Calle P

It takes a long time to get going and the principal actors are unconvincing... if Jacques Demy had managed to persuade Johnny Hallyday to play Orphee that would have been really interesting. Also Demy had to cast a Japanese actress (who couldn't speak French) as Eurydice in order to secure the finance for the movie. Jean Marais and Marie-France Pisier are excellent and the film perks up when they are on screen. I always enjoy Michel Legrand's music and the lighting effects in the movie are excellent. But it is not one of this director's better efforts.

The concept is there: Jacques Demy updating Cocteau's ORPHEUS up to the 1980's, whereas Orpheus is now a rock musician, and, in an interesting bit of casting, Eurydice is played by an Asian actress. He even hired matinee idol Jean Marais (star of the original film) to play The Devil (and by the way, Hades is an underground parking garage!).

But the promise basically ends on that note. Demy is certainly the perfect choice for realizing this material, but his flair for colour, rhythm and tone -best seen in DONKEY SKIN (in which Marais also starred), LOLA, and of course, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG- has shockingly vanished. Instead, this film is flat, and rather depressing. Too bad.

But couldn't you just picture this updated material being redone as a stage musical today? With Paul Stanley as Orpheus, co-starring Gene Simmons and Marie Osmond? Plus Elton John and Tim Rice doing the music of course...