Gervaise (1956)
Country: FR
Technical: bw 112m
Director: René Clément
Cast: Maria Schell, François Périer, Suzy Delair, Jacques Harden
Synopsis:
A lame laundress dreams of owning her own boutique in Paris, but her first man leaves her with two boys to raise, and the second marries her but drinks all the profits.
Review:
Aurenche and Bost pretty much capture the essence of Zola's l'Assommoir, and at mercifully shorter length. However, it still makes for depressing entertainment, with its dramatic zenith of the goose dinner again poised halfway, both end of the rise and beginning of the fall, with Lantier returning to move in. Little touches such as Nana's self-adornment with a ribbon, to run off with the boys at the end, are true to the spirit of the book, but the squalour of the original can only be sketched in a commercial movie - luckily for us! Schell is both magnificent and heart-rending as the lead, and received the Best Actress prize at Venice.
Country: FR
Technical: bw 112m
Director: René Clément
Cast: Maria Schell, François Périer, Suzy Delair, Jacques Harden
Synopsis:
A lame laundress dreams of owning her own boutique in Paris, but her first man leaves her with two boys to raise, and the second marries her but drinks all the profits.
Review:
Aurenche and Bost pretty much capture the essence of Zola's l'Assommoir, and at mercifully shorter length. However, it still makes for depressing entertainment, with its dramatic zenith of the goose dinner again poised halfway, both end of the rise and beginning of the fall, with Lantier returning to move in. Little touches such as Nana's self-adornment with a ribbon, to run off with the boys at the end, are true to the spirit of the book, but the squalour of the original can only be sketched in a commercial movie - luckily for us! Schell is both magnificent and heart-rending as the lead, and received the Best Actress prize at Venice.
Country: FR
Technical: bw 112m
Director: René Clément
Cast: Maria Schell, François Périer, Suzy Delair, Jacques Harden
Synopsis:
A lame laundress dreams of owning her own boutique in Paris, but her first man leaves her with two boys to raise, and the second marries her but drinks all the profits.
Review:
Aurenche and Bost pretty much capture the essence of Zola's l'Assommoir, and at mercifully shorter length. However, it still makes for depressing entertainment, with its dramatic zenith of the goose dinner again poised halfway, both end of the rise and beginning of the fall, with Lantier returning to move in. Little touches such as Nana's self-adornment with a ribbon, to run off with the boys at the end, are true to the spirit of the book, but the squalour of the original can only be sketched in a commercial movie - luckily for us! Schell is both magnificent and heart-rending as the lead, and received the Best Actress prize at Venice.