Cahiers du Cinema and Joseph Mankiewicz 1953-1964

Jean-Luc Godard's film career was launch in June 1950 when he published his first review - a critique of Joseph L Mankiewicz's Dragonwyck - in the second issue of Eric Rohmer's Gazette du Cinema. So here is paragraph one of article one in the career of J-L G. (from Godard on Godard edited by Jean Narboni and Tom Milne (their translations, excerpts pages 13).

One day I went along to admire one of Ernst Lubitsch's last productions. It was Dragonwyck, a curious film in which characters from melodrama plagiarize themselves with (h)auteur and gesticulate with a solemnity equalled only on occasion by the severities of William Wyler. In France we have not yet seen The Late George Apley or Escape. But after Somewhere in the Night, the recent release in Paris of The Ghost and Mrs Muir, A Letter to Three Wives and House of Strangers suffices to to establish Joseph Mankiewicz as one of the most brilliant of American directors. I have no hesitation in placing him on the same level of importance as that held by Alberto Moravia in European literature.

Julius Caesar
Reviewed in the December 1953 issue of Cahiers de Cinema by Jean-José Richer in a double review with David Bradley's 16mm version of the Shakespeare's work from 1950. Richer's critique discusses Shakespeare for two long paragraphs before it mentions Mankiewicz (or Bradley). (page 46, excerpt my translation)
Mankiewicz is described as the "celebrated director revealed by A Letter to Three Wives" and confirm by All About Eve. Richer then goes on to say:
A seeming absence of imagination can conceal a most rich inner meaning. And, it is necessary to be on guard against hasty conclusions. Mankiewicz is not Welles; and it pleases him to cast out from the tragedy its spells, to disregard its penumbras, to shun the unformed, everything in short which fascinates the latter - in order to press it in a sharp lighting. Nothing prevents it.

The Barefoot Contessa
The July 1955 issue of Cahiers du Cinema feature four reviews of this film, from Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, François Truffaut, Philippe Demonsablon and Claude Chabrol, of The Barefoot Contessa appeared. Each of these four critics would list the film on their 10 Best Films of 1955.Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (page 40, excerpt my translation)

Must one be reminded of the staging points towards this work, Dragonwyck, Somewhere in the Night, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Escape, The Late George Apley, A Letter to Three Wives, House of Strangers, No Way Out, All About Eve, People Will Talk, 5 Fingers, Julius Caesar? Maybe this is to remark that - on first view - the side "unrestrained" of Contessa can be found only in Dragonwyck. But on second view? The fragile and tenacious wall of the reality of common sense is crossed joyously and, to the advantage of a curious neo-romanticism in The Ghost and Mrs Muir and, above all, in the extraordinary People Will Talk. Indeed, an irony more or less latent treads its way underneath all his films. But, an anxious irony,facilely melancholy, and, often grave; and isn't this irony a modesty behind which the solid and imperturbable Joe, as his friends call him, hides a poetic and humane sensibility, which, when it finally finds expression, takes on romantic and flamboyant accents that clash loudly with the realistic and conventional norms of the cinema of today? It is thus that Contessa has the further merit of shedding light on the rest of his work and making for its consideration in a new fashion.

François Truffaut (page 41, excerpt my translation)

Seeing A Letter to Three Wives again recently, I perceived that I can no longer overlook Joseph Mankiewicz; vivid content, an intelligence where the whole is but elegance, tastefulness and refinement, content almost diabolical with precision, savior-faire and knowledge, a theatrical direction of actors to the point of impact, a sense of the timing of shots and of the efficiency of effects, that is to be found elsewhere nowhere but in the works of Cukor. All this is the art of Joseph Mankiewicz, his perfect mastery of a genre which limitations it is not yet befitting to outline since its qualities are too often ignored.
Note 658 in Eugene Walz François Truffaut : a guide to references and resources summarizes thusly the review which Truffaut contributed to the June 29 1955 issue of the weekly Arts:
"Barefoot Contessa", the portrait of a woman in four different situations, is the kind of that is either accepted or rejected in toto. Truffaut accepts it for its novelty, intelligence and beauty.
Philippe Demonsablon (page 44, excerpt my translation)

As Le Carosse d'or, The Barefoot Contessa opens many doors partway; it is attempting to find the one which leads the furthest, gleaming of numerous facets, it is attempting to the find the one which projects the most penetrating light,. To count the facets, to enumerate the doors, and to try the keys, and, even, to lift out the boxes of this game, each of which contains a larger one. I do not believe that one could succeed in rendering an account of the singular beauty of this work. It does not define itself through the sum of its elements.
Claude Chabrol (page 45, excerpt my translation)

Does The Barefoot Contessa mark the ruin of the Cartesian spirit? The French public falls into the trap of interpretation, and, into that other one, which is not excused of literary references. It falls into the trap of its own folly, clamoring for adult films and then sneering like a cabdriver when it sees one.

In the February 1956 issue of Cahiers du Cinema, Jacques Siclier contributed a critique which compared The Barefoot Contessa and Max Ophuls Lola Montès. Excerpted from that article (page 46, my translation)

The parallel with Mankiewicz's work which had enchanted us at the beginning of last summer is astonishing. The refined intellectualism of The Barefoot Contessa and the Baroque frenzy of Lola Montès would seem to have no common measure. Yet, in a different manner and spirit, both directors in the end show the same things, to the point that both portraits seem to have an identical model.

Among the younger critics at Cahiers who submitted 10 Best Films list for 1955, Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jean-José Richer, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut cited The Barefoot Contessa. Jacques Rivette was the only representative of that group not to cite the film. 5 of the remaining 10 lists - from Alexander Astruc, Henri Agel, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Claude Mauriac and Alain Resnais - also cited the film. The lone Positif critic to post a list, Ado Kyrou, did not cite the film, nor did he cite Lola Montès. He did, however, cite The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Thumbnail from December 1955 "Situation of American Cinema" special issue (page 56, uncredited, my translation)

The contessa went out at 5 o'clock; she was barefoot. To envisage the contribution of a Giradouxesque filmmaker, Joseph Mankiewicz has to be added to Jean Cocteau. Like Max Ophuls, Mankiewicz is bedevilled by woman and women, by Eve and Ava, their advocate, confidante, coaxer and exponent. Let them be fallen, scoffing, plotting, under-handed, his heroines are entitled all of his consideration, concern, sympathy and, let us say it, love. At last, a filmmaker who loves women and does not hide it! Up until Contessa, he was, for us, the most adroit maker of dramatic comedy, a Cukor who would be his own Kanin, a Lubitsch who has read Moravia. That is considerable! But since the contessa stripped off her shoes, all more to fire us up, Adam sees himself tempted with the golden apple by new and over-tanned Eve. An oeuvre such as that of Mankiewicz quickly finishes off the simple-minded legend according to which intelligence, elegance and urbanity don't know how to bloom and flourish in Hollywood. The truth is that he loathes nothing so much as vulgarity, most of all, Hollywood-style... Virile and distinguished, lucid and refined, accomplice of our mates and chronicler of the couple, Joseph Mankiewicz is our bedside filmmaker.

Guys and Dolls

Reviewed by Louis Marcorelles in the January 1957 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. (page 46, excerpt my translation)

Nevertheless, Guys and Dolls written and directed (produced this time by the veteran Samuel Goldwyn) by that prince of smooth talkers, Joseph Mankiewicz, seems to break with a firmly established tradition and mark the intrusion of an uncustomary irony into the genre. Mankiewicz wishes to make both All About Eve and The Bandwagon at once. That is, to blend the New York sophistication of the former with the contagious liveliness and lack of ulterior motive of the latter. His film is maybe only a half success.

In the conseil des dix, among the 2 "young turk" critics sitting, Eric Rohmer gave the film 1 star while François Truffaut bulleted it. The co-editors of Cahiers also participated in the conseil; Jacques Doniol-Valcroze gave the film 3 stars while André Bazin gave it 2 stars. Among, non-Cahiers members of that panel, Pierre Braunberger, Henri Agel and Jacques de Baroncelli gave the film 2 stars, France Roche and J-P Vivet gave it 1 star while Georges Sadoul bulleted the film.

The film appears on no 10 Best Films list.

The Quiet American

Note: The French title for the film is Un Américain bien tranquille which translates as "a really quiet American".

About one year before the release of The Quiet American in France, in its July 1957 issue, Cahiers du Cinema spotlighted the film in its "Photo of the Month" feature printing a photo from the set of the film and a short article by Raymond Jean commenting on the secrecy surrounding the screenplay.
In the August 1958 issue, the film was reviewed by co-editor Eric Rohmer. It begins (page 46, excerpt my translation):
This film is admirable and rightly deserves a disclaimer. Whoever speaks of the politique des auteurs speaks of fidelity, and, indeed, it is easier and more tempting to put one's faith in a man than in a system. Thus, you should not be to astonished to see me take the opposite view of an opinion, expressed here by me, some while ago, apropos of Les Girls. No film in Cahiers has made as much ink flow as The Barefoot Contessa and nevertheless, the cinema which we ordinarily defend in this magazine - a cinema of spatial construction and corporeal expression as our old friend André Martin would say - has barely any relation with that which that which Mankiewicz proposes to us. Even Bergman whose Secrets of Women calls to mind A Letter to Three Wives is quite distant from him.
And five pages later, it ends (page 51, excerpt my translation)
Let's keep ourselves from hasty definitions. Could we have believed, for example, that our old companion, mise-en-scene, would conceal itself behind the mantle of word-play?

Rohmer would proceed to give the film 4 stars on the conseil des dix and to place the film at the top of his list of the "10 Best Films for 1958". (He place Bergman's Secrets of Women 5th.)
Jean-Luc Godard also gave the film 4 stars on the conseil des dix and placed the film at the top of his 10 Best Films list for 1958.
From review published in Arts and reprinted in Godard on Godard critical writings by Jean-Luc Godard / edited by Jean Narboni and Tom Milne (their translations, excerpts pages 82-84).
But, after all, does Joseph L. Mankiewicz make films for the average spectator? Earlier films like A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, and more recently All About Eve, and The Barefoot Contessa in particular, would seem proof to the contrary. In any case these films finally established their director as the most intelligent man in all contemporary cinema. This reputation is merely confirmed by The Quiet American. In turn scriptwriter, producer, director, and then all of them together, Mankiewicz is an all-around athlete who has more than one trick up his sleeve....But it so happens that in Joseph L. Mankiewicz we have the Giraudoux of the camera, and all is not as well as it should be. Writing Pour Lucrece is one thing, filming it another....This is the complaint one might make about Mankiewicz: that he is too perfect a writer to be a perfect director as well. Basically, what is missing from The Quiet American is cinema. It has everything - brilliant actors, sparkling dialogue - but no cinema....What a fantastic film Aldrich - not to mention Welles - would have made of this fine script which improves a hundred per cent on Graham Greene's novel. But Mankiewicz probably got so much enjoyment from the writing that there was little enough left for filming it. Though a matter for regret, The Quiet American is still the most interesting film about for this moment.
Five other "young turk" critics participated on that conseil des dix panel: besides the 4 stars from Rohmer and Godard, Charles Bitsch, Jean Domarchi, Robert Lachenay (most probably, François Truffaut) and Jacques Rivette gave the film 3 stars. Among the 4 other panelists that month: Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Henri Agel gave the film 2 stars, Georges Sadoul bulleted the film and Pierre Braunberger abstained.

Besides Rohmer and Godard, among "young turk" critics, Claude Beylie, Charles Bitsch, Philippe Demonsablon, Luc Moullet and Jacques Rivette all place the film on their list of the "10 Best Films for 1958". Jacques Demy who was then still an aspiring director who kept company with the "young turk" critics but did not himself write criticism also placed the film on his list for 1958. The lone non-Cahiers French critic among those who posted their lists to Cahiers who cited the film was Henri Agel.

In the April 1960 issue of Cahiers du Cinema, in a review of the newly released film Breathless, Luc Moullet wrote this: (page 30, my translation)
Godard made these two films [Une histoire d'eau and Charlotte et Véronique, ou Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick] after having admired The Quiet American which inspired in him, in part, this renewal through dialogue and a taste for vertiginous construction.

Suddenly, Last Summer

This film was reviewed in the May 1960 issue of Cahiers du Cinema by Philippe Demonsablon. The discussion of the film in this review is more as a work of Tennessee Williams whose one-act play the film is based on and who is credited as co-writer of the screenplay with Gore Vidal who is never mentioned in the review. However, in considering Mankiewicz's contribution to the film, Demonsablon writes this: (page 56, excerpt my translation)

Everything about this ending of Suddenly, Last Summer demonstrates the diversity of Mankiewicz's talent which one would be wrong to limit to brilliance and intelligence. It reveals in him a poetic vein elsewhere severely constrained. The image of evoked memories frees itself at one time from photographic precision and literary symbolism reaching pure hallucination, much as the lived past rises again in Faulkner's novels. Let us not fear to venture this comparison: it expresses the magnitude of an auteur who, for a long while, has been our bedside filmmaker.

The verdict of the conseil des dix as regards the film was: among Cahiers regulars, Jean Douchet gave the film 3 stars, Luc Moullet gave it 2 stars, Fereydoun Hoveyda and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze gave it 1 star, while Louis Marcorelles and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. Among the others on that panel: Pierre Marcabru gave the film 2 stars, Jacques de Baroncelli gave it 1 star and Jean-Pierre Melville and Claude Mauriac bulleted the film.

The film was nominated to the 10 Best Films of the year lists of Henri Agel, Philippe Demonsablon, Jean Domarchi, and Jean Douchet.

For the Dec1963/Jan1964 special issue of Cahiers du Cinema on American Cinema, this thumbnail critique of Joseph Mankiewicz was provided by Jean Douchet. (my translation.)
And the word was made Mankiewicz, who bases his direction entirely on the energy of the word. It is the vehicle of the extreme intelligence which his characters live, ands he motivates them to mark with an indelible imprint, through the construction of a durable body of work, their passage through this world. But it also remains the instrument which allows these mediocrities to warp the wall of plots, counter-plots, and machinations stand in the way of their plans. It is, above all, a tangible sign of the times which promotes the dissolution of a sumptuous construction built on the sands of time. At the same time, the word, which is gesture, acts and it loses itself in the brouhaha of that which is opposed to it before it steals away. It is magical (from whence the fact that all Mankiewicz's films are in flash-backs or reminiscences) and, in that way, illusion. This vehicle without which man can not be, reveals itself to be his worst enemy. Off-shoot of silence, the word is the pathetic and trifling proof of his existence: a murmuring rising up into the universe to signal the presence of a being whose grandeur comes from the avowal of his frailty. Such is Mankiewiecz, the cinematic virtue of the word.

Cleopatra

Reviewed in the March 1964 issue of Cahiers du Cinema by Jean-Louis Comolli (page 35, excerpt my translation

The function of the word - And, firstly, (pushing aside an immediate platitude) the word in the work of Mankiewicz, as, in the work of all great filmmakers is not an end, but, among others , a means. Where, then, is the heart of the matter? What counts more than it, first off, for Mankiewicz (as - oddly enough ? - for Godard) (both of whom, nevertheless, make profuse use of it) is the measure more or less asserted of the presence or absence of a being in face of others and also in face of its creations and its dreams. Let's observe that these variations of presence and absence, of assurance and effacement, of an advent and a vanishing constitiute from the very fact of image in motion, the lone topic specifically cinematic.

On the conseil des dix, among the Cahiers contingent, Jean Douchet gave the film 4 stars, Jean-Luc Godard gave it 2 stars while Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. Among the non-Cahiers contingent, Jean Collet gave the film 3 stars, Jean-Louis Bory gave it 2 stars, Jean de Baroncelli and Albert Cervoni gave it 1 star while Positif's Robert Benayoun bulleted the film as did Georges Sadoul.

The film shows up on the 10 Best Films of the year lists of Pierre-Richard Bré, Jean-Louis Comolli, Jacques Demy, Jean Douchet, Michel Mardore and Bertrand Tavernier.

In 1963, Cahiers du Cinema co-founder and former co-editor Jacques Doniol-Valcroze played the starring role in novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet's L'Immortelle. What follows is the beginning of the review of that film in the May 1963 issue of Cahiers in which J D-V who now only on rare occasion wrote for Cahiers explains how it happens that he is reviewing a film which he starred in.

That I am writing here about L'Immortelle is not beyond a certain indecorum. I realize that perfectly. So, I owe the reader an explanation. It is simple. No member of the staff at Cahiers, presently, agreed to take pen in hand other than to summarize the general opinion at Cahiers as Rohmer had gently forewarned me. "They seem to have mixed in some reels of Benazeraf's during the editing." The old rule at Cahiers that it is the one who likes the film who speaks of it, in preference to the one who did not like it should be sufficient reason since I am the only one for.
Cahiers du Cinema, May 1963, page 54 (my translation)

In May 1963's conseil des dix, among Cahiers regulars, the film was bulleted by Jacques Rivette and Jean Douchet while Doniol-Valcroze gave the film 3 stars. The non-Cahiers critics who participated on that panel ran the gamut in their assessments of the film: Claude Mauriac gave the film 4 stars, Jean-Louis Bory gave it 3 stars, Georges Sadoul 2 stars, Henri Agel and Bernard Dort both gave it 1 star while Michel Aubriant and Pierre Marcabru each bulleted the film.

Cahiers, the 'young turks' and William Wyler

The second issue of Eric Rohmer's La Gazette du cinema in June 1950 carried Jean-Luc Godard's first published piece as a film critic - a review of Joseph L Mankiewicz's Dragonwyck. In the fourth sentence of that review, Godard described Mankiewicz as "the most brilliant of American directors". On his way there - in the second sentence - he spoke of "characters from melodrama plagiarize themselves with (h)auteur and gesticulate with a solemnity equalled only on occasion by the severities of William Wyler". From the evidence of Godard on Godard, he did not mention Wyler until December of 1963 when in a thumbnail critique of the director Billy Wilder, he described Wilder as having "replaced Wyler and Zinneman in the hearts of exhibitors."

Contemporary critics seeking to find a divergence between Cahiers editor André Bazin and that magazines "young turks" generally point to their disagreement on the subject of the director William Wyler. Forthwith is some research into that disagreement.

From André Bazin's "William Wyler, or the Jansenist of Directing" (1948)

And yet, I do not think that it is more difficult to recognize the signature of Wyler in just a few shots than it is to recognize the signatures of Ford, Fritz Lang, or Hitchcock. I would even go so far as to say that the director of The Best Years of Our Lives is among those who have least often employed the tricks of the trade at the expense of genuine style. Whereas Capra, Ford, or Lang occasionally indulges in self-parody, Wyler never does so. Reprinted in Bazin at Work: Major Essays & Reviews from the Forties & Fifties By André Bazin, Bert Cardullo translated by Alain Piette, Bert Cardullo published 1997 Routledge (page 2)

Detective Story
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze wrote a short review of this film as part of the Cannes Festival coverage in the June 1952 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. This is quoted from that review. (page 17 my translation)

No one could suspect me of having a prejudice against filmed theater and I hold that William Wyler with The Little Foxes offered us its most exemplary expression until Les Parents terribles. However, I cannot state myself wholly satisfied with the fashion he has adapted Detective Story....Certainly, his unsurpassed knowledge of framing remains permitting him to follow with a stunning litheness and precision three or four simultaneous actions. It is too bad that they do not rate the movement...of the camera.

Carrie
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze short review of this film appeared in the "Notes on Other Films" section of the Cahiers du Cinema issue for June 1953. (page 55 my translation)
[Olivier's performance] and too much melodrama destabilize a film which disappoints deeply. Wyler's art as a metteur-en-scene is quite understood to be unimpaired and a few brilliant scenes make it lamentable that he committed himself to a subject scarcely for him.

Roman Holiday

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze's review appeared on page 60 of the April 1954 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. This is quoted, in part, (my translation).

Wyler whose Jezebel, The Best Years of Our Lives, and The Little Foxes, established him as a master began to disappoint from the second third of The Heiress. This disappointment was confirmed with Detective Story and Carrie, ruined by regrettable screenplays and made little for him. With Roman Holiday, he returns to the arena of our admiration with a discreet and sensible elegance.

Cahiers had not yet in 1954 instituted the conseil des dix.

François Truffaut wrote an unsigned review of Roman Holiday for the weekly Arts on April 7, 1954. Eugene Walz in François Truffaut a guide to references and resources published in 1982 summed up that review, thus; (note 620 page 177)

Roman Holidays [sic] is full of contradiction because William Wyler's talent resides "more in minutia, in precision, than in verve."

Truffaut would review only one other Wyler film, a revival of Wyler's 1938 film Jezebel.

Jezebel
Truffaut reviewed this film in the November 7, 1956 issue of Arts. Walz's summary of that review reads,

This Wyler film has gone out of date terribly. Truffaut dislikes Wyler for his false seriousness and false classicism.

The Desperate Hours
Not reviewed by Cahiers, The comment on the "Films released in Paris" page read

For two days, a peaceful family is terrorized by three escaped jailbirds. The lovers of "suspense" will be served.

That month, François Truffaut was the lone "young turk" on the conseil des dix. He bulleted the film, as did Pierre Kast. The film got 2 stars from both Jean de Baroncelli and Armand Cauliez, and 1 star from André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Georges Sadoul, J-P Vivet, Simon Dubreiulh and Pierre Braunberger.

William Wyler thumbnail critique (Special issue American Cinema Christmas 1955)
The thumbnail critiques in the Christmas special were credited as a whole to Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut. However, since this thumbnail pretty much reiterates Jacques Doniol-Valcroze's review of Roman Holiday, it would seem most likely it is his work. (page 63 my translation)
The immediate post-war made him the great hope of American cinema. after 1945, he appeared to impose himself as one of the "greats". The Little Foxes and The Best Years of Our Lives bore witness to the intelligence and sureness of his mise-en-scene. Two-thirds of the way through The Heiress, he began to disappoint us; Greg Toland was dead. we do not know much where Detective Story and Carrie strayed. With Roman Holiday, he resumed his success. This film had for him the little face of Audrey Hepburn and the artful currentness of its plot. It remains for him to prove that he is the great metteur-en-scene whom we hoisted to our shoulders ten years ago.

Friendly Persuasion
Reviewed by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze in the Aug/Sept 1957 issue of Cahiers. In part, he wrote,

A subject which could have been ambitious and treated with with nobility; but Wyler does not tackle it from the front. In order to pass off the lesson, he smothers it in the picturesque, the good-natured, drawn-out clowning and pushy chromolithography. It is boring and one has quite some time to remark that Dorothy McGuire is still a great actress and that Anthony Perkins will be, without a doubt, a very great young star.

In the conseil des dix, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, André Bazin and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze all bulleted the film. J-P Vivet also bulleted the film. Eric Rohmer gave it 1 star. Among non-Cahiers critics, only Georges Sadoul gave it as much as 2 stars. Henri Agel and France Roche gave it 1 star.

The Big Country
The film was not reviewed in Cahiers. The May 1959 issue carried this comment on "Films released in Paris" section. (page 61)

A western for those who dislike westerns, as always in Wyler, a bourgeois filmmaker who makes movies for those who dislike movies. So much diligence, care, effort at the service of a consistent baseness of inspiration. Credit sequence by Saul Bass.

5 "young turks" sat on the panel of that month's conseil des dix -- Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, and Luc Moullet all bulleted the film. Eric Rohmer and Charles Bitsch abstained. The film received a total of 6 stars from the other 5 panelists, Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul both gave the film 2 stars while Henri Agel and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze each awarded it 1 star.

Ben-Hur
The film was not reviewed in Cahiers. From the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, Jean Domarchi wrote, in part:

The only amusing moment (involuntary meanwhile) is the 180 degree reverse shot of Pontius Pilate who is washing his hands of the death of the righteous. And, conceivably, the appearance of Tiberius with an Oxford accent. all the rest is ugliness and silliness. Academically directed by Wyler with about as much conviction as Mankiewicz directing Guys and Dolls.

When the film was released in Paris, the blurb on the "films released in Paris" section read,

Remake of Fred Niblo's famous film drawn from the Lew Wallace novel. Viva Ford, gentlemen.

There were 4 "young turks" on the conseil des dix that month, Jean Douchet bulleted the film while Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette and André Labarthe all abstained. Among the non-Cahiers critics on that panel, the film got 6 stars -- half of that total coming from Le Monde's Jean de Baroncelli. The other 3 stars came one each from Georges Sadoul, Claude Mauriac, and Henri Agel. (apparently the film could not get a break on the Left, the Right or the Christian.) Paris-Presse's Michel Aubraint bulleted the film.

The Children's Hour
This film never turns up in the monthly "Films released in Paris" heading although it was considered by the conseil des dix in July 1962. On the odd side also, because, at Cahiers, at this time they seemed to have a Shirley MacLaine fetish. In that conseil, Louis Marcorelles gave the film 3 stars and Jean Domarchi gave it 1 star. Jacques Rivette bulleted the film while Jean Douchet abstained. Among non-Cahiers critics, only Michel Aubriant gave it as much as 1 star. Henri Agel, Jean-Louis Bory, and Pierre Marcabru all bulleted the film.

The Collector
In the July 1965 issue of Cahiers, Luc Moullet in his coverage of the that year's Cannes Film Festival wrote:

The Collector is an skillful film, but skill is a rather obsolete virtue - if it still is one - comparative to the evolution of cinema.

In October 1965, Jacques Bontemps reviewed the film in Cahiers, writing in part (page 69-72)

It would hardly be useful to undertake an analysis of The Collector, assuredly one of the best films from William Wyler, for the simple reason that this analysis has already been made, and magisterially, in 1948. In effect, the economy of means, the construction by sequences and of the sequence, the complete sacrifice to the psychological reduced to a single dramatic conflict, style without style, the primordial role of looks, clarity at the service of an efficacy which is granted some perambulations around the red dress of the red gown of Jezebel. (A dress which is substituted for by an orange sweater) are all characteristics that we find in the latest Wyler and which were observed by André Bazin in William Wyler...(see What is Cinema? Book 1) Those characteristics were in that epoque virtues. The advent of a new cinematic style seduces all those who witness some intelligence in the domain of cinema. But, for a long time, what could seem new has become anachronistic. Wyler's importance is no longer. Now, here, to our great surprise, he succeeds in seducing us stunningly.

In the conseil des dix, 3 Cahiers critics - Jacques Bontemps, Jean-Louis Comolli, and Michel Delahaye gave the film 2 stars and a fourth - Jean-André Fieschi gave it 1 star. Among non-Cahiers critics, Michel Aubraint (Candide), Jean-Louis Bory (Arts), Jean Collet (Telerama), Michel Cournot Nouvelle Observateur) and Georges Sadoul (Les Lettres Françaises) all gave the film 2 stars. Albert Cervoni (France Nouvelle) gave the film 1 star.

How to Steal a Million
In the October 1966 issue of Cahiers on page 72 for the "films released in Paris" section, Jacques Bontemps made this contribution,

In the era of [What's New] Pussycat, it is not the place to be mean with the Wyler of How to Steal a Million. But it must be said that the only visible films that he has signed are dramatic, and if his comedies are just like this, it goes against his grain. This is slow, ponderous and predictable. The worst boredom is assured; the one with neither highs nor lows, of a monotonous mediocrity.

In the conseil des dix, four Cahiers regulars - Jacques Bontemps, Jean-André Fieschi, Michel Delahaye and Michel Mardore - bulleted the film. Among the non-Cahiers critics, Albert Cervoni gave it 2 stars and Michel Aubriant, Jean de Baroncelli (LeMonde), Robert Benayoun (Positif), Jean-Louis Bory, and Georges Sadoul each gave it 1 star.

Funny Girl
In the February 1969 issue of Cahiers, Jean-Louis Comolli in the comment on the "Films released in Paris" section wrote in part (page64)

Starting with a paradox perhaps charming (a frankly ugly girl becomes a star of Zeigfeld's follies) it emerges into a shallow melodrama, the worst litany of conventions (loved by a gambler who loses, the "plain Jane" is torn between a love of the stage and love period and then finds herself repudiated by the unrepentant gambler). Barbra Streisand's performance, alas, amounts here to all the skill. Lousy musical numbers, rather abject music, unrefined weakness of the secondary roles. (and Omar Sharif is bored to death playing this character fabricated on measure to comfort homosexuals), catastrophic and academic illustration for direction... and again, let's speak of this "performance". It is on an order of monstrous. One goes to see Barbra as one goes to the zoo to admire the para-human savoir-faire of the most gifted chimpanzees, one applauds whole-heartedly at "Everything-this-little-one happens-to-do-in-spite-of..." Yes, Barbra knows how to sing, to laugh, to cry. That is close to everything. Not how to dance (hence, the skillfull parodic side of the musical numbers), nor how to act beyond a grimacing mimicry (hence, undoubtedly, the extreme academicism of situations). But she has to restore a well-seen handicap, the least tremble of her face (horsey) or her body (mis-shapen) seems colossal. One must have never seen musicla comedies such as My Fair Lady and West Side Story and be be completely unaware of Ruby Keeler, Cyd Charisse and Judy Holliday (not more ravishing, she also however...) to be marveled here by the shameful use that has been made of this ugliness.

Two months later, in rebuttal to this comment and one regarding a Lelouch film, Cahiers published a full review by Michel Delahaye of Funny Girl and Claude Lelouch's film , La Vie, l'amour, la mort (page 56 April 1969),

The question here is not one of attempting a rehabilitation or launching a polemic (this is not the place) but of introducing some observations starting from which one can (or cannot) put his/her judgment into perspective.

One can defend Barbra Streisand who carries the whole film, who in the first half fulfills totally her role of professional entertainer, and, in the second half, succeeds in making us swallow the leaden American-style Sharif which they have inflicted on us.

No conseil des dix. After 1968, Cahiers du Cinema discontinued the monthly conseil des dix until the 1980s.

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze 10 Best Films Cahiers du Cinema 1954-1968

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze was a co-founder of Cahiers du Cinema in 1951 and a co-editor fromits beginning until about 1960. He contributed a list the first year that Cahiers ran its ten best films feature (1954) and he was still there in 1968 the last year of that first cycle of Cahiers "ten best films" lists. Only, Jacques Rivette was along for the whole ride also


1954
1.....El (Luis Bunuel)
2.....Romeo and Juliet (Renato Castellani)
3.....The Overcoat (Alberto Lattuada)
4.....Touchez pas au grisbi (Jacques Becker)
5.....Monsieur Ripois (René Clément)
6.....I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini)
7.....El Torero (René Wheeler)
8.....The Children of Hiroshima (Kaneto Shindô)
9.....Roman Holiday (William Wyler)
9b...Robinson Crusoe (Luis Bunuel)
10...The Return of Vasili Bortnikov (Vsevolod Pudovkin)
10b..The Red and the Black (Claude Autant-Lara)

1955
1.....Ordet (Carl Theodore Dreyer)
2.....Voyage in Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
3.....Lola Montès (Max Ophuls)
4.....Les Mauvaises Rencontres (Alexander Astruc)
5.....The Big Knife (Robert Aldrich)
6.....Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
7.....The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L Mankiewicz)
8.....Rififi (Jules Dassin)
9.....French Cancan (Jean Renoir)
10...Comicos (Juan Antonio Bardem)

1956
1.....Senso (Luchino Visconti)
2.....A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson)
3.....Night and Fog (Alain Resnais)
4.....Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles)
5.....Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman)
6.....Picnic (Joshua Logan)
7.....Gervaise (René Clément)
8.....Mother (Mark Donskoy)
9.....Elena and her Men (Jean Renoir)
10...Baby Doll (Elia Kazan)

1957
1.....A King in New York (Charles Chaplin)
2.....A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan)
3.....The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Luis Bunuel)
4.....Sawdust and Tinsel (Ingmar Bergman)
5.....Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin)
6.....Funny Face (Stanley Donen)
7.....Sait-on jamais... (Roger Vadim)
8.....Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini)
9.....Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick)
10...12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

1958
1.....Il Grido (Michelangelo Antonioni)
.......Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
.......White Nights (Luchino Visconti)
4.....The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)
.......Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati)
.......Une Vie (Alexander Astruc)
7......Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger)
.......The Cranes are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov)
.......Kiss Them for Me (Stanley Donen)
.......Les Amants (Louis Malle)

1959
1.....Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
2.....Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais)
3.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
4.....Tales of Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
5.....Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock).
6.....Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman)
7.....The 400 Blows (François Truffaut)
8......Head against the Wall (George Franju)
9......Moi un noir (Jean Rouch)
10....Lost Children (Milos Makovec)

1960
1.....L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
2.....Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
3.....Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
.......Poem of the Sea (Alexander Dovchenko/Julia Solntseva)
.......Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
6.....The Testament of Orpheus (Jean Cocteau)
.......Zazie on the Metro (Louis Malle)
8.....Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
.......L'Amerique insolite (François Reichenbach)
.......Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut)

1961
1.....Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
2.....Taira Clan Saga (Kenji Mizoguchi)
3.....Lola (Jacques Demy)
4.....Lady with the Dog (Iosif Khefits)
5.....Fires on the Plain (Kon Ichikawa)
6.....Rocco and his Brothers (Luchino Visconti)
7.....La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni)
8.....The Concrete Jungle (Joseph Losey)
9.....A Woman is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
10...Paris nous appartient (Jacques Rivette)

1962
1.....Viridiana (Luis Bunuel)
2.....The Wild River (Elia Kazan)
3.....Boccaccio '70 (Luchino Visconti sketch)
4.....Hatari (Howard Hawks)
5.....Jules and Jim (François Truffaut)
.......Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard)
7.....Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman)
8.....The Hustler (Robert Rossen)
9.....L'Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni)
10...The Manchurain Candidate (John Frankenheimer)

1963
(no order)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel)
Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
L'Immortelle (Alain Robbe-Grillet)
Hands over the City (Francesco Rosi)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
Muriel (Alain Resnais)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson)
Salvatore Giuliano (Francesco Rosi)

1964
1.....Gertrud (Carl Theodore Dreyer)
2.....The Silence (Ingmar Bergman)
3.....America, America (Elia Kazan)
.......Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)
4..... Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard)
.......The Soft Skin (François Truffaut)
7.....The Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni)
.......La Jetée (Chris Marker)
9.....The Servant (Joseph Losey)
.......I Fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi)

1965
1.....Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
2.....Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Luchino Visconti)
3.....Metel (Vladimir Basov)
4.....Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard)
5.....Kiss Me Stupid (Billy Wilder)
6.....Le Bonheur (Agnès Varda)
7.....Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller)
8.....The Collector (William Wyler)
9.....The 317th Section (Pierre Schoendoerffer)
10....El Verdugo (Luis Garcia Berlanga)

1966
1.....La Guerre est finie (Alain Resnais)
2.....Au Hasard Balthasar (Robert Bresson)
.......Fahrenheit 451 (François Truffaut)
.......Masculin Feminin (Jean-Luc Godard)
.......La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (Roberto Rossellini)
6.....Falstaff (Orson Welles)
7.....The Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman)
.......Non Reconciled (Jean-Marie Straub)
.......The Hopeless Ones (Miklos Jancso)
.......Walkover(Jerzy Skolimowski)

1967
1.....La Chasse au lion a l’arc (Jean Rouch)
.......Mouchette (Robert Bresson)
.......Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
4.....Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
.......Pour les fusils perdus (Pierre Delanjeac)
.......Week End (Jean-Luc Godard)
7.....Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha)
.......Belle du jour (Luis Bunuel)
9.....Playtime (Jacques Tati)

1968
1.....Oedipus Rex (Pier Paolo Pasolini)
2.....The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Danièle Huillet/Jean-Marie Straub).
.......Il ne faut pas mourir pour ça (Jean-Pierre Lefebvre)
.......The Edge (Robert Kramer)
5.....China is Near (Marco Bellocchio)
.......Before the Revolution (Bernardo Bertolucci)
.......Drôle de jeu (Pierre Kast/Jean-Daniel Pollet)
8.....Stolen Kisses (François Truffaut)
.......Je t'aime, je t'aime (Alain Resnais)
.......Le Socrate (Robert Lapoujade)

Best American Films of the Talking Era (Dec63/Jan64 issue)
(alphabetical by director)
Louisiana Story (Robert Flaherty)
The Big Sky (Howard Hawks)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
Beat the Devil (John Huston)
A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan)
It's Always Fair Weather (Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly)
The Man from Laramie (Anthony Mann)
Ruby Gentry (King Vidor)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)

Best French Films since the Liberation (Jan65 issue)
(alphabetical by title in French)
Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
Les Dernières vacances (Roger Leenhardt)
Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais)
L'Immortelle (Alain Robbe-Grillet)
Lola Montès (Max Ophuls)
The Soft Skin (François Truffaut)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson)
The Testament of Orpheus (Jean Cocteau)
A Married Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
Mr Hulot's Holiday (Jacques Tati)

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze on the beginnings of Cahiers du Cinema

In 1959, on the occasion of the publication of the 100th issue of Cahiers du Cinema, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, one of the founding triumvirate of editors of that magazine, contributed a short history of that magazine. This is excerpted from that article

(page 67-68) issue 100 October 1958 (my translation)
So, the first issues of Cahiers, in the lapse of time, appear only like a set of serous studies on film whose most prominent points are Bazin's article on "The Stylistics of Robert Bresson", that of Rohmer on "Vanity as Painting", issue no. 8 which was dedicated to Renoir, the entry onto the team of new-comers Jean-José Richer, Michel Mayoux, Hans Lucas (who was none other than Jean-Luc Godard) and Michel Dorsday, issues no. 17 and 18 dedicated in part to Chaplin on the occasion of Limelight, some dazzling articles by Astruc, Domarchi's first study on Murnau, Truffaut's first reviews, Rivette's first article on Hawks, the first special issue on "Women and Cinema" etc. Then in issue no. 31 there appeared, after a great hesitancy on the part of me and Bazin, an article by François Truffaut entitled "A Certain Tendency of French Cinema".
I do not seek here to flatter Truffaut, who really could care less, or to convince that his writings are forever graven in marble. I note objectively that the publication of this article marks the real point of departure for what today, rightly or wrongly, Cahiers du Cinema stands for. A hurdle was cleared, a suit was filed, all of us were in solidarity, something brought us all together. Henceforth, we knew that we were for Renoir, Rossellini, Hitchcock, Cocteau, Bresson. . . and opposed to X, Y and Z. Henceforth, there was a doctrine, the politique des auteurs, even if it lacked suppleness. Henceforth, it was quite natural that we did the series of "Interviews" with the great directors and that a real contact would be established between them and us.

Truffaut Resnais and the 400 Blows

This is translated from the ending an article by Cahiers editor Jacques Doniol-Valcroze covering the exhibition of Les Quatre cents coups at Cannes in May 1959 as an event.

Bazin dead, Les quatre cents coups, which he is the posthumous producer of, could only be dedicated to him. André alive, -- and the notion of what his joy would have been brings a lump to my throat, -- André in attendance, this heart-rending and buoyant film on the tenderness of this world might naturally have been dedicated to [Alain] Resnais.

Cahiers du Cinema June 1959 page 42 my translation.

The Reception of "The Four Hundred Blows" at Cahiers

Jacques Rivette May 1959 Cahiers du Cinema pre-coverage of its Cannes '59 screening
"With The Four Hundred Blows we return to our childhood as into a house abandoned since the war. Our childhood, even if it is before everything else the case of François Truffaut -- the consequences of a stupid lie, the aborted flight, the humiliation, the revelation of injustice, no, it is not of a childhood, "protected". Speaking of himself, he seems to also be speaking of us: this is a sign of the truth and the recompense of true classicism which knows how to limit itself to its subject but watches it suddenly cover the whole range of possibilities."

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze June 1959 Cahiers du Cinema covering the Cannes Film Festival , ending a short piece on the screening wrote.
"Bazin dead, The Four Hundred Blows which he is the posthumous producer could only be dedicated to him; André alive - and our throats tighten at the thought of what his joy would have been - it is to Resnais that this heart-rending and cheerful about all the tenderness of the world would have been dedicated."

Fereydoun Hoveyda July 1959 Cahiers du Cinema
"Thus Truffaut attains a sense of the real uncommon in cinema, which comes to underline hhis constant concern for reference to the true details. There is not a shot where Truffaut does not use an element of decor to make burst beyond the screen's canvas the profound truth of his subject. there is an innate sense of things in relation with human beings."


Following is the conseil des dix in the July 1959 issue of Cahiers du Cinema
4 stars -- Pierre Braunberger (film producer), Jean Douchet (Cahiers du Cinema), Jean-Luc Godard (Cahiers du Cinema), Jacques Rivette (Cahiers du Cinema)

3 stars -- Henri Agel (Etudes cinématographiques), Jean de Baroncelli (Le Monde), Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (Cahiers du Cinema), Claude Mauriac (Le Figaro), Eric Rohmer (Cahiers du Cinema), Georges Sadoul (Les Lettres françaises)

Jacques Donoil-Valcroze on Paddy Chayevsky

from Cahiers du Cinema June 1959 page 46, Jacques Donoil-Valcroze in a review form the 1959 Cannes Film Festival of the film The Middle of the Night.

Nothing that Paddy Chayevsky does leaves me indifferent, but why the devil doesn't he direct his own stories? On this occasion, it is manifest that Delbert Mann is not at the level of the material.