The Private Affairs of Bel Ami

The producers held a contest for artists to create a painting about the temptation of Saint Anthony for use in this movie. The artists were paid five hundred dollars each and got to keep their paintings after the pictures toured the U.S. and Britain during 1946 and 1947. Although Max Ernst won the contest (receiving an extra two thousand five hundred dollars) and got his painting on-screen, Salvador Dalí's contribution (featuring a parade of spider-legged elephants tormenting the saint) became better known. The other artists who submitted paintings are Leonora Carrington, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, Stanley Spencer, Eugene Berman, Paul Delvaux, Louis Guglielmi, Horace Pippin and Abraham Rattner. Artist Leonor Fini was also invited to contribute, but she didn't produce a painting.

At 9', a piano player and a violin player are doing a number. We hear a vibrato on the violin, but the left fingers of the player are not moving at all.

Opening credits: "This is the history of a scoundrel. The time is 1880 and the place is Paris."

Referenced in Le commando des bâtards (2009)