I remember seeing the trailer for this 1964 film and thinking, like millions of other people, that this would be the natural follow-up to "Charade": same Audrey Hepburn coupled with an older eatablished male star, same Paris setting, same romantic music... It turned out that the audience watching this on the suburban main street cinema in St-Lambert, Quebec, were for the most part dumbfounded. Here was a film about a scriptwriter writing a script and altering the story as he went along in order to fulfill a mercenary obligation to create the most fulfilling, popcorn-selling entertainment possible, spoofing every movie convention in the process, out-Stanley-Donen-ing Donen's "Charade", which was itself an attempt to out-Hitchcock Hitchcock's films. It was brainy, satirical, cynical and the first obvious deconstruction of what makes movies tick. Being a remake of a French 1952 film by Julien Duvivier (scripted by cinema pioneer Henri Jeanson) called "La Fête à Henriette" made it even more derivative. Being scripted by George Axelrod (of "Manchurian Candidate" fame) made it challenging. Unfortunately, trying to salvage the film itself with the oldest movie cliché of them all - the redemptive power of love - made the happy ending definitely tongue-in-cheek and a tad less than sincere. But then there was so much to fill the viewer's time between the outrageous premise and the outrageous ending, it can be said that the thoughtful film-fan did get more than his money's worth. One of my favourite scenes is near the end, when the hero punches the heroine's boyfriend in public, which triggers a series of imitative violent acts in the impressionable public - including two Parisian kids starting a fight. What better illustration of the power of (American) movie violence to modify its audience's behaviour? So, which is it, silly entertainment or thoughtful thesis about the power of the narrative and of its many accepted conventions? Whatever you think of this film, it is at least partly responsible for the creation of the sixties pull-all-the stops, over-the top satirical-and-socially-conscious school of absurdist comedy which ran the gamut from "Laugh-In" and "The Monkees" on TV to manic but oh-so-hip-for-the-times movies like "Don't Make Waves", "Lord Love A Duck", "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling so Sad", "Candy" and "The Magic Christian".
P.S.: It would be very nice if "La Fête à Henriette" was made available on DVD for comparison purposes. But, like many great French films, it is only available for pillaging, referencing or as the basis for an American remake, but definitely not for viewing.
P.S.: It would be very nice if "La Fête à Henriette" was made available on DVD for comparison purposes. But, like many great French films, it is only available for pillaging, referencing or as the basis for an American remake, but definitely not for viewing.