Reviews

There have been all too few documentary films made about the London music hall. This is certainly;y one of the best. To begin with, it allows the material to speak for itself. Every song is heard complete. The commentary never intrudes on the performers. Top of the bill are some great veterans, caught on film in the late 1920s and early 30s. The greatest of all the Cockney singers, Gus Elen gives "It'sa great big shame", in costume. and with all his gestures and the unspoken commentary, in which he laments the fate of his pal Bill, who has fallen under the spell of the girl "only four foot six", who now orders him to "clean the winders an' the knives". Elen never smiles, he is a deadpan comic, with a face that Rembrandt would have loved. Lily Morris follows on with the lament of the girl who is "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride". A genius of grotesque dance and comic song, La Morris seems to have no fear of the camera as she narrates the appalling tale of her middle-aged mother who gave her boy-friend "a pinch". The situation was simple, "Being a widow, she knew what to do". Many people consider Elen and Morris to have been the greatest music-hall singer of the later period of the "halls", and these precious films prove that their opinions were near the mark. The film also includes footage of Ella Sields singing her signature song "Burlington Bertie from Bow". There are sequences filmed at the Players Theatre (Gatti's Under the Arches), at Wilton's Music Hall, and Macdonald's in Hoxton. Mark Eden makes a glamorous presenter, and then takes part in a delightful silent film sequence, mimed to Tom Leamore's recording of "Percy from Pimlico". The other quite fascinating aspect of this gem of a film is the footage of Carnaby Street and the Strand in the late 1960s. The script is written by Ray Mackender, who was the Chairman of the British Music Hall Society in the 1960s, and who, although someone working in the pop-music industry, was devoted to the Victorian and Edwardian music hall. It was partly through his endeavour that Wilton's Music Hall was preserved - it is now once again a working theatre. If nothing else, this film is a tribute to the enthusiasm of Ray (and his partner Gerry Glover), who loved the halls, and the history surrounding them. And Mark Eden Has charisma to spare. There scenes filmed at The Players give an authentic picture of this long-running, nostalgic, but vigorous re-creation of late-Victorian theatre. For modern viewers, the audience, with many people smoking, will appear wild, perhaps unbridled and raunchy. That too is authentic music hall. Magic.

Oscar Straus put together "Les trois valses" as a vehicle for Yvonne Printemps and her husband Pierre Fresnay. In the 1920s, Yvonne Printemps had scored a massive hit in her first husband Sacha Guitry's play "Mariette, ou comment on écrire l'histoire", for which Straus had composed the music. "Les Trois Valses" traces the love story of two people over three eras. In the first waltz (music based on Johann Strauss I), Yvonne is a sensitive Parisian ballet dancer, whose romance with a dashing officer is brought to an abrupt end by his family. She goes off to Vienna to become a big star. In the second waltz, her daughter, an even bigger star, but now of Paris music halls, has a brief flirtation with the rakish man-about-town who is the son of suitor number one. She throws him over pretty quickly for a chance to shine at a Gala performance. (In this scene , Yvonne also plays Sarah Bernhardt, seen entering her box for the big night, while the Prince of Wales is opposite.) The ,music for the second "Waltz" is based on Johann Strauss II, the big song is "Je t'aime". The scenes in the theatre and at a restaurant in the Bois are really gorgeous. Berger's direction gets the mood of the Belle Epoque just right. Finally, in the third waltz, the two get together, when she is a movie star, and he is posing as an insurance salesman. The marvellous moment here is when we see Yvonne's screen test, in many different poses and costumes, as she sings Oscar Straus's "C'est le destin peut-etre". The story is a bit silly, but the sense of the erotic charge between Printemps and Fresnay is never absent. The "Second Waltz" is probably Mlle Printemps's greatest moment on screen. The stage version ran for two years, the film, coming just before the Second World War, didn't get the distribution it deserved.

The plot of this film is curiously similar to that of "Two Faced Woman", Garbo's last Hollywood film in 1941. In "Je Suis Avec Toi", Yvonne Printemps plays a wife who suspects that her husband may be a philanderer. She sets out on a trans-Atlantic voyage (great scene of the "Ile de France" departing), only to double back and imitate another woman, with whom her husband falls in love, believing her to be his wife's double. There is an almost surreal scene at a fun fair, in which the two (Pierre Fresnay, Yvonne's real-life husband and stage partner) go on rides and swing-boats, while in the background we hear Yvonne's voice singing "Vertige d'un soir", one of the two theme-songs of the film. The other, better-known, song, "Mon reve s'acheve", is sung as the two go up to bed in the hotel, the husband still believing that his partner-for-the-evening is not his wife, but the mysterious "Irene". There are lavish sets, lots of extra players, a mannishly-dressed 'Aunt" who comes to the rescue to suggest a get-out clause for the situation once it's getting out of control. The feel is totally pre-war, without a whisper of the Occupation. It's funny, but worrying. Yvonne was approaching 50, and she looks and sounds great, but not as great as she would be six years later in "La Valse de Paris". Best scene is when she invites her admirer and a rival (Blier) both to dinner at the same time. As in "Two faced Woman", the husband finds out before she has the chance to turn the tables on him, but not before they have spent the night together. While thousands were being transported to the gas chambers, this was the escapism the French cinema came up with. The most extreme contrast must be with Fresnay's role in this and then in "Le Corbeau".

The main question hanging over this film is - how did it come to be

made? How did they ever persuade Paderewski to take part? He

speaks his lines very slowly, but with impressive dignity - he is

playing himself - and the overhead shots of his hands as he plays

the Beethoven, Chopin and Paderewski selections are marvellous. The other reason for seeing the film is the

performance by Dame Marie Tempest as the Swedish Countess,

into whose castle the people who have been in the plane crash

are invited. The script gives her virtually nothing to do, but she

makes an extraordinary impression and it's easy to imagine,

watching her timing, the beautiful gestures and the lovely

cadences of her voice (remember, she was a pupil of the great

singing teacher Manuel Garcia) what a sensational stage

performer she must have been. The story is sentimental, but everyone seems to enter into it with

great energy. The sets are designed by Laurence Irving (grandson

of Henry Irving) and they are large and handsome in a very 1930s

'modern' way.

This was the last movie that Jean Gabin and Arletty made together for Carné, the absence of Jacques Prévert as screenwriter (as he was on Le Jour Se lève) shows, the plot is rather confused and indecisive. Nevertheless, the photography on location in 1950s Paris is beautiful, many shots look like Brassai photographs, and the climactic scene in the seedy local boxing-ring has some of the same atmosphere as the great scenes in the popular theatre in Carné's masterpiece, "Les Enfants du Paradis". Arletty, by then over 50, is experimenting with playing a less glamorous, rather frumpy part, but she is still fascinating to watch. The thrill is in the ambiguous relationship between Gabin, as the ageing boxing coach, and his blond, sometimes hysterical protégé. There is an extraordinary scene in which he goes to get him back, when the boy has run away and is living in a run-down Algerian hostel. It isn't a great film, on the level of Hotel du nord or Les Portes de La Nuit, but it is well worth seeing for anyone curious about the French cinema in the period between the Occupation and the beginning of the Nouvelle Vague. It is available on video in France.