Anyone watching this on DVD who admires French Cinema and has a special regard for 30s/40s French cinema could be forgiven for hitting the 'Pause' button at the end of the Opening credits just to savour the roll-call of names there from writer Yves Mirande through a roster of such stalwart actors as Andre Luguet, Noel-Noel, Jean Tissier, Raymond Rouleau, Rene Lefevre, Bernard Blier and Michele Alfa. This was only one of five films the tragic actress Mireille Balin made in 1942 but for many the main attraction will be Arletty whose career may be said to epitomise irony in that roughly 90-95% of her roles were supporting rather than leading (for example, the first two - Hotel du Nord and Le Jour se leve - of the four films she made with Marcel Carne were, strictly speaking supporting, yet she managed to walk away with both even playing opposite Louis Jouvet and Jean Gabin respectively. In every decade since the 1930s French cinema has produced at least one World-Class actress, Arletty herself in the thirties, Simone Signoret in the forties, Jeanne Moreau in the fifties, Catherine Deneuve in the sixties, Isabelle Huppert in the seventies and so on but all of the others were Leading Ladies in every sense of the world whilst Arletty continued - as she does here - to achieve immortality largely in support. This is one of the portmanteau films in the tradition of Un Carnet de bal and - as the only other poster has noted - Julien Duvivier was the Master of this genre. Arletty appears only in the first of five segments, all of which deal with unhappy love affairs, recalled by the male half in an attempt to discourage a young man from suicide after being dumped. Although release was held up this was actually shot in 1942 during the Occupation at a time when Continental was grabbing the lion's share of the market and it's interesting as an example of the kind of fare that was on offer at the time. I'll certainly watch it again.
Review of La femme que j'ai le plus aimée
