law....and completely loses inspiration whereas his wife ,herself a painter ,becomes more and more famous.His pictures do not sell anymore and unbeknown to his wife,in a fit of anger,he decides to give "La Révoltée" to a charity sale.

Bad idea,cause the bazaar is the one I have talked about above.

Both the girl and the wonderful painting are burnt in the fire ,leaving a man who 'll spend his whole life in pain.

Some kind of "a star is born" among the painters made by an unknown director,Paul Mesnier.