I suppose it's natural for non-French admirers of French cinema to define it by those titles that achieved international distribution such as Pepe Le Moko, Hotel du Nord, Les Enfants du Paradis, Le Jour se leve, etc but I would prefer to define it in terms of what in England we would describe as the 'second eleven', the largely domestic French films that seldom played outside France yet were consistently high quality, soundly constructed, directed and acted. Titles that spring to mind include La Belle equipe, La Bandera, Le Dernier des six, Boule de suif, Les Inconnus de la maison and this entry from the unsung writer-director Henri Decoin and starring his then wife, Danielle Darrieux. The plot is gossamer-thin; Darrieux lives in an orphanage and as a form of escape answers a 'personal' which results in a lengthy correspondence with a young (she thinks) man. On their first date (a literal translation of the title) he turns out to be a middle-aged Professor of Literature, Fernand Ledoux (who, incidentally, starred in yet another fine domestic film Goupi mains rouges). Technically, of course, she's AWOL from the orphanage and so she moves in, strictly platonic, natch, with the Professor and it isn't too long before his nephew shows up in the shape of Louis Jordan (yes, that same Jordan who went on to feature in several Hollywood movies such as Letter From An Unknown Woman and Gigi) and you can guess the rest. These bare bones are simply that, a skeleton outline and convey nothing of the charm and style of the thing; Darrieux virtually personifies joie de vivre and even throws in a charming rendition of the title song - which in its day (1941) was a big hit in France. This was produced in the interval between the German invasion in 1940 and their assuming control of the French film industry via Continental films in 1941 but there's little or no indication of the domestic crisis so one could argue that it really defines escapism. A minor gem.
Review of Her First Affair
